Nobel Prize in Chemistry Awarded to 2 Scientists for Work on Genome Editing

Posted on by Lori Jia

The New York Times, October 7, 2020 (with Katherine Wu and Elian Peltier)

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The Nobel Prize in Chemistry was jointly awarded on Wednesday to Emmanuelle Charpentier andJennifer A. Doudna fortheir 2012 work on Crispr-Cas9, a method to edit DNA. The announcement marks the first time the award has gone to two women.

“This year’s prize is about rewriting the code of life,” Goran K. Hansson, the secretary-general of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, said as he announced the names of the laureates.

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In Reversal, White House Approves Stricter Guidelines for Vaccine Makers

Posted on by Lori Jia

The New York Times, October 6, 2020 (with Noah Weiland)

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The Food and Drug Administration released new guidelines on Tuesday for coronavirus vaccine developers — a step that had been held up for two weeks by top White House officials. The guidelines make it highly unlikely that a vaccine could be authorized by Election Day.

The move, which was cleared by the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, appeared to be an abrupt reversal a day after The New York Times reported that White House officials, including Mark Meadows, the chief of staff, were blocking the guidelines. Top F.D.A. officials were caught by surprise when they learned midafternoon that the new guidelines had been cleared.

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Friday’s Elk, October 3, 2020

Posted on by Matt Kristoffersen

…and here we are in October, with the President of the United States hospitalized for Covid-19. Not the timeline I would have expected us to follow back in March.

It looks as if the President’s infection was involved in one way or another with a superspreading event at the White House last Saturday. No one should be surpised that the coronavirus can spread this way. Scientists have been warning us for months now. Here’s a story I wrote back in June. Continue reading “Friday’s Elk, October 3, 2020” →

Novavax Enters Final Stage of Coronavirus Vaccine Trials

Posted on by Lori Jia

The New York Times, September 24, 2020

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The vaccine maker Novavax said Thursday that it would begin the final stages of testing its coronavirus vaccine in the United Kingdom and that another large trial was scheduled to begin next month in the United States.

It is the fifth late-stage trial from a company supported by Operation Warp Speed, the federal effort to speed a coronavirus vaccine to market, and one of 11 worldwide to reach this pivotal stage. Novavax, a Maryland company that has never brought a vaccine to market, reached a $1.6 billion deal with the federal government in July to develop and manufacture its experimental vaccine, which has shown robust results in early clinical trials.

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Johnson & Johnson’s Vaccine Advances, Sparking Optimism in Race

Posted on by Lori Jia

The New York Times, September 23, 2020 (with Katie Thomas)

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The feverish race for a coronavirus vaccine got an infusion of energy on Wednesday as Johnson & Johnson announced that it has begun the final stage of its clinical trials, the fourth company to do so in the United States as the country hits a grim milestone of 200,000 deaths from the pandemic.

Johnson & Johnson is a couple of months behind the leaders, but its advanced vaccine trial will be by far the largest, enrolling 60,000 participants. The company said it could know by the end of this year if its vaccine works.

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