Browsing: First Opinion

I am a transplant surgeon, and my patients are getting younger. Many are in their 30s and 40s — adults whose organ failure can be traced back to childhood obesity. And obesity itself can be a barrier to transplant, compounding the crisis it created.

Unpacking from vacation a couple months back, I decided to give artificial intelligence a task. I paused folding my laundry, sat down with Claude, and asked it to analyze the entirety of my genome.

What would happen if you generated a new type of lab mouse whose brain was substantially human? Would they be really smart or somehow have a different consciousness?

Last week, President Trump welcomed Chinese President Xi Jinping to Washington for the first time in a decade. Tariffs, Iran, and rare earth minerals were among the issues that dominated their summit. But another arena of competition deserves Washington’s attention: biotechnology.

Twenty-five years ago, as the country still reeled from Sept. 11, the first of two batches of anthrax-laden envelopes were mailed from New Jersey to news media and congressional offices. All told, the letters caused 22 cases of anthrax disease, leading to five deaths; prompted considerable fear in the U.S.; and cost billions of dollars…

On Thursday, the Senate health committee met with Heidi Overton, nominee for commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration. When asked about her views on mifepristone, a key abortion medication, Overton danced around the issue.

Heidi Overton has been nominated to lead the Food and Drug Administration at a moment of significant opportunity, but also big challenges. Innovation in medicine has never moved faster, providing more ways for Americans to improve their health and for the United States to advance the health of its population. But the institutions that carry…

In late August, the Food and Drug Administration approved a new therapeutic for pancreatic cancer, daraxonrasib, developed by Revolution Medicines. This drug is for previously treated patients and represents a revolutionary new therapeutic to target KRAS inside pancreatic cancers, the most commonly mutated oncogene found in the disease. Having this mutation is a very bad…

There are more men sitting in my plastic surgery waiting room now than ever before. If I had to choose one word to describe the men I see today, it would be “influenced.”

I was 8 years old, sitting at dinner with my grandparents, watching Gong Gong’s face turn bright red after a few sips of yellow wine. He loved making me laugh, and though he enjoyed his drinks, I think he liked my reaction even more.