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HPH Weekly: The cutting edge of CRISPR is in Nigeria

Filed Under

Newsletter

Written by

Jo Zhou

Published

August 1, 2024

Read Time

2 min

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The cutting edge of CRISPR is in Nigeria

Christian Happi wearing an embroidered white lab-coat enters a dry lab through a set of clear double-doors at ACEGID. — Tom Saater

Molecular biologist and genomicist Christian Happi diagnosed the first case of Ebola in Nigeria, in 2014. His quick work helped save his country from the epidemic seen elsewhere. Now, Happi is using the gene editing technology CRISPR to try to find diseases like Lassa fever, Ebola, and Mpox before they spread. The tech comes with huge potential to improve public health but faces significant challenges.

A new book captures 12 Profiles of people living with mental illness

Book cover: “Profiles in Mental Health Courage” by Patrick Kennedy and Stephen Fried. Text is in light and navy blue. Background is beige. — Book cover: Dutton

In Profiles in Mental Health Courage, journalist Stephen Fried and former congressman Patrick J. Kennedy tell the stories of a group of people with diverse mental illnesses. The individual narratives are moving, but what they reveal is damning: the U.S. mental health system is a broken mess that continually lets people down.

Adopt-A-Mom wants to eliminate pregnancy disparities in North Carolina

Pregnant Black woman with long curly hair stands in a kitchen and looks out a window. Her hands rest on her belly. — shurkin_son / Adobe Stock

When health officials in Guilford County, North Carolina detected racial and insurance-based inequities in maternal care, the county sought to change outcomes with Adopt-A-Mom. Marielle Argueza highlights the county’s solution in a story originally published by The 19th and Triad City Beat in partnership with Next City.