Hello Dolly! What a Little Lamb Taught Us About Stem Cells

July 21, 2021 By JanetKRay.com in cloning, Dolly the sheep, stem cells 2 Comments

She didn’t have a shirt pocket, so embryologist Karen Walker tucked the little container holding the tiny egg inside her bra to keep it warm on the chilly trip from the farm to the lab.

It’s not unusual for it to be chilly in Scotland, but it is a bit odd to find a cell laboratory tucked in a corner of a Scottish sheep farm. “Lab” is a bit of a stretch: it was actually a cupboard, just big enough for two chairs and an incubator.

Twenty-five years ago this month, Dolly the sheep was cloned from an adult sheep living on a farm near Edinburgh, Scotland.

Dolly wasn’t just the first mammal ever cloned. Dolly was the first animal ever cloned from an adult cell of an existing animal.

An egg from one of the farm’s Scottish Blackface sheep (the one carefully incubated by Walker), was brought into the tiny lab. In a delicate process, Walker and her partner, Bill Ritchie, removed the nucleus from the egg. Egg nuclei, like the nuclei of all cells, contain the DNA of the organism.

Likewise, the researchers removed the nucleus from a breast cell taken from a second adult sheep, a white-faced Finn Dorset. The breast cell nucleus (containing DNA) was then inserted into the empty egg.

Next, the researchers implanted the egg with the new DNA into a surrogate, another Scottish Blackface sheep.

Nobody really expected success. Nobody was terribly confident that the DNA from an adult breast cell could be “reprogramed” to fashion the wide variety of cells found in an entirely new animal.

But implantation was successful. The surrogate was pregnant. And at the end of a normal pregnancy, the surrogate gave birth to a healthy lamb.

Walker was away at a wedding at the time, so Ritchie sent a fax to her hotel:

“She has a white face and furry legs!”

I bet the hotel staff thought: “Well….that’s a, umm, unique baby….”

Only the DNA donor was a whitefaced sheep. Both the surrogate and the (empty) egg donor were black-faced.

Genetic tests would later confirm what appearances first revealed: Dolly was a clone of the sheep who donated the breast cell DNA.

Dolly was a healthy ewe who went on to birth a total of six lambs. Dolly was euthanized at age six due to a lung disease she developed.

Following the announcement of Dolly’s birth, reaction ranged from the hopeful (“new cures for diseases!”) to the frightful (“oh no! armies of cloned humans!”).

In reality, Dolly’s birth did not have much impact on animal cloning. Aside from the prize racehorse or prize cow here and there, cloning did not become a big deal.

Before Dolly, we thought that adult cells, once they had matured and developed into their final form (like heart cells, liver cells, nerve cells, etc.), were stuck in their final form and could not regress back to their unspecialized embryonic state.

Dolly showed us that a specialized adult cell can be reprogrammed into an unspecialized embryonic cell.

Unspecialized cells, capable of becoming any of the specialized cells in an animal’s body, are called “stem cells”, and stem cells are gold in medical research.

Stem cells collected from actual human embryos are controversial and carry an unfortunate ethical stigma.

But thanks to the Dolly research, cell biologist Shinya Yamanaka began developing stem cells from adult cells, a feat that won him a Nobel Prize in 2012. “Induced” stem cells have greatly reduced the need for ethically problematic embryonic stem cells.

Because of her DNA origin in adult breast cells, researchers named Dolly (the sheep) for Dolly Parton (the singer). No disrespect for Ms. Parton was intended, according to the researchers, and Dolly Parton’s agent was said to respond: “There is no such thing as baaaaaaaaad publicity.”

Dolly is on display behind glass in the National Museum of Scotland – behind glass because people kept nicking bits of her wool. See the photo of me with the (second-most) famous Dolly!

A Blaggblurp-blurb on the Road to Publishing

July 15, 2021 By JanetKRay.com in Baby Dinosaurs on the Ark 2 Comments

“BLORK”

“BLuuRF”

Believe it or not, these are lines from a #1 New York Times Bestselling children’s picture book! The Book With No Pictures, written by B. J. Novak (of “The Office” fame), requires the (presumably) adult reader to read nonsense words in a monkey voice or a robot voice and say things like “boo boo butt”, while the kids rollick in the hilarity of it all.

So, BLURB!! (said in my best monkey-robot voice!)

One of the final steps in the long, long, LONG road to book publishing is collecting “blurbs”. Blurbs are short quotes about the book and are usually printed on the back cover or sometimes just inside the front cover. A publisher asks noted authors and experts to read and review a soon-to-be-released copy of a new book, and these become the book’s “blurbs”.

Baby Dinosaurs on the Ark was read and blurbed by an amazing group of scientists, theologians, and pastors. It is a surreal experience to read about my book in the words of people I read, respect, and follow!

Here are a few of the blurbs for Baby Dinos:

“Ray writes with candid humor, a pastoral spirit, and engaging, accessible science. This book deserves to be widely read, especially if you’re not sure that evolution and robust faith can go together.”

-Dennis Venema, Ph.D.

Professor of biology at Trinity Western University in Langley, British Columbia; author of Adam and the Genome: Reading Scripture After Genetic Science

“Too much Christian opinion on science has been uninformed and unhelpful. In Baby Dinosaurs on the Ark? Dr. Ray gives us a down-to-earth, yet thorough, introduction for how science works and how necessary it is to shake off unhelpful and untrue assumptions about the Bible. If anyone asks why you accept the science of evolution as a Christian-feel free to simply pass them a copy of this book.”

-Jared Byas, co-author of Genesis for Normal People and co-host of the podcast The Bible for Normal People

“What a delight to read! With an engaging style and a keen mind, Ray navigates the landscape between the false binary that so many Christians face: reject science or reject God. A trustworthy guide, Ray explores the various positions with intellectual honesty and civility; rare is the author who can explain this complex topic in such a clear and compelling way. If you are looking for a resource that equips you both to embrace the findings of science and to embody a deep faith, this is the book for you.”

-Ken Cukrowski, Ph.D., Dean of the College of Biblical Studies, Abilene Christian University

“This is the most cleverly written and yet profound book I’ve read in some time. I love it! Ray makes complex and deep issues accessible. She answers questions about science and contemporary debates. I plan to give copies to friends trying to make sense of evolution and Christian faith.”-Thomas Jay Oord, Ph.D., author of The Uncontrolling Love of God and other books

Watch for more blurbs to come!

Flat Stanley, a Vaccine Protest, and a Scary New Variant

June 23, 2021 By JanetKRay.com in Covid, flat earth, vaccines, variant 4 Comments

You’ve likely heard of the travels of Flat Stanley, but have you heard of Flatrick Burke?

Back in the Before Times when I taught on campus, I caught sight of this stealthy vehicle (see photo) traveling the streets of Denton.

Apparently, it’s driven by a well-known local, but it was my first sighting.

Last summer, the owner of this vehicle was issued a citation for criminal trespass after defacing the local Walmart.

His graffiti? “COVID hoax”.

Color me shocked.

Patrick Burke is also an evolution and climate-change denier (again, shocker), but a flat earth is his primary bandwagon of choice. His house, just a half-mile from the UNT campus, continues the theme: Gravity is not real. The earth is motionless.

Burke is a college graduate, employed, and a self-described “regular guy.”

Walmart graffiti notwithstanding, Patrick (or “Flatrick” as he is lovingly known) is not really harming anyone. No one is going to force him to buy a globe.

Now, imagine that Patrick or one of his fellow flat-earthers teaches world geography in the local middle school. If he insists on advocating for a flat earth, he will be invited to take his teaching skills elsewhere.

Recently, employees of the Houston Methodist Hospital system marched carrying protest signs blazoned with “No Forced Vaccines” and “Stop Medical Tyranny”.

A federal judge threw out a lawsuit filed by 117 hospital employees who were suspended for refusing a COVID vaccine.

This lawsuit was the first of its kind and is expected to set a precedent. It is important to note that the hospital system exempted many employees from the requirement: 285 for religious or medical reasons and 332 others for pregnancy.

Here’s U.S. District Judge Lynn Hughes, in a statement referring to the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit:

“Bridges can freely choose to accept or refuse a COVID-19 vaccine; however, if she refuses, she will simply need to work somewhere else.”

In the Houston Methodist system, patient safety is a priority. If it is not the priority of an employee, the employee is invited to take their skills elsewhere.

And finally, if you or someone you know needs more convincing about vaccination, let me introduce you to…

the Delta variant.

The Delta variant currently accounts for about 6% of COVID infections, but at the rate it is spreading, it will be the dominant strain in the United States by August.

The Delta variant is really good at three things: rate of contagion, potential for high mortality, and ability to evade immunity.

We need to pay attention.

A single dose of one of the mRNA vaccines is only 33 percent effective against Delta. BUT – the recommended two doses of an mRNA vaccine are 90-95% effective.

Now some really scary news… early lab evidence shows that Delta evades “natural” immunity from a prior COVID infection. We are waiting on more studies in actual humans to confirm this finding.

Bottom line – vaccination protects and is likely more protective than immunity from an infection.

Vaccine Community Service

April 24, 2021 By JanetKRay.com in Kizzmekia Corbett, Moderna, vaccines 1 Comment

She took a call from the loading dock: your package is here.

Interestingly, the package didn’t arrive by plane. This package was placed on a truck and given a special ride from Boston to Bethesda.

Can you bring it up? She asked.

No, they said. You have to come downstairs and meet the driver. And bring your ID. We can only give the package to you.

I imagine she ran all the way.

She is young (just now 35), and thoroughly a member of the selfie generation. She asked the driver to take a photo of her with the box.

And he’s like, no ma’am, that’s not my job.

Elated, she took the box back to her lab, where 250 little mousies awaited. The box contained doses of covid-19 vaccine, developed using her science research.

Each little mousie was about to get a jab.

And the young woman was about to save the world.

Meet Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett. She’s young and she’s brilliant, and she is the lead researcher in the NIH Vaccine Research Center’s lab for development of coronavirus vaccines. She is the primary scientist behind Moderna’s covid-19 vaccine.

Unbelievably, in just a few months, a scientific concept in Dr. Corbett’s laboratory became a nationally distributed vaccine that is 94 percent effective.

It was far from beginner’s luck.

Dr. Corbett had been studying coronaviruses for more than six years when the covid-19 pandemic struck. Her attention was on vaccines for MERS and SARS – coronaviruses that put the world on the edge of a pandemic but stopped just short.

December 31, 2019: a respiratory illness caused by a coronavirus is reported in China. Emails to Dr. Corbett from Anthony Fauci and Barney Graham (Corbett’s boss at the Vaccine Research Center) arrived in January.

“Buckle up,” they told her.

January 10, 2020: researchers published the DNA sequence of the coronavirus that causes covid-19.

Sixty-six days later, a vaccine developed in Dr. Corbett’s lab entered phase 1 testing in humans.

That speedy timeline makes some people really nervous.

When questioned about the worry some have regarding the speed of the vaccine from lab to arms, Dr. Corbett gave a surprising answer.

It could have been faster.

We didn’t quite get there for a MERS or SARS vaccine, she says, but if we had, we could have shortened the time to a covid vaccine. But, she’s quick to say, that research got us ready for covid-19.

Kizzmekia Corbett is a science rock star. And Kizzmekia Corbett is a scientist of deep faith. She is a Christian who makes no secret of her love for Jesus.

Dr. Corbett sleeps very little these pandemic days and works seven days a week, but like many of us, she stops on Sunday to watch a recorded church service. But unlike most of us, she spends the remainder of the day analyzing mountains of data.

Dr. Corbett feels a deep sense of obligation to community health. She sees her work in vaccine development as a way to love her neighbor as herself. She calls it “vaccine community service”.

Here’s Dr. Corbett:

“My religion tells me why I should want to help people, make the world a better place. Science shows me how to study the coronavirus and do the work that one day, hopefully, will prevent people from dying of covid-19.”

Kizzmekia was the kid who entered and won all the school science fairs. When the Nobel prizes were announced, she wrote speeches and delivered them out loud, with pomp and spectacle and dramatic tears.

Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health and where the buck stops regarding all things pandemic, recently said that Dr. Corbett and Dr. Barney Graham were already in discussions for “prizes”.

Kizzmekia, I hope you kept those speeches.

Francis Collins, Anthony Fauci, and former President Trump in Dr. Corbett’s lab

Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett and Dr. Barney Graham

Finding My Audience

April 15, 2021 By JanetKRay.com in Baby Dinosaurs on the Ark, Creationism, Mary Bentley 2 Comments

Representative Mary Bentley of Arkansas wants to party like it’s 1986.

That’s the last year creationism could be legally taught in public schools in the United States. The following year, the Supreme Court ruled that creationism is a religious construct, and as such, it could not be taught (as science) in public schools.

Bentley recently introduced a bill in the Arkansas House which allows creationism to be taught as science in Arkansas public schools. The bill passed in the House and is headed to the Senate for a vote. If the bill is successful there, it heads to the governor’s desk.

According to Bentley, Arkansas teachers are pushing for the right to teach creationism as science in the public classroom.

“Scientists have been on both sides of the issue for thousands of years,” Bentley said, noting that Isaac Newton and Galileo* believed in “God and biblical creation.” (*As residents of the 17th century, they probably also believed in the science of bloodletting to cure disease.)

Creationism can legally be discussed in philosophy class.

Creationism can be discussed in a comparative religions class.

Creationism can even be discussed in a history or social studies class.

We just can’t (legally) teach creationism as science in science class.

People know I teach biology in university and they know I love dinosaurs and they know I wrote a book and they know I am a Christian, so casual questions over dinner are inevitable. Usually there’s little-to-no preamble.

Often, it’s just straight to the point.

While recently at dinner with a friend, she laid this one out on the table, where it sat like an awkward frog:

“SO THIS BOOK. What about cavemen? What about dinosaurs?”

We all do this when we’re curious about a topic about which we know very little. If I wanted to join a conversation about the nuances of a fancy dish in fancy chef-terms, my contribution would probably be a Tarzan-esque “me like food”.

And it would sit there on the table, my own personal awkward frog.

When I was pitching “Baby Dinosaurs on the Ark?” to editors and agents, I was always asked about the potential audience for the book. Some wanted a few sentences; some wanted a page:

Who would want to read this book? What are the benefits for readers?

I know I love it, but why would anyone else?

Here’s my elevator pitch:

Baby Dinosaurs builds a vocabulary to voice concerns and questions about science and faith. Baby Dinosaurs makes room for (sometimes discouraged) questions. Baby Dinosaurs is for readers who dare to form a faith that doesn’t ignore the questions.

Baby Dinosaurs isn’t just for the convinced.

I hope you read it, even if you come away disagreeing with me.

Health Freedom and the Christian

March 26, 2021 By JanetKRay.com in anti vaccination, Covid-19, masks and Christians, public health and Christians 2 Comments

Henning Jacobson is the pastor of a small church in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Cambridge has been particularly hard-hit by the virus, so local officials closed libraries, schools, and churches and enacted other temporary ordinances intended to curb infections.

Pastor Jacobson, however, refused to comply with any ordinance that required him, personally, to take measures intended to stop the spread of infection. Before long, Pastor Jacobson found himself before a judge for his failure to comply.

Jacobson and a group of six other individuals argued that the local regulations were “invasions of personal liberty” and would only lead to increasing government control over individual behaviors.

Jacobson’s lawyers made a familiar argument: there goes the state again, trying to be paternalistic and violating individual rights with no reasonable grounds.

The year, however, was 1902, and the pandemic was smallpox. The ordinance to which Jacobson objected required the vaccination of all adults or pay a fine of $5.00.

A state court ruled against Jacobson, but he appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States.

In 1905, the Court ruled that a community has the right to invoke ordinances intended to protect the health and safety of the public. Justice John Marshall Harlan made the point: just as governments can curtail freedoms during a wartime invasion, governments can likewise curtail freedoms during the “invasion” of a disease.

Things haven’t changed much in a century.

The CDC and local health departments are not only battling vaccine hesitancy, but also compliance with mask-wearing, distancing, and occupancy limits during the vaccine rollout.

There is good news, however.

Sixty-nine percent of Americans now say they have been vaccinated or will likely be vaccinated – a relieving jump from the all-time low of fifty-one percent who said so last fall at the height of the presidential election.

Unfortunately, it’s not all good news. A deeper dive into the “sixty-nine percent” reveals a disturbing breakdown, specifically in religious demographic groups.

Among Americans, the group least likely to get a Covid-19 vaccine are white evangelicals. Forty-five percent of white evangelicals say they definitely will not/probably will not get the vaccine. Other evangelical and protestant groups and Catholics are much more likely to get the vaccine.

Ninety percent of atheists plan to “definitely” take the vaccine.

But there’s more.

And it makes me really sad.

White evangelicals are the LEAST likely to consider the health of their community when making a decision about the vaccine. Only 48% said they would consider the health of their community “a lot” when making a decision. The percentages are much higher (almost 70%) in other protestant groups, Catholics, and non-religious Americans.

It is no surprise that resistance to mask-wearing tracks with vaccine refusal. Anti-mask and anti-vaccine are two sides of the same coin. As advocates for “health freedom”, both groups find reasons to mistrust both science and scientists.

Like Pastor Jacobson, many people see masks as an assault on their personal freedom. How many times have you heard a variation on this theme? “Wear a mask if YOU want to, just don’t force me to wear one.”

The primary purpose of a mask is not to protect the mask-wearer. Wearing a mask primarily protects others.

This is established science.

Although less than seven percent of the population was vaccinated, the governor of Texas recently lifted the state mask mandate, setting off a firestorm of opposing positions. While some Texans hurled their masks into literal fires in a celebration of freedom, others warned of the continuing dangers of community spread with vaccination rates still in single digits.

And then there are those pesky variants.

A virus can only mutate within a host. The more hosts (people) spreading a virus in a community, the higher the chance for a variant to arise.

Herd immunity for a more transmissible virus requires a higher percentage of immunized people. Continued mask-wearing protects a community until an effective percentage of the population is vaccinated.

Sometimes loving your neighbor means forgoing a freedom.

Blue Whales and Buttered Toast

February 22, 2021 By JanetKRay.com in American Museum of Natural History, whale evolution, World Whale Day Leave a comment

Happy World Whale Day 2021!

Blue whales are a particular favorite of mine. Weighing in at 200 tons, blue whales are the largest animals on earth, and actually the largest animal ever to live on earth. A Tyrannosaurus rex is merely a lap pet for a blue whale.

About 50 million years ago, whale ancestors were wolf-sized meat eaters prowling for meals along the shores of a shallow ocean in what is now Pakistan. The evolutionary history of whales is fascinating – it’s one of my favorite stories in Baby Dinosaurs on the Ark.

The blue whale has long been a mystery. Despite widespread whale hunting, hunters didn’t chase blue whales. Hunters targeted slow swimmers that would float when harpooned.

Wind-powered ships were no match for blue whales who dive deep and swim at speeds of 30 mph. With the advent of steam powered ships and ballistic harpoons, however, blue whales became a popular target.

As the 20^th century progressed, demand for whale oil lamps waned, but the demand for margarine on our toast increased.

Yes . . . margarine was made from blue whale blubber.

Easily spreadable, margarine was popular during the ration years of World War II and beyond. During the war, Britain declared margarine essential for national defense.

Until the international ban on whaling in 1982, blue whales were hunted to only 1% of their world-wide population. The blue whale population recovered but they are still endangered.

Have you ever stood under the life-sized model of a blue whale at the American Museum of Natural History in New York? If not, that’s a bullet point for your bucket list.

If yes, drop your photo if you have one in the comments below! Or, drop your favorite whale (dolphins are whales, too)!

With my friend the blue whale, at the American Museum Natural History (New York), Hall of Ocean Life

Civic Pride in the Time of Covid

February 11, 2021 By JanetKRay.com in Covid, Covid-19, polio, vaccines 8 Comments

During the Cold War, the greatest fear in America was the bomb.

In a close second place was polio.

Everyone was at risk, children especially, but also teenagers and adults. Polio returned every year, usually during the summer. There was no prevention and no cure.

People got sick, some got very sick. Many lost the use of their legs, their arms, or both. Many lost the ability to breathe, and some lost their lives.

Americans were terrified.

But on an unremarkable Tuesday in April 1955, everything changed.

Church bells rang and factory whistles blew. Across America, people ran into the streets weeping.

In all caps, newspaper headlines shouted: “THE VACCINE WORKS.”

After two years of trials, it was certain: Jonas Salk’s polio vaccine worked.

In the next few days and weeks, store front windows were shoe-polished with “Thank you, Dr. Salk.” Local parades featured floats celebrating the defeat of polio. President Eisenhour choked up when he met Dr. Salk at the White House.

For decades, Americans saw polio as a shared tragedy. In the wake of the Depression when philanthropist money dried up, ordinary people mailed in dimes to fight polio. Literally tons of dimes.

It was the March of Dimes that funded Salk’s research.

Volunteers organized an unprecedented two million American children in the largest vaccine trial ever completed. Smiling kids posed for photos wearing “Polio Pioneer” buttons.

No wonder Americans were proud.

They saw themselves as part of a group. Americans cared not only for their own children, but for America’s children. They were a public that cared about public health.

Americans have Covid fatigue. We are tired, just tired of it. We are appalled by the record deaths and the packed ICUs and the exhausted medical staffs and the damaged economy and the never-ending social distancing.

But then, hope.

It began with front-line medical staff smiling through their masks, giving weary thumbs-up in vaccine selfies on social media. Then more medical staff. More selfies.

And we loved it. We cheered and hit “like” and a lot of us teared up with every posting.

March 2020 seems like a million years ago. We now have two vaccines that are 95% effective, and we can’t get them into arms fast enough.

I received my first dose of the Moderna vaccine at a mega drive through at Texas Motor Speedway. Drones and helicopters flew overhead, and the media was about with mics and cameras.

Volunteers and paramedics and medical staff were there by the hundreds, waving and smiling and chatting, and all the while maintaining efficiency like you just can’t believe.

People were rolling down their windows and waving and thanking the staff and the volunteers.

I witnessed the same scene at a mega center in Dallas where my 82-year-old mother-in-law received her first jab. Big smiles everywhere. Organization, volunteers, hopefulness, thankfulness, celebration.

As more and more of us are called in for our jabs, social media selfies have not abated. It’s our twenty-first century version of church bells ringing and factory whistles blowing.

Vaccine rollout has not been problem-free, nor was the celebrated polio vaccine rollout. Some vaccination sites run with the efficiency of a Chick-fil-A drive-through, while other sites struggle.

But we are hopeful. And our civic pride is showing.

We cheer, we take selfies, we heart the photos. We delight in the stories: the medical team, stalled on a highway in a blizzard with a soon to expire supply of vaccine, going car to car, vaccinating every willing arm; the hospital in California rushing against time to vaccinate their community after a freezer failure; the health care workers made honorary Super Bowl captains.

I am vaccinated for myself, sure, but it is so much more:

I am vaccinated because I want to protect my neighbors living in crowded conditions, my neighbors for whom “working from home” is not an option, my newborn neighbors, my immunocompromised neighbors, my elderly neighbors, and my teacher neighbors.

I am vaccinated because I want to be a responsible member of the herd. It’s how I love my neighbor as myself.

Let the church bells ring.

“Polio Pioneer”

It’s not a Polio Pioneer button, but I love my pin!

Staff and volunteers at Texas Motor Speedway.

RNA saves the day!

The heavens declare the glory of God;

the skies proclaim the work of his hands.

Day after day they pour forth speech;

night after night they reveal knowledge.

Freezer Failure and a Voyage on the Good Ship Smally-pox

January 19, 2021 By JanetKRay.com in Covid-19, freezer failure, smallpox, vaccines 3 Comments

Late on a Monday morning in early January, senior staff at a hospital in Mendocino County, California were gathered for the first executive meeting of 2021, when in burst the hospital pharmacist.

Ten hours earlier, the compressor on the hospital’s freezer failed.

In a perfect storm of coincidences, the alarm meant to sound in such a failure also failed.

And in a trifecta of disasters, the freezer held 830 doses of the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine.

Two hours.

Two hours was all that was left in the shelf life of 830 doses of a groundbreaking, life-saving, but temperature-finicky RNA vaccine.

Phone call number one was to Moderna, but there was no time to waste waiting on a callback.

Fifteen minutes off the clock.

The hospital shifted into local emergency mode. Two hundred vaccines to county workers, jail staff, and the fire department. Seventy doses to two elderly care centers.

One hour left.

Every available medical professional (doctors, nurses, pharmacists) was called to man four pop-up vaccination sites across the county. The news blasted out on social media and by word of mouth.

Shots were given as fast as people could present arms. Despite the inevitable excitement and confusion, crowds were polite and cooperative.

By 1:30, only forty doses remained at a church vaccination site. Seniors were called to the front of the line.

In under two hours, every dose was given. Warp speed indeed.

Finicky shelf-life is the price we are currently paying for RNA vaccines that are an astounding 90-95% effective.

The problem of vaccine supply logistics is a problem as old as vaccines themselves.

In the eighteenth century, smallpox was a dreaded plague. If you managed not to die a horrid death, you were likely horribly scarred, and often left blind.

But – conventional wisdom said that if you caught a similar, but milder disease called cowpox, you were safe from deadly smallpox. As the name implies, people who worked closely with cows (like milkmaids) often contracted cowpox. Milkmaids were known to brag that they would never be “ugly and pockmarked” after experiencing a case of cowpox.

British physician Edward Jenner put two and two together in 1796. He took a bit of fluid from a blister of a local milkmaid who currently had cowpox. (In a curiously recorded historical detail, the infecting cow was named “Blossom”).

Jenner then scratched the cowpox fluid into the arm of his gardener’s 8-year-old son. The boy developed a mild case of cowpox, but nothing more. Afterwards, Jenner infected the boy with smallpox, and to everyone’s relief, the boy did not get sick.

Jenner’s procedure became known as “vaccination”, its root from the Latin word for cow – “vacca”. Thank you, Blossom!

https://ainawgsd.tumblr.com/post/161518818383

Cowpox blister fluid (pus, actually) was a nineteenth century version of a vaccine storage and distribution problem. You could easily vaccinate those living near a cowpox outbreak, but cowpox blister fluid doesn’t travel well.

The fluid dried up and inactivated before it could be transported across even small distances.

From the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries, smallpox decimated the western hemisphere, carried there by European conquerors and settlers.

Spanish colonies world-wide were suffering from smallpox. But cowpox fluid didn’t survive a short trip, much less one across the globe.

IN 1803, a Spanish physician, Francisco Xavier de Balmis, organized a shocking expedition. Twenty-two orphaned boys, ages three to nine, were put on a ship bound for the Americas.

At the beginning of the trip, two boys were vaccinated with cowpox blister fluid. When they blistered, two more boys were vaccinated with the fluid. This process continued throughout the voyage, two by two, with the hope that at least one boy would arrive in the Americas with nice fluid-filled cowpox blisters.

The twenty-two orphan boys were a living supply chain of vaccine.

As it turns out, only one boy had a single fluid-filled cowpox blister when the expedition arrived in the Americas. Still, it was enough. The chain of vaccinations propagated from that one boy resulted in the vaccination of thousands.

The twenty-two Spanish orphans were adopted by Mexican families. In turn, twenty-six Mexican families “lent” their sons to continue carrying the vaccine to the Philippines and China.

After circling the globe to deliver vaccine, Balmis remained committed to carrying smallpox vaccine across the world.

May we be as resolute in vaccinating our modern population.

And as You speak

A hundred billion creatures catch your breath

Evolving in pursuit of what You said

If it all reveals Your nature so will I

(Hillsong United So Will I)

Becoming a Vaccinator: A First-Hand, Behind the Scenes Look (plus a bonus – what to expect after your vaccination)

December 5, 2020 By JanetKRay.com in Covid-19, vaccines 2 Comments

My husband was recently selected to be a vaccinator for Covid-19. Watch this space! I am excited to document the launch of a historic vaccine in his local medical practice.

It began with an application to the Texas Department of State Health Services. First the basics – are you a licensed physician in Texas? Where is your practice? What is the size of your practice?

Then more details: what kind of refrigeration and freezer equipment is on the premises? How many vials of vaccine can you accommodate? (He’s requested an initial 300 doses)

Both the Moderna and the Pfizer vaccines must be transported and stored at very low temperatures. My husband was required to purchase a special device for his refrigerator, a device designed to constantly record the temperature at specific intervals. The data can then be uploaded and analyzed to insure the “cold chain” has not been broken.

He doesn’t know at this point which vaccine (Moderna or Pfizer) will be shipped to him.

The final step in approval was an agreement to honor the directives:

• Do you agree not to charge patients for the vaccine?

• Do you agree to abide by priority guidelines and to honor the criteria regarding who should be vaccinated first?

Approval was granted Friday, December 4. Stay tuned!

In just a just matter of weeks, the first publicly offered vaccines will arrive across the U.S. at “warp speed”.

Understand: a vaccine roll-out is not an instant, get-out-of-jail-free, burn your masks and breathe on your neighbor free-for-all.

But it’s a start.

A wonderful, excellent, science-y start.

What to expect after your vaccination:

Essentially 100% of those vaccinated will have side effects following the jab. For the vast majority of us, that means pain at the injection site, a little swelling, and some redness.

A few people will have more intense side-effects, including fever, muscle pain, joint pain, headache, and fatigue. Side effects are temporary, usually lasting only a day or two.

Still, a sore arm and feeling a bit crummy for a day is a small price to pay to rein in an infection that can damage hearts and lungs and is lethal in 2% of diagnosed cases (compare to the seasonal flu at 0.1%).

Drew Weissman, an immunologist whose research contributed to both the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines wants people to be informed: “This is what you need to expect. Take Tylenol and suck it up for a day.”

Side effects are temporary and normal and are an indication that your immune system has shifted into high gear as it prepares to fight a future Covid-19 infection.

Redness, heat, pain, and swelling are signs of inflammation – your body’s natural response to invasion or injury. Think about itchy allergy eyes, a sprained ankle, or even a splinter in your finger.

Both the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines use RNA molecules with the “recipe” for one of the protein spikes on a COVID-19 virus. The RNA enters your muscle cells, and your cells use the “recipe” to churn out spike proteins – perfectly harmless proteins that cannot make you sick.

Fun fact – the spike proteins are constructed with raw materials found in your own, actual cells. The vaccine delivers the instructions, but the spike proteins are home-grown.

After the RNA recipe has been used a few times to cook up some spike proteins, the cell breaks down the RNA molecule and destroys it, Mission Impossible-style.

Your immune system learns to identify and remember the spike proteins and, in the future, will attack anything presenting the proteins (like an actual COVID-19 virus).

Inflammation is the result of this identification and learning process, thus the “side-effects” of a vaccine.

Both the Pfizer and the Moderna vaccines require a booster, given either three or four weeks after the first vaccine. Full effectiveness occurs about two weeks after the booster. What is unknown at this point is how long this immunity lasts.

On the horizon: using similar RNA therapy to trigger the body’s immune response to fight cancer.

What the vaccine does not do:

RNA vaccines cannot give you Covid-19. You cannot “shed” viruses to others following vaccination with an RNA vaccine. The vaccines do not contain actual viruses, killed or weakened or in any form.

RNA vaccines do not interfere or even encounter your own DNA.

DNA is in the nucleus of the cell. Protein construction occurs outside the nucleus, in the watery cytoplasm filling the cell. The RNA molecules delivered by the vaccine stay out in the cytoplasm because that’s where the raw materials needed to build the spike protein are found.

What about 20 years from now? What if the vaccine causes some future side effect? Again, an RNA molecule is very short-lived. Your cells destroy the RNA molecules shortly after they are used.

Would you like to find your place in line? Here’s a link for a handy-dandy tool that lets you estimate your place in the vaccine line.

I, for instance, am in line behind 23.0 million people across the United States.

I’m behind 1.9 million in Texas.

In Denton County, I’m behind 31,800.

If the line in Texas was represented by about 100 people, I’d be standing 24th in line.

I’ll see you in line!