Dec. 17th Event: The Latest on Omicron, Boosters, and Immunity

Dec. 17th Event: The Latest on Omicron, Boosters, and Immunity

The Omicron variant poses new uncertainty for the vaccines, which four leading experts will address during our virtual event on December 17th, 2021.

Photo by Quinten Braem on Unsplash

This virtual event will convene leading scientific and medical experts to discuss the most pressing questions around the new Omicron variant, including what we know so far about its ability to evade COVID-19 vaccines, the role of boosters in eliciting heightened immunity, and the science behind variants and vaccines. A public Q&A will follow the expert discussion.

EVENT INFORMATION:

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Kira Peikoff

Kira Peikoff was the editor-in-chief of Leaps.org from 2017 to 2021. As a journalist, her work has appeared in The New York Times, Newsweek, Nautilus, Popular Mechanics, The New York Academy of Sciences, and other outlets. She is also the author of four suspense novels that explore controversial issues arising from scientific innovation: Living Proof, No Time to Die, Die Again Tomorrow, and Mother Knows Best. Peikoff holds a B.A. in Journalism from New York University and an M.S. in Bioethics from Columbia University. She lives in New Jersey with her husband and two young sons. Follow her on Twitter @KiraPeikoff.

Security workers with detection dogs walking in airport terminal

Security workers walk with detection dogs in an airport terminal.

Viacheslav Lakobchuk/Adobe Stock

Asher is eccentric and inquisitive. He loves an audience, likes keeping busy, and howls to be let through doors. He is a six-year-old working Cocker Spaniel, who, with five other furry colleagues, has now been trained to sniff body odor samples from humans to detect COVID-19 infections.

As the Delta variant and other new versions of the SARS-CoV-2 virus emerge, public health agencies are once again recommending masking while employers contemplate mandatory vaccination. While PCR tests remain the "gold standard" of COVID-19 tests, they can take hours to flag infections. To accelerate the process, scientists are turning to a new testing tool: sniffer dogs.

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Puja Changoiwala
Puja Changoiwala is an award-winning journalist and author based in Mumbai. She writes about the intersections of gender, crime, technology, social justice and human rights in India. She tweets @cpuja.
Image of artificial heart

This Jarvik-7 artificial heart was used in the first bridge operation in 1985 meant to replace a failing heart while the patient waited for a donor organ.

National Museum of American History

In June, a team of surgeons at Duke University Hospital implanted the latest model of an artificial heart in a 39-year-old man with severe heart failure, a condition in which the heart doesn't pump properly. The man's mechanical heart, made by French company Carmat, is a new generation artificial heart and the first of its kind to be transplanted in the United States. It connects to a portable external power supply and is designed to keep the patient alive until a replacement organ becomes available.

Many patients die while waiting for a heart transplant, but artificial hearts can bridge the gap. Though not a permanent solution for heart failure, artificial hearts have saved countless lives since their first implantation in 1982.

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Sarah Watts

Sarah Watts is a health and science writer based in Chicago.