News and Issues

Jill Norgren Reviews: Penny has won a large international audience — her books have been translated into more than twenty languages — with books that pay as much attention to character as to plot. This makes them rich and well-paced. Gamache, the cop who refuses to be disillusioned, sarcastic, or unhappy holds it all together, but never on his own. He believes in the abilities of others and draws upon their wit along with his own. In Paris Penny lets Gamache draw upon the intelligence and skills several women, including his wife, trained in library science. The scenes describing their work are among the highlights of this new book. Loyal series readers enjoy a trip abroad while first time readers will have no trouble slipping into Gamache’s world. more »

A newly developed light-sensing protein called the MCO1 opsin restores vision in blind mice when attached to retina bipolar cells using gene therapy. The National Eye Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health, provided a Small Business Innovation Research grant to Nanoscope, LLC for development of MCO1. The company is planning a U.S. clinical trial for later this year. “The beauty of our strategy is its simplicity,” said Samarendra Mohanty, Ph.D., Nanoscope founder and corresponding author of a report on the mouse study that appears today in Nature Gene Therapy. “Bipolar cells are downstream from the photoreceptors, so when the MCO1 opsin gene is added to bipolar cells in a retina with nonfunctioning photoreceptors, light sensitivity is restored.” ... However, no one knows how the restored vision will compare to normal vision. more »

With work-from-home (still) in full swing, are you finding your quarantine quarters a little lacking? Do you dread logging into the morning meeting, coveting your colleagues’ digs while you slump at your desk seemingly made of Legos and leftover Ikea hardware? Yes, the ideal home office is the new status symbol, and Mia is here to help with Zoom-ready rooms straight from the galleries. Who wouldn’t want to brainstorm in the Studio of Gratifying Discourse? Or file those TPS reports from the sunny table in Pierre Bonnard’s Dining Room in the Country? more »

A COVID-19 vaccine or vaccines may become available in the United States in the next several months, at which point the process of actually delivering vaccines to most, if not all, of the population will begin. Although the U.S. has some experience with mass vaccine distribution, including during an outbreak, COVID-19 represents an unprecedented challenge that will require a scale not previously undertaken. Planning has already been underway, including the release of a federal distribution strategy and the federal government’s advance purchase of millions of doses of COVID-19 vaccine candidates. more »