INTERVIEWS

Angela Mickalide, PhD, MCHES, Vice President, Programs & Education, American College of Preventive Medicine discusses her involvement in the Vaccine Confident Campaign, which addresses the rampant misinformation that led to fear and hesitation regarding the COVID-19 vaccine and a dramatic decline in routine vaccinations nationwide, and that is currently being presented at the 2022 Art & Science of Health Promotion Conference. 

Dennis Urbaniak, Executive Vice President of Digital Therapeutics at Orexo, a pharmaceutical and digital therapeutics company that addresses the unmet needs in the mental health and substance use space, discusses Deprexis ®, a fully automated digital therapy to help manage symptoms of chronic or recurrent depression or depressive disorders for patients aged 18 and older. Deprexis ®, which is supported by artificial intelligence to tailor delivery based on patients’ progress and specific needs, is software that successfully provides cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)-based content and other effective psychotherapeutic-based techniques against depression. 

Irwin Stromeyer, Owner, Sterile Space Infection Defence, LLC, discusses biopreparedness, the current ‘twin-demic’ of COVID and FLU or ‘Flurona’, and strategies on how to protect oneself from getting these viruses. 

Dr. Amy Peterson, MD, President and Chief Operating Officer at CytomX Therapeutics, Inc. discusses its Probody ®  therapeutic platform and pipeline to destroy cancer, differently – designing biologic therapies to preferentially engage and kills cancer cells, not  healthy cells, thanks to an ingenious gatekeeping mechanism that masks a therapeutic’s binding site until it is conditionally activated and removed by conditions common to the tumor microenvironment.  She also talks about the company’s clinical-stage research programs  and their leadership in the growing space of conditional activation therapy in oncology.  

In this interview, Dr. ​Vivek ​Shah​, MD, Director of ​​Outpatient Arthroplasty in the Department of Orthopedics and a member of the faculty at Harvard Medical School talks​ about his recent research ​”​Clinical Outcomes and Survivorship of Distal Femur Replacements Using Cemented versus Cementless Femoral Stems​”​ and ​”​Optimizing Spinal Anesthesia Formulation In Same Day Discharge Total Joint Arthroplasty Patients: Mepivacaine vs Ropivacaine​”​ which was recently presented at the 2022 American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons Annual meeting.​ ​

Jennifer Lewey, M.D., MPH, and Go Red for Women volunteer talks about how nearly 45% of women in their twenties and up are living with some form of cardiovascular disease and less than half of U.S. women have good heart health as they enter pregnancy. In fact, pregnancy-related deaths in the U.S. are rising at an alarming rate, and racial and ethnic disparities in pregnancy-related mortality are significant. It’s vital that women are healthy before, during, and after their pregnancy, as improved heart health before pregnancy can reduce their medical risks later.   The American Heart Association is implementing the second year of the Millions Honoring Moms campaign, recognizing the role that moms play in our lives by raising critical funds all throughout May.

Starting May 1, every online donation to the American Heart Association and American Stroke Association will be matched up to $500,000 thanks to the generosity of Valerie and Lee Shapiro. Donors will also be able to send a digital card to a special mom in their life letting them know a special donation was made in their name. #MomsAreWhy

Please direct to www.GoRedforWomen.org/Moms for the donate link.

Agnieszka Sekula and Dr. Prash Puspanathan, co-founders of Enosis Therapeutics, an Australia-based medical technology and psychedelic research company, formed to advance experiential design in psychedelic-based treatment by leveraging virtual reality’s unique, state-altering properties, discuss the publishing of their first academic paper examining the synergistic applications of VR technology and psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy addressing new ways to explore how clinicians and researchers are thinking about therapeutic environments and overcoming barriers that may obstruct existing psychedelic protocols. 

Returning guest, Dr. Jeff Stark, Head of US Medical Immunology at UCB, discusses new long-term complete skin clearance data for bimekizumab in the treatment of moderate to severe plaque psoriasis in adults that was presented at the American Academy of Dermatology (AAD) Annual Meeting 2022. 

Kathryn Lowe, MD, FAAP, a pediatrician discusses the new American Academy of Pediatrics’ (AAP) first book “You-ology: A Puberty Guide for Every Body” (AAP April 2022) which offers a one-stop-shop, explaining what every body goes through, with cute illustrations. You-ology offers fact-based, age-appropriate information about the physical, social, and emotional changes ahead for kids. Helping kids understand what every body goes through in puberty breeds greater compassion and empathy all around.

Dr. Philip Tierno, Professor of Microbiology and Pathology at NYU School of Medicine discusses how air quality is now a priority in hospitals and rehabilitation facilities. He talks about airborne illnesses, how they spread indoors, and what can be done to prevent them from infecting others.