closer look
Meet the fetal surgeon pioneering CRISPR's next frontier: the womb
Laura Morton / for STAT
In August 1996, Tippi MacKenzie, a medical student, watched as Michael Harrison — known as the father of fetal surgery — removed a tumor from a 23-week-old fetus the size of a mango. A former aspiring pianist turned scientist, she decided to follow Harrison's footsteps of surgical virtuosity. "I thought she would be a star," he said. "But no one else did."
But 30 years later, she is working on something that could take fetal surgery into the future: fetal genome surgery. In the next five years, she plans to draw a blueprint for how CRISPR gene editing could be used on fetuses in a safe and ethical way, modifying fetal DNA to stop genetic diseases before they even have the time to manifest.
In her profile of MacKenzie, my colleague Megan Molteni tells the fascinating story of a gifted surgeon and scientist who just might end up changing the future of medicine. More here.
research
NIH study sheds new light on chronic fatigue syndrome, a long-dismissed condition
Myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome, or ME/CFS, is a chronic condition often occurring after an infection that leaves its sufferers crushed by a fatigue that can often be debilitating. Science doesn't understand much about the condition, which affects 4.3 million Americans, and there are no treatments.
Now, the most detailed study to date offers some clarity, including by identifying specific biological markers associated with the condition. Researchers found that patients have a protracted immune response that exhausts T cells, which causes a state of perpetual inflammation in the body, making people feel as if they were constantly fighting a flu. Outside experts caution that the study is important but extremely small (only 17 participants with ME/CFS). It also does not explain what causes the condition or point to new potential treatments, reports Isabella Cueto. However, its publication may help accelerate long-overdue research on a condition that affects millions of patients. More here.
health CARE
Health care costs are U.S. voters' biggest worry, but they like the ACA
Medical affordability is a major financial concern for U.S. voters, second only to inflation, according to a health tracking poll released today by KFF, a health policy research nonprofit. Among the respondents, 74% said they were worried about unexpected medical bills and 73% about the broader cost of health care. The survey, focused on health care affordability and the Affordable Care Act (ACA), found that medical costs are a major factor behind the public's negative perception of the economy.
But the ACA remains very popular, and nearly 60% of voters (including a minority of Republicans), have a positive view of the law. And while only one in four voters is aware of the ACA provision mandating coverage of preexisting conditions, a majority of those who do know the provision want to keep it in place. Asked what Congress should do with the law, about half of respondents say they would like it expanded, much more than the 32% who would like to see it scaled back or repealed.
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