covid-19

How Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman solved the immune rejection problem with mRNA in 2005, spent 15 years ignored, then changed medicine during a pandemic.

Why long COVID symptoms persist for months: viral reservoirs, immune dysregulation, EBV, microclots, gut and brain changes, and what trials have found so far.

Machine learning can scan news and travel data for outbreak signals, forecast cases weeks ahead, and track viral genomes. It cannot say when the next pandemic starts.

How modified mRNA and lipid nanoparticles enabled rapid COVID-19 vaccine development, building on 30 years of foundational research by Katalin Karikó and others.

Vaccines taught the immune system to beat smallpox, polio, and measles, and a 2024 Lancet study estimated they averted 154 million deaths in 50 years. Yet hesitancy persists. Here is the immunology, the safety evidence, and the psychology behind refusal.

What decides how fast a disease spreads, how many people it kills, and which defenses work? The epidemiology of pandemics, from reproduction numbers to vaccines, with the 1918 flu and COVID-19 as test cases.