www.renalandurologynews.com JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021
Renal & Urology News 1
FROM THE EDITOR EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD Medical Director, Urology
Medical Director, Nephrology
Robert G. Uzzo, MD, MBA, FACS G. Willing “Wing” Pepper Chair in Cancer Research Professor and Chairman Department of Surgery Fox Chase Cancer Center Temple University School of Medicine Philadelphia
Kamyar Kalantar-Zadeh, MD, PhD, MPH Professor & Chief, Division of Nephrology, Hypertension & Kidney Transplantation UC Irvine School of Medicine Orange, CA
Nephrologists Anthony J. Bleyer, MD, MS Professor of Internal Medicine/Nephrology Wake Forest University School of Medicine Winston-Salem, NC
Urologists Christopher S. Cooper, MD Director, Pediatric Urology Children’s Hospital of Iowa Iowa City
David S. Goldfarb, MD Professor, Department of Medicine Clinical Chief New York University Langone Medical Center Chief of Nephrology NY Harbor VA Medical Center
R. John Honey, MD Head, Division of Urology, Endourology/Kidney Stone Diseases St. Michael’s Hospital University of Toronto
Csaba P. Kovesdy, MD Chief of Nephrology Memphis VA Medical Center Fred Hatch Professor of Medicine University of Tennessee Health Science Center Memphis
Stanton Honig, MD Department of Urology Yale University School of Medicine New Haven, CT J. Stephen Jones, MD Chief Executive Officer Inova Health System Falls Church, VA Professor and Horvitz/Miller Distinguished Chair in Urologic Oncology (ret.) Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine Cleveland Jaime Landman, MD Professor of Urology and Radiology Chairman, Department of Urology UC Irvine School of Medicine Orange, CA James M. McKiernan, MD John K. Lattimer Professor of Urology Chair, Department of Urology Director, Urologic Oncology Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons New York Kenneth Pace, MD, MSc Assistant Professor, Division of Urology St. Michael’s Hospital University of Toronto Vancouver, Canada
Edgar V. Lerma, MD Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine Section of Nephrology Department of Medicine University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine Chicago Allen Nissenson, MD Emeritus Professor of Medicine The David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA Chief Medical Officer, DaVita Inc. Denver Rulan Parekh, MD, MS Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Medicine University of Toronto Robert Provenzano, MD Associate Professor of Medicine Wayne State University School of Medicine Detroit Vice President of Medical Affairs, DaVita Healthcare Denver Robert S. Rigolosi, MD Director, Regional Hemodialysis Center Holy Name Hospital Teaneck, NJ
Renal & Urology News Staff
Editor Jody A. Charnow
Web editor Natasha Persaud
Production editor Kim Daigneau Group creative director Jennifer Dvoretz Production manager Brian Wask
Vice president, sales operations and production Louise Morrin Boyle
Director of audience insights Paul Silver National accounts manager William Canning Editorial director, Haymarket Oncology Lauren Burke
Vice president, content, medical communications Kathleen Walsh Tulley
General manager, medical communications James Burke, RPh President, medical communications Michael Graziani
Urgency Again Propels Medical Advancement
I
n 1928, Dr Alexander Fleming, a Scottish physician and scientist, accidentally discovered a substance with antibacterial properties produced by a mold called Penicillium notatum. He called it penicillin. For more than a decade after Dr Fleming published his findings in the British Journal of Experimental Pathology in 1929, the discovery that would become one of the greatest medical advances of the 20th century met with little scientific interest. Then World War II came along. Working with researchers from Oxford University in England who purified penicillin in 1939 and used it clinically for the first time in 1941, the United States — motivated to find a more effective treatment for wounds and illnesses in soldiers serving in the war — led a coordinated effort involving many scientists and multiple pharmaceutical companies to mass-produce penicillin.1,2 The effort brought penicillin out of the laboratory and into widespread clinical use, ushering in a new era in treating infectious diseases. Nearly three-quarters of a century later, urgency once again provided an impetus to turn research into clinical reality. This time, rather than a war, the motivation is a pandemic. A desperate need for a vaccine to prevent infection with SARS-CoV-2, the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19, catapulted messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine technology from the laboratory into primetime. In less than a year, pharmaceutical companies Pfizer/BioNtech and Moderna, under contract with the US government as part of its “Operation Warp Speed,” translated investigational technology into COVID-19 mRNA vaccines and completed clinical trials that led to emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration. A stunning achievement. If mRNA vaccines bring an end to the pandemic and demonstrate long-term safety and efficacy, they may bring about a new era in infectious disease prevention. Researchers and pharmaceutical companies may be encouraged to develop mRNA vaccines to prevent many other illnesses, including those for which development of traditional vaccines has been elusive, such as HIV. With mRNA technology, vaccines can be produced more rapidly compared with conventional vaccines, which typically use weakened or killed pathogens to induce an immune response. In addition, because of the way mRNA vaccines work, there is no danger of recipients contracting the disease the vaccines are designed to prevent. The COVID-19 virus likely will not be the last pathogen to cause a pandemic. If the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines fulfill their promise, governments and pharmaceutical companies will at least have a proven technology to address future emerging outbreaks. Jody A. Charnow Editor
Chairman & CEO, Haymarket Media Inc. Lee Maniscalco
Renal & Urology News (ISSN 1550-9478) Volume 20, Number 1. Published bimonthly by Haymarket Media, Inc., 275 7th Avenue, 10th Floor, New York, NY 10001. For Advertising Sales & Editorial, call (646) 638-6000 (M–F, 9am–5pm, ET). For reprint/licensing requests, contact Customer Service at custserv@haymarketmedia.com. Postmaster: Send address changes to Renal & Urology News, c/o Direct Medical Data, 10255 W. Higgins Rd., Suite 280, Rosemont, IL 60018. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of Haymarket Media, Inc. Copyright © 2021.
1. Gaynes R. The discovery of penicillin—New insights after more than 75 years of clinical use. Emerg Infect Dis. 2017;23(5):849-853. doi:10.3201/eid2305.161556 2. Quinn R. Rethinking antibiotic research and development: World War II and the penicillin collaborative. Am J Public Health. 2013;103:426–434. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2012.300693
