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Suzy Weiss has written an excellent story for Bair Weiss’ Substack site about a renowned scientist who until fairly recently was considered one of the top people in the field of cancer research. David Sabatini is someone who it was believed could one day win a Nobel Prize for medicine. Now he’s an unemployed stay-at-home dad. The story of how he went from one to the other is incredible but you probably wouldn’t say it’s surprising. In 2018, David Sabatini was a world-renowned molecular biologist. He was a tenured professor at MIT. He ran a major lab at the Whitehead Institute, overseeing a team of 39 researchers, postdocs and technicians. Their job was to disentangle the mystery of the mTOR signaling pathway, a protein Sabatini had discovered while still in medical school, at Johns Hop...

Electron microscope image of monkeypox viral particles.Image: Cynthia S. Goldsmith, Russell Regner/CDC via AP (AP) Outbreaks of a seldom-seen disease called monkeypox are setting public health experts on edge. Several countries, including the U.S., have reported cases of the viral infection recently. No deaths are reported so far. Though the risk appears to be low to the general public for now, it’s possible something has changed about the virus or its relationship to humans that’s making it more transmissible than before. Countries with reported monkeypox cases As of Thursday afternoon, the UK, Canada, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Sweden, and the U.S. have documented cases of monkeypox. The U.S. case involves a Massachusetts resident who recently traveled from Canada, where there have b...

Which bird species are super spreaders of avian influenza? New research from Tufts University offers details. A new study from researchers at Tufts University details which species are super spreaders. When it comes to avian influenza, more commonly called bird flu, all birds are not created equal. “The scientific community has become accustomed to speaking about influenza viruses in birds as a group, but birds are an incredibly diverse taxa of animals with different natural history, physiology, and anatomy,” says Jonathan Runstadler, professor and chair of the Department of Infectious Disease & Global Health at Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University. Runstadler is one of the authors of a new research study, published today (May 19, 2022) in the jo...

Two years ago, Kathy Spencer, a 58-year-old math teacher, motorcycle rider and mother of two, planned to guide middle school students through geometry well into her 70s.  But now Spencer, from Kensington, Conn., is facing the real possibility that long COVID will keep her from ever entering a classroom again. She still needs supplemental oxygen, and has difficulty speaking as a result of the hypoxia, or lack of oxygen reaching her brain. She suffers tremors in her head, arms and legs, which can be triggered by talking, and she experiences debilitating fatigue. “We’re meeting with our financial planner and our accountant to make some really tough decisions about how my husband and I need to change our financial goals and plans,” Spencer said. “It’s been a slow recognition that thi...