COVID-19

Today's Highlight's Include: US expected to authorize mix-and-match COVID booster shots, White House details plans to vaccinate 28M children age 5-11, and Facebook is reportedly changing its name.

William Morice II, M.D., Ph.D., chair of the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology at Mayo Clinic and president of Mayo Clinic Laboratories, joins the "Answers From the Lab" podcast for his weekly leadership update with Bobbi Pritt, M.D. As cases of COVID-19 fall in some areas of the country and rise in others, Dr. Morice and Dr. Pritt review where the pandemic stands, and emphasize that now is not the time to let our guard down.

Topic's Include: Covid Queries: Altered DNA and microchips, Mayo Clinic Minute: Flu during a pandemic, and COVID-19 media only news briefing: Kids, COVID-19 and fall festivities / tips for staying safe.

Today's Highlight's Include: Walz to announce plans Friday morning to address hospital capacity, expanding COVID rapid testing, hospitals brace for an onslaught this winter, from flu as well as COVID, and Mayo announces urgent need for O+ and O- blood types.

It can be hard to know when to use a rapid at-home COVID-19 test and how to interpret the results. Dr. Binnicker reviews the pros and cons of these tests, and explains when you need to get tested by a lab.

In a newly published study, a team from Mayo Clinic’s Advanced Diagnostics Laboratory has developed a mass spectrometry-based assay that’s able to detect COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) pathogens from human proteins with, remarkably, 98% sensitivity and 100% specificity. This is the first assay of its kind that can detect viral antigens “directly from clinical specimens” such as nasopharyngeal swabs. Mass spectrometry is a sensitive technique used to detect, identify, and quantitate molecules present in a sample.   

Topic's Include: COVID-19 media only news briefing: What we know so far about post-COVID syndrome, Mayo Clinic Q&A podcast: The case for continuing COVID-19 precautions, and COVID queries: The speed of vaccine development.

Topic's Include: Breast Cancer Awareness: What experts want you to know about prevention, 50 Years of CT: then, now, and what’s to come, and Pfizer asks FDA to authorize covid-19 vaccine in young children.

William Morice II, M.D., Ph.D., chair of the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology at Mayo Clinic and president of Mayo Clinic Laboratories, joins the "Answers From the Lab" podcast for his weekly leadership update with Bobbi Pritt, M.D. In this episode, Dr. Morice talks about his participation in President Biden’s Global COVID-19 Summit and discusses the toll the pandemic has taken on countries around the world.

Topic's Include: COVID-19 Queries: Can I develop a COVID infection from the vaccine? Mayo Clinic Q&A podcast: Breaking down COVID-19 vaccine booster approvals, and day of thanks for Mayo Clinic staff Nov. 26.

Topic's Include: 3-D printed vaccine patch pioneered at UNC could revolutionize how we distribute vaccinations, Americans are getting Covid-19 Booster- no questions asked, and Tridemic? Minnesota doctors worry about flu season on top of pandemic.

This week on "Answers From the Lab,” William Morice II, M.D., Ph.D., chair of the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology at Mayo Clinic and president of Mayo Clinic Laboratories, is joined for his weekly leadership update by Jason Hipp, M.D., Ph.D., chair of Mayo Clinic’s new Division of Computational Pathology and AI, to discuss how artificial intelligence and other forms of clinical informatics have the potential to transform laboratory medicine and pathology.

The NIH has awarded $40 million to Mayo Clinic to develop a comprehensive biorepository as the source of clinical samples for long COVID research studies.