Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Optogenetics Treatment Partly Restores Blind Man's Vision
The New York Times: Blind Man's Sight Partially Restored With 'Optogenetics' Gene Therapy
A team of scientists announced Monday that they had partially restored the sight of a blind man by building light-catching proteins in one of his eyes. Their report, which appeared in the journal Nature Medicine, is the first published study to describe the successful use of this treatment. “Seeing for the first time that it did work — even if only in one patient and in one eye — is exciting,” said Ehud Isacoff, a neuroscientist at the University of California, Berkeley, who was not involved in the study. (Zimmer, 5/24)
Stat: Optogenetics Used For The First Time To Help A Blind Patient See Again
Somewhere in Paris, in a white room, seated at a white table, a man wearing a headset reminiscent of those worn by VR gamers reached out with his right hand and placed his fingers on a black notebook. This simple motion, which he executed with confidence, was notable for one very important reason: The man had been blind for close to four decades. (Molteni, 5/24)
The New York Times: Scientists Drove Mice To Bond By Zapping Their Brains With Light
Late one evening last March, just before the coronavirus pandemic shut down the country, Mingzheng Wu, a graduate student at Northwestern University, plopped two male mice into a cage and watched as they explored their modest new digs: sniffing, digging, fighting a little. With a few clicks on a nearby computer, Mr. Wu then switched on a blue light implanted in the front of each animal’s brain. That light activated a tiny piece of cortex, spurring neurons there to fire. Mr. Wu zapped the two mice at the same time and at the same rapid frequency — putting that portion of their brains quite literally in sync. Within a minute or two, any animus between the two creatures seemed to disappear, and they clung to each other like long-lost friends. (Hughes, 5/25)
CIDRAP: Rapid Test Linked To Quicker Optimal Therapy For Blood Infections
Implementation of a test that provides rapid bacterial identification and susceptibility results from positive blood cultures shortened the time to optimal antibiotic therapy and reduced unnecessary antibiotic exposure in hospitalized patients with bacteremia, researchers reported late last week in the Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy. The Improving Outcomes and Antibiotic Stewardship for patients with gram-positive bloodstream infections (IOAS) study, led by scientists from Accelerate Diagnostics (which also provided funding), evaluated clinical and antimicrobial stewardship metrics at two hospitals in Arkansas and Iowa following implementation of the Accelerate PhenoTest BC Kit (AXDX), a diagnostic platform that can identify bacteria from blood cultures and provide antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST) results up to 40 hours faster than conventional methods. (5/24)
The New York Times: Stop Kissing And Snuggling Chickens, C.D.C. Says After Salmonella Outbreak
A salmonella outbreak linked to backyard poultry has prompted U.S. health officials to issue a stern warning: Don’t kiss or snuggle your ducks and chickens. There have been 163 illnesses and 34 hospitalizations reported across 43 states, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said last week. North Carolina had the most reported cases, with 13, followed by Iowa, with 11. About a third of the cases were in children under 5, the agency said. (Bryson Taylor, 5/24)
