Making Sense of Medical Science (MSMS)

A medical scientist explains medical news for lay people

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Steve Clark, PhD is a retired university professor with a PhD in immunology and a past Special Fellow of the Leukemia Society of America. Clark has published dozens of papers based on his research and holds two drug patents. He taught medical and graduate students about cancer biology and genetics, and about research ethics. He also directed an NIH-funded PhD Graduate Program and chaired several executive-level faculty committees. Clark served on the University Chancellor’s Speaker’s Bureau. While retired, Clark has been blogging on the COVID pandemic, which is the subject of his next book.

Category: antibodies

  • COVID And Kids

    • About 1 in 5 children hospitalized with COVID were admitted to the intensive care unit. • Significantly, >90 percent of these children who were hospitalized or died from COVID weren’t vaccinated.

  • NIH Launches First Trial Of Nasal COVID Vaccine

    Wouldn’t it be nice if a vaccine could be developed to nip the infection in the bud at the site of entry so it could not set up shop at all? That is an idea behind a mucosal vaccine that I described earlier. This summer, NIH launched the initial Phase 1 trial to begin testing…

  • Another Jab’ll Do Ya…

    What the boosters do is prevent you from getting serious disease that these new variants can visit on you! Realize that the vast majority of people across all age groups who were hospitalized with serious disease last fall did not get the updated booster for the current virus that was circulating.

  • While SARS-CoV-2 And Our Immune Systems Do A Dance, We Get Re-Infected

    The natural immune response, like the vaccine immune response, is robust and effective, yet both are only directed against a very small portion of a big pathogen, and both are very leaky in that one can still get infected again! What gives?

  • The Next Pandemic Is Here

    Clearly, not all pandemics are created equal. Some smolder like AIDS, others fulminate like COVID. What will our next pandemic be like?

  • Why Don’t The COVID Vaccines Last Longer?

    Are the vaccines not very good? After all, we get small pox or measles shots that last a lifetime. Others like the vax for tetanus lasts for ~10 years. Why can’t we get a more durable coronavirus vaccine?

  • Son Of Omicron

    There are reports of two new sons of Omicron circulating in the world. The original Omicron, or BA.1 has spawned BA.2 and BA.3.

  • Lions And Tigers And…Deer? Oh My!

    Scientists now have evidence that CoV-2 also readily propagates in white-tailed deer. In fact, the virus is already widespread in cervids across the US, which likely has significant implications for the long-term course of this pandemic.

  • Naturally Immune? You Still Better Get A Vaccine

    CDC now recommends that people who have had COVID-19 be vaccinated because the shots plus natural immunity have been shown to offer better protection than natural immunity alone.