It will be 13 years this June since I have left a job teaching histology at the University of Belgrade to start internal medicine residency in Baltimore. And lo and behold, I am back teaching, sort of.

UMBC — University of Maryland Baltimore County to friends — is starting a graduate course on clinical trials. I will be helping out Wilson Bryan, the recently retired Director of FDA’s OTAT (aka “head of cell and gene therapy”), to design and run it. Maybe even do a lecture or two. The two of us talked briefly about the new course on a UMBC podcast, ⊕ This is also where I learned what my title would be. Graduate instructor, apparently. The amount of paperwork required was not commensurate with the title. Oh my, all that docusigning… which is out today.

The course will be an in-person/on-line hybrid, so even those not in the area — and it will be held at UMBC’s Shady Grove campus — may join this coming September. From what I understand, giving people who are not physicians the opportunity to learn about designing, running, and interpreting clinical trials is a rarity, so it will be interesting to see who shows up and where the discussion leads us.

So, 13 years… Different university, different subject matter, but how much could things have changed since then anyway?

A one-two punch today for the journal Science, which while not at the very top of my to-read publications is still the “S” in CNS and therefore, I guess, important.

Punch one: trying to be more woke than the Pope; punch two: actually being — and this should come as no surprise — quite bigotted in practice. Want to submit a paper from your gmail address, you foreigner? Off with yer head.

NB: I do think small-s-science has a noise problem and have written as much. But has playing whack-a-mole ever been a good solution for anything? Or should we change incentives by removing publication count as requirement for promotion in academia and — even more importantly — clinical medicine?

And in some positive news — can you imagine those still exist? — the US Food and Drug Agency has issued their draft guidance on decentralized trials (PDF download). America is playing catch-up with the UK in this regard, but better late than never!

Exploring the link between Sickle Cell, α-Thalassemia, P Falciparum Malaria and Burkitt Lymphoma in Africa

• Speakers: Sam Mbulaiteye, MBChB, M.Phil., M.Med.; Swee Lay Thein, B.S., F.R.C.P., F.R.C.Path., D.Sc., FMedSci
• Wednesday, May 10 2023, 12pm EDT
• Watch here

Diabetes Mellitus: Great Progress; Diabetes: The Marathon of Life

• Speakers: Douglas Melton, PhD; Courtney Duckworth, MD
• Tuesday, May 16 2023, 4pm EDT
• Watch here

Is Cerebrovascular Disease Ever Really Silent? Stroke, Small Vessel Disease, and Cognition

• Speaker: Rebecca F. Gottesman, MD PhD
• Wednesday, May 31, 2023 12pm EDT
• Watch here

The first good one is tomorrow!

Demystifying Medicine - How is the Brain Organized and How Does it Work?

• Speakers: Nelson Spruston, PhD, Janelia HHMI and Marcus Raichle, MD, Washington University
• Tuesday, April 4, 2023, 4:00:00 PM EDT
• Watch here

Ethics Grand Rounds: Is it Ethical to Appeal to Research Participants’ Altruism?

• Presenter: Beth Kozel MD, PhD Lasker Clinical Research Scholar, NHLBI Discussant: Alex Voorhoeve PhD Head, Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method, London School of Economics
• Wednesday, April 5, 2023, 12:00:00 PM EDT
• Watch here

Clinical Center Grand Rounds: From Bench to Bedside: A Translational Approach to Innovation in Research and Treatment of Perinatal Depression

• Speaker: Samantha Meltzer-Brody, MD, MPH, UNC Center for Women’s Mood Disorders, Department of Psychiatry University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• Wednesday, April 12, 2023, 12:00:00 PM EDT
• Watch here

Demystifying Medicine - Fat: Biology and Staying Thin

• Speakers: Aaron Cypess, MD, PhD, NIDDK, NIH and Kevin Hall, PhD, NIDDK, NIH
• Tuesday, April 18, 2023, 4:00:00 PM EDT
• Watch here

A colleague once told me you were never really finished with a manuscript until you well and trully hated it — only then should you submit.

He was right, with a caveat: if you hated it at submission, however will you feel when it comes time for the umpteenth revision?

The Spectator has a profile of Nassim Taleb out today, and it is entertaining enough. E.g.:

Taleb had been busy. He had already published two papers since the new year, on statistical concepts that I asked him to explain to me as if I was five years old, to which he said, “you’re not five years old.”

Any of his 12 conversations with Russ Roberts would, of course, be a better use of your time. And as entertaining!

Thing I thought I’d never write about #2: bias. A brief commentary on unbiased methods, social and otherwise, is out today in Nature’s latest review journal, Nature Reviews Bioengineering.

Thing #1 was, of course, covid-19, but I broke that barrier earlier this year.

The Popperian Podcast:

Interviewing academics, professionals and other experts, The Popperian Podcast is a monthly podcast where Jed Lea-Henry looks into the philosophy and life of Karl Popper.

The latest episode, about medical discovery, pairs nicely with Against Method.

Today’s WaPo:

The Washington Post and KFF surveyed one of the largest randomized samples of U.S. transgender adults to date about their childhoods, feelings and lives.

There is, of course, no such a thing as a randomized sample. Samples are random, trails are randomized. Let’s not present opinion polls as high science.