Browsing by Author "Angrist, Misha"

Now showing 1 - 9 of 9
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    A BRIEF HISTORY OF EVERYONE WHO EVER LIVED The Human Story Retold Through Our Genes
    (NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW, 2017-11-19) Angrist, Misha
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    A Proposed Approach for Implementing Genomics-Based Screening Programs for Healthy Adults
    (NAM Perspectives) Murray, Michael F; Evans, James P; Angrist, Misha; Uhlmann, Wendy R; Lochner Doyle, Debra; Fullerton, Stephanie M; Ganiats, Theodore G; Hagenkord, Jill; Imhof, Sara; Rim, Sun Hee; Ortmann, Leonard; Aziz, Nazneen; Dotson, W David; Matloff, Ellen; Young, Kristen; Kaphingst, Kimberly; Bradbury, Angela; Scott, Joan; Wang, Catharine; Zauber, Ann; Levine, Marissa; Korf, Bruce; Leonard, Debra G; Wicklund, Catherine; Isham, George; Khoury, Muin J
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    Altered Stakes: identifying gaps in the psychedelic-assisted therapy research informed consent process
    (2022) Harrison, Tahlia Rachel

    Nearly 60% of the US population experiencing posttraumatic stress disorder have not received a meaningful clinical response from traditional interventions (Akiki & Abdallah, 2018). Early research using psychedelics in tandem with psychotherapy may offer a more effective option (Feduccia et al., 2019) and has been shown to provide or contribute to long-term relief or remission from PTSD symptoms (in small samples). Funding for psychedelic-assisted therapy (PAT) clinical-trials has increased to nearly billions (Phelps et al., 2022) and while the research is propitious, it is far from complete. Concerns about safety and generalizability have begun to surface (Love, 2022), including recent allegations of abuse. Though abuse is an issue within all clinical practice, risk is amplified by the non-ordinary state of consciousness experienced in high-dose PAT trials. In the US, treatment models using mind-altering substances are shaped by FDA-approved clinical research trials, which in turn define ethical practices and standards of care. By examining how existing regulations recommend governance for the informed consent process and reviewing publicly available documents from PAT trials, I aim to: 1) illuminate how risk and accountability are currently communicated to PAT participants; and 2) suggest how existing research policy might be updated to make working with trauma patients under non-ordinary states of consciousness safer and more ethically robust.

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    Media Framing of the Ebola Crisis
    (2016-01-24) Vellek, Theresa
    This study examines the role of international media framing in coverage of Ebola. A quantitative content analysis compared framing techniques in Ebola coverage across BBC Monitoring, The New York Times, The Daily Telegraph (UK), and The Straits Times (Singapore) in the 2000-2001 and 2014-2015 outbreaks. Results show that mutation contagion was by far the most frequently appearing frame in the media. Recent media coverage also mimicked the tendency to represent Ebola as distinctively “African,” as found in research on the 1990s Ebola outbreak. Additionally, the portrayal of Ebola as a globalized threat was especially important in coverage of the 2014 outbreak. Overall, media coverage of the Ebola crisis appeared highly politicized and event-based. Particularly because the media serve as the primary source of information about infectious disease epidemics for much of the public, their framing has implications for how the world views Ebola.
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    Microbe Farmers: How Fermentation Artisans are Bringing Peace to the War on Microbes
    (2018-03) Sinsheimer, Max
    In the nineteenth century the French scientist Louis Pasteur proved that the proliferation of certain microorganisms in a host body causes most diseases. His “germ theory” catalyzed twentieth century antimicrobial attitudes, which in the gastronomic realm meant reducing or eliminating microbial activity in food products. Fermentation artisans object that this ongoing “War on Microbes” devalues culturally important food traditions, and misses exciting discoveries that have transformed our understanding of the microverse. Microbes are no longer simply the enemy of food safety – they are the solution to better food. As one cheesemaker put it, “We say that we milk cows, but what we are really doing is farming the microbes.” This paper presents case studies of science-minded artisans helping Americans move beyond the Antimicrobial Age. Chapter One contextualizes the War on Microbes; whereas fermentation is arguably our oldest food technology, the relatively recent discovery of a microbiological basis for fermentation moved production practices away from the home or farm and into the factory. Chapter Two introduces artisans and their laboratory collaborators, and describes the genomic analytical tools they are using to sequence individual microorganism DNA and RNA (such as for brewing yeast), or to map an entire microbiome (such as for raw milk used in cheesemaking). Chapter Three focuses on wild craft beers, and suggests that lab-domesticated “wild” yeasts are an apt metaphor for the American environmental imagination. Chapter Four profiles a biotech company producing a specialty coffee to illustrate how fermentation is bleeding into biotechnology. Chapter Five visits a creamery in upstate Vermont, where the microbiology of the whole cheesemaking system is essential to an ecological conception of American terroir. The paper concludes with a meditation on the nature of disgust, and a final nudge in the direction of microbial delight.
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    Participant-Partners in Genetic Research: An Exome Study with Families of Children with Unexplained Medical Conditions
    (Journal of Participatory Medicine, 2018) Katsanis, Sara Huston; Minear, Mollie A; Sadeghpour, Azita; Cope, Heidi; Perilla, Yezmin; Cook-Deegan, Robert; Duke Task Force For Neonatal Genomics; Katsanis, Nicholas; Davis, Erica E; Angrist, Misha
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    Personalized Medicine and Human Genetic Diversity
    (COLD SPRING HARBOR PERSPECTIVES IN BIOLOGY, 2014-09) Lu, Yi-Fan; Goldstein, David B; Angrist, Misha; Cavalleri, Gianpiero
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    What Have We GAINed? An Analysis of Federal Incentive Policies in the Orphan and Anti-Infective Drug Markets
    (2016-01-27) Hoerger, Ryan
    The world faces a growing danger in the form of antibiotic resistance and a dwindling anti-infective pipeline. To help combat the threat, Congress passed legislation (the “GAIN Act”) in 2012 that grants five years of additional exclusivity—or protection from competition from generic products—to drug applications that are designated as qualified infectious disease products (QIDPs). The exclusivity incentive is nearly a carbon copy of the hallmark design of the 1983 Orphan Drug Act, which was passed to spur development of treatments for rare diseases. This thesis addresses the effectiveness of incentive policies in facilitating drug development in the orphan drug market for rare diseases and the anti-infective drug market. Using pricing data from Medicare Part D program and drug databases, the research develops frameworks for both the orphan and anti-infective markets and finds that the two markets vary widely across all measured categories. During the course of the past decade, anti-infectives became less of a priority in the development pipelines of the world’s top pharmaceutical companies, and content analysis of earnings call transcripts reveals that industry executives do not seem to be discussing the new incentive. The results indicate that a new or augmented approach to anti-infectives may be needed. Instead of using exclusivity, the government should consider offering benefits that companies realize at the front end of the research and development pipeline as a means to increase drug development in the anti-infective drug market.