Capturing the Pandemic Experience in Haiku Poetry – Duke Today

The COVID-19 pandemic and the events since March 2020 left us with indelible experiences. From quirks of remote work to powerful emotions stemming from the way the pandemic intersects with our lives, poetry can be a healthy and fun way to process moments and feelings.

To celebrate International Haiku Poetry Day on April 17, Working@Duke asked staff and faculty to use the Japanese poetry form of haiku poems of three lines with five, seven and five syllables to share their unique expressions.

Enjoy the responses that were submitted by 5 p.m. on April 5:

Scrubs on, then scrubs off. Put others before ourselves. Eat, sleep, and repeat.

- Jamie Jill Maness, Clinical Nurse, DOCR

Were on the frontline. Were knocked down but we rise up. We are all Duke Strong.

- Jamie Eddy, LPN, Durham Pediatrics

Holds up the i-Pad. Family says goodbye from screen. Prayers. Last breaths taken.

- Ashley Acken, Senior Clinical Administrative Chaplain, Duke University Hospital

Mask over mouth, nose, Goggles fog with every breath. Protected, maybe?

- Katie Sanford, Physical Therapist, Duke Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation

Masked heroes working. Saving lives every day. New day dawning soon.

- Dawn Jones Marshall, Medical Laboratory Scientist, Stem Cell Laboratory

Another long shift How do I avoid Covid? Scrubs in the washer

- Matt Mathias, Consulting Associate, Department of Family Medicine and Community Health

A novel virus, Invades our world quite quickly, Healthcare heroes win.

- Nathan Wise, Financial Analyst, Duke Raleigh Hospital

we fight the good fight over and over again all are heroes here

- Robin L. A. Clinedinst, Ophthalmic Technician, Duke Eye Center of South Durham

Death among many Heart break beyond repairing Good-by left unsaid

- Laurie Edgerton, Patient Service Associate, Duke Urgent Care South

As I close my eyes I am free no mask for me I know they'll miss me

- Odette Benschikovski, Clinical Nurse, Duke University Hospital

Bless the health workers Who put their own lives at risk So that all can live

- Megan Bell, Financial Services Specialist, Duke Credit Union

The pandemic world Little things have become big We need hugs again.

- Margaret (Peggy) Eren, Nurse Practitioner, Division of Cellular Therapy and Hematologic Malignancy

Get your vaccine To keep everyone healthy and protect the sick.

- Emily Escano, Administrative Assistant, Center for Advanced Practice

Cautionary tale. Science is manifested. The death toll rises.

- Robyn Miller, Departmental Director for Human Resources, School of Medicine, Orthopaedic Surgery

Masks on for safety. Let's get rid of this virus. Show our smiles again!

- Candace Martindale, Nursing Program Coordinator, Duke Home Care & Hospice

Swab in my nostril. Place the swab in the test tube. Safe campus for all.

- Elizabeth Cross, Surveillance Testing

Missing open arms Grandchildren question distance Love in both our eyes

- Valery Nelson, Laboratory Manager Bachelder Lab, School of Medicine

Ebb the tide today. Wash hands. Wear mask. Wait six feet. Protect those you love.

- Patricia H. Davis, Clinical Services Nurse, Adult Bone Marrow Transplant Clinic

My mask is on now But I can still enjoy life You are all precious

- Sally Hessnice, Clinical Nurse, Duke North OR

Daily fogged glasses Free stuff for healthcare workers Vaccinated, yay!

- Chelsea Walsh, Clinical Nurse, Duke Children's Health Center

Me, alone - Try to feel normal. Failing because it is not.

- Leah M. Kerr, Technical Services Processing Archivist, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library

A friend cuts my hair. Oops she says and starts to laugh. It will grow back soon.

- Blair Chesnut, Senior Analyst Programmer, Molecular Physiology

Diet and exercising... Why have thee forsaken me Cake, get in my mouth.

- Alpha Esser, Technical Trainer, Duke Clinical Research Institute

isolation under a cul-de-sac of stars

- Crystal Simone Smith, Humanities Unbounded Fellow, Duke University

Eyes convey all now With mask in place hiding lips Eyes above mask smile

- Melissa Reese, Lab Research Analyst, Stem Cell Laboratory

A new grandbaby Cannot meet; cannot hold yet Hopeful, so hopeful

- Lesley Stanford, Clinical Dietitian, Nutrition Services

My Heart has listened. To all the grief that is here. And transmutes to love.

- Sherry Short, Nurse Clinician, Center of Excellence

Last year is hindsight Feels like vision incomplete New year, please be clear!

- Danielle Wiggins, Assistant Director for PhD Programs, Nicholas School of the Environment

Glooming summertime A personal, small friend rolls Whilst watching COVID

- Adrianne N. Burton, Patient Service Associate, Duke Otolaryngology South Durham

Introverted me Now completely misses hugs And those who gave them

- Melissa Graham, Program Coordinator, Office of Curricular Affairs

A horrible dream. I wake up fearful at night. Believe and trust. Sleep.

- Valerie Riddick, Administrative Manager, Duke Health Development & Alumni Affairs

a knee on his neck okay til he cried mama now my mask is gone

- Alonzo Felder, IT Analyst, University Office of Information Technology

Big milestone events Lost in swirls of pandemic Not to be retrieved

- LeAnn Fulton, Clinical Research Associate, DCRI

You smile on the Zoom But I know you are weary Like the rest of us

- Marty Jarrell, Communications Director, Family Connects International

Zoom meetings the norm Duke has me working from home Love working at Duke

- Tara Parker, Staff Assistant, Duke Cancer Institute

Close my laptop lid... Get up from my office chair... Hi Honey, I'm home!"

- John H. Campbell, Information Security Analyst, Duke Health Technology Solutions

No commute today. I can read a book or sew. Makes me so happy.

- Lisa Powell, Financial Analyst II, Department of Ophthalmology

More time with my kid. Grateful for technology. The glass is half full.

- Allison Jardine, Administrative Assistant, DUHS Clinical Labs Human Resources

If I don't get out Of this work-from-home stupor I may scream real loud

- Kristin LoBiondo Pfeiffer, Communications Specialist, Student Affairs

Work with kids and zoom Can't wait for normal life to Resume very soon

- Saimia Baluch, Project Leader, DCRI

Grooming has gone bad But saving on lunch, gas, shirts Pandemic shut-in

- Karl Leif Bates, Director of Research Communications, Duke University

Reveling, home works Front porch, back porch, TV, books Pandemic be gone, Free me

- Valerie Fernandez, Manager, Coding Integrity Department

One dog in my lap. Another at my side, I like remote work best.

- Allison W. Spell, Senior Clinical Research Coordinator, Neurosurgery

COVID Communication Zoom safe space personal space When does it all in

- Pauline D. Stroud, Geriatric Resource Nurse, Duke Rehabilitation Institute

Kids are still at home. Driving me mad as a cow. Please help me. Bring wine.

- Cheryl Beth Munsell, Development Assistant, University Development

From my screen I watch A flower blooms, spring is here Four-thirty awaits

- Candice Sanford, DukeWELL Care Specialist, Duke Population Health Management Office

Zoom meetings aren't bad. Virtual backgrounds are fun... Wait... am I muted?

- Ryan Chung, IT Analyst, Enterprise and Devices Support

Day in and day out Together ALL of the time Cherish family

- Shellene Walker, Senior Project Manager, Office of Information Technology

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Capturing the Pandemic Experience in Haiku Poetry - Duke Today

‘Natural Killer Cells’ and Other Promising Cancer Treatments – Barron’s

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Last weekends online meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research gave a glimpse at the newest ideas for fighting cancer. Among the most exciting were treatments that engineer natural cells into cancer-targeting torpedoes.

Engineered-cell treatments from Affimed (ticker: AFMD), Fate Therapeutics (FATE), and Rubius Therapeutics (RUBY) drew attention from Wall Street analysts.

The German company Affimed reported exciting results in a four-patient test of its AFM13 antibodies in patients with the blood cancer lymphoma. When administered with a kind of immune cell known as a natural killer cell, Affimeds antibody binds the NK cells to a target found on many cancer cells.

Before treatment started at the end of last year, all four lymphoma patients had been very sick. One had even been consigned to hospice.

The cancer receded in all four patients after treatment, with complete responses in two of them. The patient who had been sent to hospice is now eligible for a bone-marrow transplant. Side effects werent a problem.

They had all failed multiple lines of treatmentup to 14 lines of therapy, said Katy Rezvani, a professor at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center who is leading the study, on a Thursday morning conference call. The fact that we are seeing responses as it is, I think, is just incredible.

Dose levels of the Affimed-primed killer cells were kept deliberately low in the first administrations of the treatment. Higher doses may show deeper response and greater persistence of the natural killer cells, notes BMO Capital Markets analyst Do Kim in a Thursday note. Affimed is testing other antibodies in Phase 1 studies that target solid tumors.

Excitement over the lymphoma study results lifted Affimed stock from about $7.70 to $10.70 since last week. In recent trading, the shares were down 9.3%, at $9.38, after the development-stage company reported a slightly higher-than-expected loss of 0.50 euros a share (about 60 cents) for the 2020 year. BMOs Kim rates Affimed at Outperform, with a $15 price target.

One promising feature of natural-killer-cell treatments is that the cells can be obtained from donors and stored on the shelf. Current treatments with other engineered immune cells must harvest a patients own cells, then modify and grow them for re-administration. Another pioneer in developing NK cell therapies is Fate Therapeutics, and the company provided several updates at the AACR meeting on its treatments.

Fates stock enjoyed a remarkable run in the past year, soaring from $19 to a January 2021 peak of $119, before settling back to a recent $84.87. That puts an $8 billion market cap on a company thats yet to report revenue. But Fate has 10 clinical trials in Phase 1 for its NK cell technology, which takes undifferentiated stem cells (stored on the shelf) and transforms them into NK cells targeting a variety of solid and blood tumors.

At AACR, Fate focused on its laboratory studies that show the flexibility of its NK cell technology. In planned meetings later this year, it will review its human trials against various cancers. The stocks gain has some analysts rating it Neutral. Among them is H.C. Wainwrights Robert Burns, who wrote in January about the excitement that followed Fates report that its treatment had reversed the cancer in a patient whose lymphoma had resisted seven other kinds of therapy.

Burns may have a Neutral rating on Fates stock, but he thinks it could rise to $108 as the company reports more clinical trial results this year. Thats a better than 25% upside.

One more engineered cell therapy discussed at AACR was the unusual approach of Rubius Therapeutics, which turns off-the-shelf red blood cells into therapies that stimulate an immune system attack on cancer. Researchers detailed results first reported in March, from a Phase 1 trial against several different cancers. The treatment reversed cancers in one patient with metastatic melanoma and another with metastatic anal cancer, while stabilizing the disease in six other patients.

Rubius will escalate doses in the Phase 1 study, while proceeding with other trials that target different kinds of cancer or combine its treatment with other cancer therapies. Guggenheims Michael Schmidt projects that Rubius could start to see revenue from its unique approach in 2024, and rates the stock a Buy. He argues that its stock, now trading at $23.86, is worth at least $30.

Write to Bill Alpert at william.alpert@barrons.com

Link:
'Natural Killer Cells' and Other Promising Cancer Treatments - Barron's

Chemotherapy for Prostate Cancer: When It’s Used and What to Expect – Healthline

The American Cancer Society says that nearly 250,000 American men are expected to be diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2021. And about 1 in 8 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer at some point in their lives.

Prostate cancers tend to grow slowly and have a fairly good outlook compared to many types of cancer. From 2010 to 2016, the 5-year survival rate in the United States was 97.8 percent, according to the National Cancer Institute.

Chemotherapy is a drug therapy thats sometimes used to treat prostate cancer. Its most commonly used to treat aggressive tumors or advanced prostate cancer that hasnt responded well to other treatments.

In this article, we break down when your doctor may recommend chemotherapy for prostate cancer and what you can expect while taking chemotherapy drugs.

Chemotherapy is a cancer treatment that involves taking drugs that kill rapidly dividing cells. Chemicals in these drugs can kill cancer cells and healthy cells in your body that quickly divide such as bone marrow and hair cells.

According to the American Cancer Society, chemotherapy is not a standard treatment for early prostate cancer. Its most likely to be used for aggressive cancer or cancer that has started growing outside the prostate.

Most men receiving chemotherapy for advanced prostate cancer will also receive androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) or anti-hormone therapy.

Chemotherapy may also be used to treat castrate-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC). CRPC is a type of prostate cancer that stops responding to hormone therapy. Prostate cancer needs male sex hormones to grow, and hormone therapy aims to lower male sex hormones to slow tumor growth.

A 2018 research review showed that docetaxel (developed in 2004) is the first chemotherapy drug that improved the survival rate of men with prostate cancer. Today, its the most commonly used chemotherapy drug to treat prostate cancer.

Docetaxel falls into a group of drugs called taxanes. These drugs block cellular processes cancer cells need to divide.

Docetaxel is often combined with the steroid prednisone. A 2016 research review showed that prednisone may help:

If docetaxel treatment doesnt work best for your health needs, doctors often recommend trying cabazitaxel. Cabazitaxel falls into the same class of drugs as docetaxel.

The following treatments are newer treatment options that often work when hormone therapy doesnt work for you:

However, there are no studies available yet directly comparing these drugs, and its not clear which is most effective.

Enzalutamide and apalutamide are in a class of drugs called androgen receptor inhibitors. They block male sex hormones from binding to receptors on your prostate.

Abiraterone is in a class of drugs called androgen biosynthesis inhibitors. They work by blocking the production of testosterone.

Other chemotherapy drugs that may be used to treat prostate cancer include:

Chemotherapy drugs are typically administered intravenously (through an IV) by a doctor who specializes in cancer treatment. The medications can be administered at a:

Drugs are administered in cycles to help give your body time to recover. Cycles are often 2 to 3 weeks long, and each session takes roughly an hour, according to the American Cancer Society.

The schedule of your cycle depends on which drugs are being used. You may only be given chemotherapy drugs on the first day of your treatment or for several days in a row.

The total length of your treatment depends on how well the chemotherapy is working and your side effects.

Some types of chemotherapy drugs like enzalutamide can be given as oral pills.

Chemotherapy can cause your red and white blood cell counts to drop, so youll likely have a blood test before each of your sessions.

If you have a very low white blood cell count, your doctor may recommend lowering the dose or stopping treatment.

Chemicals in chemotherapy drugs kill cells that divide quickly, but they cant differentiate between cancer cells and healthy cells in your body.

Many of chemotherapys side effects are due to drugs targeting healthy cells that divide rapidly such as cells in your:

Some common side effects of chemotherapy include:

Severity of symptoms can vary between people. Many of the side effects of chemotherapy go away shortly after treatment.

Docetaxel and cabazitaxel can cause neuropathy, or nerve dysfunction, that leads to the following feelings in your hands or feet:

A 2014 research review showed that about 10 percent of participants have grade 3 or 4 neuropathies, which are the highest classifications of nerve dysfunction. Your chances of developing neuropathy depend on your dose.

According to the American Cancer Society, the drug mitoxantrone can cause leukemia in rare cases, and estramustine increases your risk of developing blood clots.

Its important to discuss prostate cancer treatment options with your doctor. They can help you understand the pros and cons of chemotherapy and answer any specific questions you have about your treatment.

An oncologist, a doctor specializing in cancer, can help you develop strategies to lower your chances of developing side effects.

An oncologist can also put you in touch with support groups in your area. Many people find it helpful to talk with other people who have gone through the same treatment.

You can find online support groups or support groups in your area from these websites:

Chemotherapy is most commonly used to treat prostate cancer that has spread beyond the prostate. Chemicals in chemotherapy drugs kill cancer cells and other cells in your body that rapidly divide such as cells in your hair follicles and digestive system.

Your doctor can help you determine if you may benefit from chemotherapy. You may also find it helpful to join a support group that connects you with other people who have undergone the same treatment in the past.

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Chemotherapy for Prostate Cancer: When It's Used and What to Expect - Healthline

Signs that Chemo Is Working: How Effectiveness Is Measured and Defined – Healthline

Chemotherapy (chemo) works by destroying cancer cells in your body. Depending on the type and stage of cancer, chemotherapy treatment may target primary tumors or cells that have spread to other parts of your body.

Chemo may also help treat cancer-related pain. A doctor will make specific chemo recommendations based on:

Depending on these factors, chemotherapy may be administered in multiple rounds that are spaced several weeks (or months) apart.

If you or a loved one is in the midst of a chemotherapy treatment plan, you may wonder how you can tell if chemotherapy is working.

The only way to effectively know for sure is through follow-up tests with your doctor. These are given in regular intervals around each round of chemo.

Keep reading to learn how doctors measure and define the effectiveness of chemotherapy.

To treat cancer cells with chemotherapy, your doctor will determine the best cellular phases in which to administer your treatment.

Since cancer cells multiply or divide quickly, chemo may be considered a first line of treatment for more aggressive forms of cancer.

Throughout your treatment plan, your doctor will need to check your progress to measure the effectiveness of chemotherapy. Depending on the type of cancer and its stage, your doctor may use multiple techniques, such as:

Its difficult to tell on your own whether chemo is working without taking the above diagnostic tests.

Depending on the type and stage of cancer you have, however, you may notice an improvement in cancer symptoms if the condition is being treated. Examples may include:

Chemotherapy is notorious for causing side effects, such as:

The side effects happen because chemotherapy kills both cancerous cells and healthy ones.

Some people may experience more severe side effects than others. However, side effects are not an effective way to tell that your chemotherapy is working.

Even severe side effects dont necessarily mean that your treatment is effectively killing cancer cells.

Before each chemotherapy session, your doctor will perform an assessment to make sure that the treatment is safe to administer. If your CBC counts are too low, for example, your doctor may recommend that you reschedule your treatment for another day.

To determine that chemo is working, your doctor will also need to conduct blood and imaging tests after treatment cycles. Keep in mind that a full treatment cycle includes the days you receive chemotherapy, as well as the weeks youre in recovery.

When determining the effectiveness of chemotherapy, your doctor will determine how your body is responding to this treatment method. They might declare that you have one of the following responses:

In addition to chemo, your doctor may consider other cancer treatments such as:

Chemotherapy is administered over the course of several weeks. For example, your doctor might recommend chemo daily for up to 1 week, and then 3 weeks off, according to the National Cancer Institute.

The goal is to target cancer cells when they may be most active while also allowing your body recovery time to build healthy ones.

Still, your exact treatment plan depends on the:

With all of these factors in mind, its difficult to predict an exact timeline for when chemotherapy will start working. This treatment may work immediately for some people, while it may take several rounds over the course of many months for others.

The best way to tell if chemotherapy is working for your cancer is through follow-up testing with your doctor. Throughout your treatment, an oncologist will conduct regular visits, and blood and imaging tests to detect cancer cells and whether theyve grown or shrunk.

Its important to know that you cant rely on symptoms alone when determining whether chemo is working. If you start feeling much worse after treatment, however, its important to talk with your doctor about your current plan and whether other drugs may help.

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Signs that Chemo Is Working: How Effectiveness Is Measured and Defined - Healthline

Some experts fear next-generation Covid vaccines may be worse – STAT

With Covid-19 vaccines, the world hopes to beat back the virus that causes the disease. But some scientists are increasingly concerned that, because of a quirk of our own biology, future iterations of the vaccines might not always be quite as effective as they are today.

The concerns stem from a phenomenon that is known as imprinting, sometimes called original antigenic sin, which is believed to affect how we respond to some pathogens.

In short, when your body is introduced to a particular threat for the first time either through infection or a vaccine that encounter sets your immune systems definition of that virus and what immune weapons it needs to detect and protect against it in the future.

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That imprint can be helpful. In the 2009 H1N1 flu pandemic, elderly adults were protected by immune responses theyd generated more than half a century earlier, in childhood, through encounters with a related virus. But it can also interfere with your bodys ability to mount responses against strains that have evolved from the one you were first exposed to.

In the case of Covid, some scientists are concerned that the immune systems reaction to the vaccines being deployed now could leave an indelible imprint, and that next-generation products, updated in response to emerging variants of the SARS-CoV-2, wont confer as much protection.

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Michael Worobey, who was been involved in groundbreaking research on imprinting with influenza, said he worries the responses to first-generation Covid-19 vaccines will prove to be a high-water mark for peoples immune responses to these inoculations.

I do think its something that we need to be thinking about, Worobey, a professor of evolutionary biology at the University of Arizona, told STAT. We might actually see lower efficacy five years from now, if people are still locked into recalling the response to the first [SARS-2] antigen that they saw.

Sarah Cobey, an associate professor of computational biology at the University of Chicago, shares his worry. As long as we have competition between old antibody responses and new antibody responses then it seems like exactly the right sort of environment to see these phenomena, Cobey said.

I cant think of a reason that should be restricted to influenza, she added.

Not everyone in the conversation is convinced there will be a problem, though.

Vineet Menachery is a coronavirus expert at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, one of the smallish community of researchers who were studying coronaviruses before the Covid-19 pandemic hit. He noted that the SARS-2 spike protein the protein that projects from the virus surface, giving it the appearance of wearing a crown doesnt have as much wiggle room to change as the hemagglutinin proteins that sit atop of flu viruses.

Both the spike and the hemagglutinin proteins are the means by which their respective viruses attach to the cells they are trying to infect; in the case of SARS-2 viruses, attachment occurs via a receptor known as ACE2. But influenza viruses mutate at a far faster rate than coronaviruses and they have much more leeway to change mutational space, Menachery called it without impeding its functionality.

The changes that we see in the [SARS-2] variants arent whole-hog changes, he said.

Imprinting is one of the reasons why flu vaccines arent as protective as wed like them to be. Flu is a notorious shape-shifter and its constant alterations allow influenza viruses to evade immune system protections generated by either vaccination or previous infections. People who first encountered H1N1 viruses, for instance, never get as much protection from the H3N2 component of a flu shot as they do from the H1N1 part.

Basically, I think of original antigenic sin as some sort of hierarchy in immune memory, meaning you preferentially boost what youve seen before, at the expense of developing responses to the new stuff, Cobey said. It could impact the effectiveness of [Covid] vaccine going forward.

Scott Hensley, a sometimes collaborator of Cobeys, has actually seen some evidence of coronavirus imprinting in his research. An associate professor of microbiology at the University of Pennsylvania, Hensley and colleagues were working to develop Covid-19 antibody tests in the early days of the pandemic. The work involved studying using blood samples from people who contracted Covid. They compared the post-infection samples to blood drawn from the same individuals prior to the pandemic.

In comparing the before and after blood samples, they saw in the post-infection sample a dramatic rise in antibodies to one of the humans coronaviruses that is among the causes of the common cold. It was a virus called OC43, which is in the same coronavirus family as SARS-2, as well as the viruses that cause SARS and MERS.

In other words, Covid infection actually boosted the immune systems protection against a different virus, one that the immune system already knew.

Still, Hensley isnt worried about imprinting or at least not among people who have been vaccinated with mRNA vaccines. The very strong immune response generated by the Moderna and the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines should override any imprinting impacts as SARS-2 mutates, he said. Hensley worries, though, that people whose immunity to the virus comes from infection, not vaccination, might have more difficulty handling variant viruses because of imprinting effects.

David Topham, an immunologist at the University of Rochester Medical Center and director of the New York Influenza Center of Excellence, also envisages that possibility.

He noted that, in the earliest stages of SARS-2 infection, the immune system mounts a response to a portion of the spike protein called S2. Later, the immune system focuses its attention on other parts of the spike, notably the part of the protein that attaches the virus to cells it invades, known as the receptor binding domain.

Its not yet known if the early focus on S2 which doesnt change much from virus to virus will blind the immune system to the changes elsewhere in the spike protein, the changes updated vaccines would be trying to teach the immune system to respond to, Topham said.

Topham doesnt think this will be a problem in vaccinated people, because of the way the vaccines in use have been designed. The spike proteins they trigger production of appear to hide the S2 region, he said. The immune system cant fixate on something it doesnt see.

For people whose immunity comes from infection, Topham sees three possible scenarios. It can be a problem, because the immune cells specific for S2 outcompete immune cells against other components of the spike protein that you really need in order to get protection. It can be inconsequential in that eventually the responses to the other parts of the protein catch up and it doesnt matter. Or it could actually be a benefit because it gets the immune system revved up more quickly.

Topham is not alone in speculating that an original Covid vaccine with a booster targeting variant viruses could, in fact, lead to a stronger immune response.

You might actually end up with an immune response that is broader, said Florian Krammer, a professor of vaccinology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York.

Krammer used as an example research done by scientists at the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare and University of Turku on vaccination against H5N1 bird flu. H5N1 vaccine that dont contain adjuvants boosting compounds appear to generate poor immune responses. But in a paper published in the journal Vaccine, the researchers reported that a priming and boosting regimen that used two different H5N1 vaccines, made with different strains of the virus, induced a strong and long-lasting response.

We may find out whether this is going to be a problem sooner than youd think. Moderna is working with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases which helped it design its original Covid vaccine to test an updated version of its vaccine that targets the variant first spotted in South Africa, B.1.351. That variant appears to be able to evade immune responses triggered by earlier versions of the virus.

The Phase 1 studies conducted by Moderna and NIAID will produce immunogenicity data that will address this question, John Mascola, director of NIAIDs Vaccine Research Center, told STAT in an email. So data directly bearing on the question will be forthcoming over the next weeks and months.

Senior Writer, Infectious Disease

Helen covers issues broadly related to infectious diseases, including outbreaks, preparedness, research, and vaccine development.

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Some experts fear next-generation Covid vaccines may be worse - STAT