Living & Wellbeing

Feeling Sick? Use this Symptom Checker for Common Fall and Winter Illnesses

As the weather cools, viruses have a tendency to spread with more ease. That’s because people tend to spend more time indoors, where germs can circulate from one person to another through the air or close contact. This fall or winter, if you find yourself sniffling and sneezing, or experiencing an upset stomach, you could have a common virus. We’ve created a symptom checker to help you tell the difference between cold and flu symptoms, COVID-19 symptoms and norovirus symptoms. Read on to...

Science & Innovation

Cancer Biomarkers: Paving the Way for Better Lung Cancer Treatment

Receiving a lung cancer diagnosis may inspire a lot of questions: Will my cancer spread? What are the best treatment options for my type of lung cancer? How well do treatments work? There are no one-size-fits-all answers to questions about lung cancer—and that can be a good thing. Scientific advances have led to the practice of “precision medicine” or treatments tailored to patients based on the genes and proteins found in their tumor. In cancer treatment, it involves looking at changes in...

Science & Innovation

How a Coronavirus Protease Inhibitor Works to Fight COVID-19

SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, was sometimes called the “novel coronavirus” in the early days of the pandemic. The term was fitting because SARS-CoV-2 was new; the world had not previously encountered this virus, though the scientific community was already quite familiar with other coronaviruses, including SARS-CoV-1, the virus that caused the 2003-2004 severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak, MERS-CoV that caused the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) outbreak in...

Science & Innovation

What Makes an RNA Vaccine Different From a Conventional Vaccine?

Vaccines are one of the greatest health interventions ever developed. They’ve been cited as being as important to keeping communities healthy as having access to clean water and safe sanitation.1 Through scientific investment and ingenuity, today we have multiple vaccine technology platforms that have helped us control and, in some cases, eradicate many healthcare challenges such as polio, river blindness, smallpox, and COVID-19, just to name a few. In 2020, messenger RNA, or mRNA for...

What to Know About Coronavirus—COVID-19 Explained

What is coronavirus? It has been three years since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. While it is now a familiar term, there are still questions that people may have about this virus and how it works.  Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses that may cause respiratory illnesses in humans ranging from common colds to more severe conditions such as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle Eastern respiratory syndrome (MERS).1 'Novel coronavirus' is a new, previously...

Science & Innovation

How Access to Biosimilar Drugs Could Boost Healthcare Equity

Access. Affordability. Health Equity. These are more than just industry buzzwords; they have real world implications which have a tremendous impact on patients’ lives. For instance, in 2018, racial health disparities were linked to $93 billion in excess medical costs.1 More recently, in 2021 the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services delivered a report which measured healthcare quality, access, and disparity. It concluded that “compared with white groups, the number of measures that...

Science & Innovation

How Maternal Immunization Works and Why It's Important for Your Child

The instinct to protect a baby starts when it's in the womb. Some of the most common ways a mother does this is through receiving regular prenatal care, taking prenatal vitamins, and prioritizing a healthy diet and rest. A less frequently discussed, but equally crucial, step that mothers-to-be can take is getting themselves vaccinated during pregnancy. Even a brief look at the history of maternal immunization reveals that the antibodies provided by vaccination can be one of the greatest gifts...

Science & Innovation

Green Chemistry: A More Sustainable Approach to Medicine Development

Credit: Getty Images In 1962, Rachel Carson galvanized public interest in the environmental effects of chemicals. Her book "Silent Spring" detailed how common pesticides were killing not only insects, but also birds, larger animals, and even humans.1 Chemicals are essential to so many products people rely on in their daily lives, from phones and cars to medications. But these items can be produced in ways that have fewer negative effects on the environment, human health, and society. Since...

Science & Innovation

Zinc Finger Transcription Factors: The On/Off Switch for Genes Inspired by Frogs

Have you ever noticed how effortlessly frogs cling to nearly every surface? Their sticky little fingers easily grab and hold onto just about anything they want. It turns out that the frogs have protein structures that do the same thing, and these structures could be the key to unlocking therapies for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD), two of the most debilitating neurological conditions affecting millions of people today. While studying the African clawed...

Living & Wellbeing

From Basic Health to Herd Immunity: What is the Purpose of Vaccines?

In our increasingly interconnected world, where illness can spread quickly from person to person, and even country to country, vaccines can offer protection. In fact, the World Health Organization refers to immunization as “one of modern medicine’s greatest success stories” for its ability to prevent and control infectious diseases, such as polio, influenza, and measles.1 Vincenza Snow, MD, who is Pfizer’s U.S. Medical Affairs Policy Lead for Vaccines, agrees with that assessment. “Vaccines...

Science & Innovation

Why Are Some People Tastier to Mosquitoes Than Others?

Do mosquitos prefer a certain blood type? Maybe—but it’s not just one factor that influences why these winged pests are attracted to us and researchers can’t seem to agree on a definitive answer.1,2 There are two kinds of people in the world: those who return from time in the outdoors covered in itchy mosquito bites and those who can spend hours in the same space and avoid getting bitten at all. Let's face it, mosquitoes are not equal opportunity feasters. So, what exactly makes some...

Science & Innovation

Maternal Immunization: Protecting Children from RSV and GBS

In the first few months of their lives, infants experience new sights, sounds, scents, and textures. During this time, they also make contact with new organisms. It takes up to three months for portions of infants’ still-developing immune systems to mature.1 During these early weeks and months, infants are too young to receive their first vaccines, leaving them vulnerable to developing serious infections.2 Most pregnant people transmit antibodies to their developing fetuses naturally starting...