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Two scientists taking virology into the future
La Jolla Institute for Immunology
I highly recommend spending some time with these profiles of two new Wunderkind honorees:
As a clinical and research fellow who had just completed a Ph.D. in coronavirus virology, Sydney Ramirez (above) realized days into the Covid pandemic that her expertise could help answer pressing questions about SARS-CoV-2. So she spent the next few weeks gathering data, often driving across San Diego to collect blood samples directly from patients herself. For safety, her daughter was sent to live hours away with Ramirez's parents. That early scramble led to one of the first papers on Covid, proving that the disease prompted an immune response. Read more from STAT contributor Allessandra DiCorato about how Ramirez balances her important scientific work with her life as a single mother. As she said to DiCorato: "There are definitely days where I feel like I'm doing one 'job' better than the other."
Rafael Michita is a trailblazer in a different arena of infectious disease: the study of maternal-fetal viral transmission. His research, beginning in 2021 during his postdoctoral work, is among the first to suggest that the thin filaments that connect infected cells to their neighbors may also provide a route for viruses to breach the placenta. At the time, the leader of Michita's lab hadn't even heard of tunneling nanotubes, but knew because of his dedication that he was onto something exciting. Read more from STAT contributor Justin Chen about how Michita went from the countryside of Brazil to one of the world's most advanced laboratories for studying Zika virus infections, to potentially starting a lab of his own soon.
some shrinking numbers
American trust in health agencies is falling
Americans trust the CDC and the FDA less now than they did at the end of last year, largely due to declining confidence among Democrats, according to new poll results from the Axios/Ipsos American Health Index. Out of more than 1,000 respondents, 66% trusted the CDC last December. That dropped to 60% in June and 54% this month. When it comes to the FDA, trust declined similarly: 60% had confidence in the agency last December, declining to 52% now.
Trust in federal leaders is similarly mixed. Nineteen percent of poll respondents felt that policies from President Trump and health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have made the country healthier, but 41% say they've made the country less healthy and 36% say there's been no impact. The results echo previous polling that found nearly 60% of people disapprove of Robert Kennedy's overall performance.
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