In the spirit of the Holidays, having already written about eggnog, we decided to give equal time to glögg, a hot and sweet mulled or spiced wine served up in Sweden (and other Nordic countries) around the Christmas season. According to the Wine & Spirits Museum...
Love it or hate it—we happen to love it— a staple of the Christmas season that dates all the way back to George Washington—and even to the British settlers before him who transported it to the colonies in the first place—is eggnog. This iconic beverage is made with...
“It goes without saying (ça va sans dire) that calque is a good word to know.” Calque noun pl -s kalk Definition: : A word or phrase in one language that directly translates from a word or phrase in another language. Calques are also called loan translations. Calques,...
This holiday season we wish you not “no más” or “no more,” like the boxer, Roberto Duran, said to the referee when he unexpectedly called it quits during his fight with Sugar Ray Leonard in 1980, but more or más nitric oxide (NO). We’ve written extensively about...
“Inflammaging is highly dam-aging, which makes it disadvant-aging. By contrast, anti-inflammaging is salv-aging.” Inflammaging or Inflammageing (noun) in-fluh-mayg-ing Definition: : an age-related increase in systemic chronic inflammation. Example sentences:...
The brain. The incredible, amazing, fantastic brain. It is from this relatively minute organ, these 3 pounds of jelly suspended in utter darkness and cerebral fluid that all thought, reason, decision-making and consciousness arise. The three main parts of the human...
According to the uber-quotable Elon Musk, “Physics is the law, everything else is a recommendation. Anyone can break laws created by man, but I am yet to see anyone break the laws of physics.” Until 2010, another inviolate law belonged to that of Eroom, which, as we...
“No one is immune to the EpicentRx Word of the Week.” Immunotherapy plural -ies Definition (noun): : a treatment for diseases like cancer that involves the stimulation of the immune system. i-myu-no-ther·a·pee Immunotherapeutic Definition (adjective): : related to a...
Wives’ Tales are unscientific and unsubstantiated pieces of advice akin to superstition. Not all of them are necessarily untrue, however. A case in point is chicken soup for the treatment of colds. Believe it or not, several studies demonstrate that chicken soup...
Quiet quitting, lying flat, acting your wage, Bare Minimum Mondays, Work Not Wednesdays—these are all buzzy catchphrases making the rounds on social media that encourage employees to slack off and “phone it in,” which is literally possible because of video call apps...
“-Oma is the grandmother of all suffixes.” -Oma plural -omas also -omata Definition (noun suffix): tumor, mass, or growth. (In German Oma is a noun that means grandmother.) Example words: Adenoma, hematoma, fibroma, sarcoma, fibroma, carcinoma, melanoma, lymphoma....
“Let’s talk turkey.” “Time to squash a rumor.” “Don’t be a jerky and blame it all on the turkey.” Q: “Does turkey on Thanksgiving really make you sleepy? If so, I don’t want to eat it anymore.” E.B. from Saratoga, California A: Not a phan of tryptophan, eh, E.B.?...
The Pilgrims came to America in 1620 in search of religious freedom. The Second Pilgrims were those that migrated to clinical trials—the first ever controlled clinical trial was led by Dr. James Lind in 1747 aboard the English ship, HMS Salisbury—in search of freedom...
“WOW is spelled the same backwards and forwards, which makes it an anadrome and a palindrome.” Ananym plural -s adjective ananymic Definition (noun): a name written backwards. Pronunciation: anay-nim Anadrome Pronunciation: a-na-drome plural -s Definition (noun): a...
The playwright and novelist, Oscar Wilde, wrote that “We have really everything in common with America nowadays except, of course, language.” Not to be outdone, Sir Winston Churchill described the United States and Great Britain as two nations “divided by the same...
The D.C. in Washington D.C. stands for District of Columbia, of course. But it also stands for “Darn Cold” as temperatures reached near freezing levels. Luckily for the attendees of the Society for Neuroscience Conference on November 15, Dr. Richard Gordon brought...
For illustrative purposes, below is an excerpt from a hypothetical patient chart note: “58 yr old well-nourished male patient, very poor historian, impressive chest X-ray, a fib, occult blood in the urine, +BS, dizzy, +++ SOB needs CABG and F/U.” It occurs to us that...
ZZZ-Zzzz-ZZzzz-snort-gasp-pause-snort-pause-zZZzzzZZ . . . Sound familiar? If so, you or someone you know—and more likely than not snorers will deny that they snore let alone gasp or pause because practically speaking they almost never wake themselves up only everyone...
Between them, AdAPT-001 and RRx-001/nibrozetone are potentially active against a range of “-itises,” literally meaning inflammatory diseases. These may include encephalitis, hypophysitis, carditis, pneumonitis, stomatitis, gingivostomatitis, parotitis, esophagitis,...
“Did you know that the Brits spell edema with an ‘o’?” “You say oedema, I say edema, let’s call the whole thing off.” Lymphedema noun lim·fuh·dee·muh Also called: lymphatic obstruction Definition: Localized tissue swelling from the accumulation of protein-rich lymph...
Tom Petty is known for several anthems. Among them are 'Free Fallin,’ 'I Won’t Back Down,' 'The Waiting,' 'Runnin’ Down a Dream,' 'Mary Jane’s Last Dance,' and our personal favorite, 'Don’t Come Around Here No More.' The song (and the trippy Alice in Wonderland-like...
Like Liam Neeson (LN) in the film Taken, Jeannie Williams, RN, has acquired a particular set of skills over a very long career, skills that she relies on time and again to hunt down bad actors. However, in Jeannie’s case, these bad actors are not found onscreen, but...
We humbly reiterate our request to the still and always magnificent Julie Andrews that she re-record the song, supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, as a public service announcement for the chronic medical condition called endometriosis. We propose the following lyrics:...
Not to be confused with a Sitz bath, a SITC bath refers to full immersion in the science of immunotherapy that occurred at the 2023 SITC annual meeting in San Diego, California. The trio of Dr. Anthony P. Conley from MD Anderson Cancer Center, and Drs. Tony Reid, and...
In a podcast interview with Rob Lowe on October 12, 2023, living legend and ex-Governator, Arnold Schwarzenegger, revealed that “In the ‘70s when I said I wanted to get into movies, all the producers and directors and studio executives and agents were saying to me,...
Trick or treat? 🎃 Halloween may have come and gone, but for lead Investigator Dr. Anthony Conley and his colleagues from MD Anderson Cancer Center, the answer is both. Dr. Conley et al. want to continue to treat with AdAPT-001 based on promising results in...
“Hippopoto what?!?” Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia noun hi-puh-paa-tuh-muhn-strow-suh-skwipt-a-lee-ow-fow-bee-uh Alternative pronunciation: fuhgeddaboudit Definition: : fear of long words Example sentences: “Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia means fear of...
In a Seinfeld episode titled “The Opera,” Kramer tells Jerry that “you're the nucleus. The straw that stirs the drink. You're the magliana!” Now we don’t know who or what a magliana is, but without a doubt, the straw that stirs the drink at EpicentRx is Meaghan Stirn...
On the day after Halloween, we ask “who’s the ghost with the most?” From our perspective, it’s not Casper, or the Ghost of Christmas Past, or Slimer (from Ghostbusters), or even Beetlejuice who makes that claim in the movie. No. Our answer, however campy or cheesy it...
Pharmaceutical cold supply chain management is a delicate dance that requires that temperature-sensitive pharmaceuticals i.e., medicines of a perishable nature are shipped and stored in a controlled environment. Examples include insulin, vaccines, and EpicentRx lead...
If there's something strange In your neighborhood Who you gonna call? Why, Ghostbusters, of course, as Ray Parker Jr. reminds us repeatedly in that song from the original ‘80s movie. Instead of shadowy, see-through apparitions, however, real-life ghosts take the form...
Poor oral health lessens survival from head and neck cancer (HNC). This is according to a pooled analysis of 2,449 HNC patients from 4 studies of the International Head and Neck Cancer Epidemiology Consortium published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute....
The medical term that perhaps best describes the term “broken heart” is congestive heart failure or CHF. At issue in CHF is the pump function of the heart, which cannot supply enough blood to meet tissue demands for oxygen. Fundamentally, this makes CHF a supply and...
“For the answer to what is cancer read this EpicentRx Word of the Week.” Carcinoma noun kaar-suh-now-muh Definition: : a malignant tumor of epithelial origin Carcinomatous adjective kaar-suh-now-muh-tus : related to carcinoma Example sentences: “The most common form...
Raise your hand if you think RRx-001 (nibrozetone) should wear a mask. Not to suggest that a real-life therapeutic agent like RRx-001 (nibrozetone) is in any way like the fictional heroes/vigilantes with alter egos from comic books, clearly it isn’t, but that said...
“Assume nothing. Question everything. Verify all.” “Always Zika the truth.” Q: “Now that it’s gotten warmer, how scared should I be of West Nile and Zika viruses when I visit the US?” MMC from Sweden A: OK, this is a 2fer. West Nile virus, originally seen in Africa,...
This Halloween amid all the ghosts, goblins, ghouls, spiders, snakes, skulls, and skeletons that you may encounter remember FDR’s admonition that “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” To that iconic, hope-bringing phrase, we would add, “and a lack of...
The title is itself a pun because NO stands for nitric oxide, a soluble gas that controls a huge number of critically important biological functions from vasodilation and platelet function to penile erections. The puns about NO in the scientific literature are...
I ❤️ [insert word or phrase]. These heart icons are so ubiquitous that we see them everywhere, for example on coffee mugs, T-shirts, and pens. Another use for this icon is we ❤️ RRx-001 (nibrozetone), and not just because how fantastic and fun it is to work with....
Inspired by the likes of Blade, Buffy, Van Helsing, and Abraham Lincoln (who weirdly dispatches bloodsuckers in an excellent novel and a movie) this Halloween we plan to dress up as Vampire Hunters. If vampires are a metaphor for diseases like cancer that feed off the...
The golden rule and central moral code from the first Top Gun movie are to “never, never leave your wingman”. Commander Rick “Jester” Heatherly delivers this lecture to reckless and headstrong Lieutenant Pete “Maverick” Mitchell after the latter flouts the rules of...
“Remember to always read the EpicentRx Word of the Week.” Anamnesis noun an-am-nee-seez Definition: memory; reminiscence a patient’s medical history Anamnestic adjective an-am-nes-tik of or relating to an anamnesis immunological memory Example sentences: “An...
The following is adapted from a presentation that Bryan Oronsky and Scott Caroen from the pharmaceutical company, EpicentRx, gave to the OneTri Conference over Zoom in Brisbane, Australia on October 3, 2023. The Imitation Game The tagline from a commercial by Doritos...
One of the most important chemists that you’ve probably never heard of is Stephanie Louise Kwolek (Polish: Chwalek), who invented polyparaphenylene terephthalamide, a stronger-than-steel and lighter-than-fiberglass polymer, which is popularly known as Kevlar®....
Imagine for a moment that the practically perfect in every way Julie Andrews decides to reprise her role as Mary Poppins and sing the following as a public service announcement (PSA): “It’s supercalifragilisticendometriosis. Even though the pain of it is simply quite...
“Supercalifragilisticendometriosis” Endometriosis noun en-doe-me-tree-O-sis Definition: the presence and growth of endometrial tissue in areas outside of the uterus Related forms: endometrioses plural endometriotic adjective Example sentences: “Endometriosis is a...
We understand that Galera Therapeutics is currently going through a rough patch after the FDA’s refusal to approve their anti-mucositis agent, avasopasem manganese, and we sincerely wish them well. Avasopasem, a superoxide dismutase mimetic, is the latest...
The last name of virologist, GI oncologist, and EpicentRx CEO, Dr. Tony Reid, MD, PhD is very on point. That’s because he’s an open book, and easy to Reid. By word and by deed, what Tony Reid wants almost as much as he wants anything is to eradicate cancer. He’s...
In the Lone Ranger, the Native American, Tonto, calls the fictional masked former Texas Ranger who fought outlaws in the American Old West, “Kemo-sabe.” To quote from Wikipedia, Kemosabe is “derived from gimoozaabi, an Ojibwe and Potawatomi word that may mean ‘he/she...
The saying, “you are only as good as the company you keep” also applies to therapeutics like AdAPT-001, an oncolytic adenovirus armed with a TGF-β trap. The company in this case is Dr. Anthony P. Conley, a dedicated and compassionate clinical investigator for whom we...