“Hot dog! It’s Q&A time!” “Do you relish an answer? Then read on”. Q: “What’s in a hot dog? And do I want to know?” A.J. from Saratoga, California A: Well, the good news, A.J., is that you don’t have to wonder. The label lists the ingredients in order from highest...
September 26 is/was the birthday of the late great Australian singer and actress, Olivia Newton-John, who died of cancer. Often duplicated but never imitated is the 1978 movie, Grease, that she starred in with John Travolta. Her character, Sandy, undergoes a radical...
“There’s gold in them thar hills”—California 1848 “There’s gold in them thar pills”—Denmark and Minneapolis, present day. In 1848 gold was discovered in California and craziness erupted as thousands rushed west to find their fortune. In 2021 the FDA approved...
“It is definitely nice-is to learn a word like lysis.” Lysis noun pl. Lyses l-eye-sis Definition: the process of cell destruction, breakdown, or disintegration the gradual ending of symptoms as opposed to a crisis Related forms: -lytic noun combining form :...
This headline and the accompanying picture from the Guardian caught our attention and made us laugh. US driver pulled over with huge African bull riding shotgun in car. Converted vehicle stopped in Nebraska with gigantic-horned Watusi bovine called Howdy Doody as...
File this under “only in Australia”. According to an article from the NY Post, a surgical team extracted a 3-inch-long, bright red, wriggling, parasitic roundworm known as Ophidascaris robertsi, normally found in carpet pythons, from the brain of a 64-year-old...
“Hey, hey, it’s Q&A”. “You asked and we answered”. Q: How do weight loss drugs from Novo Nordisk like Wegovy, Ozempic, and Rybelsus work? B.H. from Nashville, Tennessee A: Ozempic, Wegovy, and Rybelsus are all semaglutide. Wegovy is approved for weight loss, and...
“AI Is as Risky as Pandemics and Nuclear War, Top CEOs Say, Urging Global Cooperation”—TIME magazine “Artificial intelligence may lead humanity to extinction, industry leaders warn”—France 24 “The ‘godfather of AI’ says he's worried about ‘the end of people’”—CBC...
“Learn the Word of the Week—doctor’s orders.” Rx noun pl. Rxs ar-eks Definition: a doctor’s prescription an advisable course of action Example sentences: “EpicentRx is possibly one of the most innovative companies whose name ends in Rx”. “Nibrozetone (RRx-001) is...
What do all Bond supervillains from Auric Goldfinger to Hugo Drax, and Ernst Stavro Blofeld have in common? A: They are to a man sadistic, murderous, hand-rubbing megalomaniacs who have completely given themselves over to power-lust, greed, and genocidal fantasies of...
To the apparent consternation of many Americans, an FDA advisory panel has unanimously concluded that oral phenylephrine (PE), a common decongestant found in brands such as Sudafed PE, Vicks Sinex, Tylenol Sinus, and Benadryl Allergy Plus Congestion (but not Benadryl...
Ask Jeeves? Ask the Smithsonian? Ask ChatGPT? Ask Google? No, no, no, and no. Instead Ask EpicentRxTM in this monthly forum for personal, pithy answers from us, instead of a search engine or an AI bot, to burning questions with a medical, scientific, or pharmaceutical...
“Word up.” Epicenter noun eh·puh·sen·tr Definition: the part of the earth's surface directly above the point where an earthquake starts and where the shockwaves are felt most strongly. dead center or the point of concentration. Example sentences: “The epicenter of the...
One of the “catchiest” songs ever recorded is “Kiss on My List” by the best-selling duo, Hall & Oates. Certain to start an earworm if you grew up in the 80’s, here’s the chorus from the song: Because your kiss, your kiss is on my list Because your kiss is on my...
Shout out—pun intended—to the hyperverbal, hyperbolic, and all-around hyper college basketball broadcaster, Dick Vitale aka Dickie V who was diagnosed with laryngeal cancer and recently underwent treatment for it. Sidelined and instructed not to talk for four weeks,...
The James Webb Telescope captured a giant red question mark in space, shown in the image above, fueling speculation that we live in a giant computer simulation like the Matrix. Seriously. Or, rather, seriously? Yes, seriously. Aluminum foil hats, anyone? Besides...
The Day the Music Died was on February 3, 1959, when Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and “The Big Bopper” were killed in a plane crash, which Don McLean sings about in his iconic rock’n’roll dirge, “American Pie”. But the time the music died? Well, it was 5 o’clock...
Labor Day is an excellent example of an ironic oxymoron where we celebrate workers by not working. Another ironic oxymoron is “airline schedule” because since when are planes on time and this holiday weekend was no exception. Glass half full, we used the airport delay...
Is your life under threat? Is your back against the wall? Are you out of options and time? To whom—or what—to turn to for help? Whom to “McCall”? Well, if you are the target of murderous mafiosos like the two below from Equalizer 3, then vigilante and one-man army...
“The best lab for your vocab” Adscopal Definition: Adjective: Denotes the immune-mediated responses observed to date in remote noninjected tumor tissues after the injection of AdAPT-001, a TGF-β trap carrying adenovirus, in a single tumor. Not to be confused with...
Current treatments for diabetes include insulin, Glucotrol, Januvia, Metformin, Acarbose, Ozempic, Farxiga, Byetta, and potentially We Will Rock you by Queen. Also, potentially the soundtrack to the Avengers movie. Huh? Say again?? Ok, so diabetes is a disease where...
As Hurricane Idalia made landfall this morning along the coast of Florida’s Big Bend as a Category 3 hurricane, and Governor Ron DeSantis declared a state of emergency, we send our very best wishes to all residents, first responders, and linemen in its path and...
Now trending on X (Twitter): super blue moon. #SuperBlueMoon #Supermoon #BlueMoon And no wonder: pictures this incredible only happen once in a blue moon. Why blue? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Yeah, if anything, the color of the moon looks more reddish than blue. But the moon is...
Here are some historical dates forever etched in memory: July 4, 1776—American declaration of independence December 7, 1941—Pearl Harbor October 14, 1066—Battle of Hastings August 3, 1492—Columbus sets sail November 22, 1963—The assassination of John F. Kennedy...
“A word saved is a word earned” Financial Toxicity Definition: Noun (term): Describes the harmful effect of out-of-pocket healthcare expenses on quality of life for patients and their family members usually from cancer treatment. It is a potential side effect of...
Stop us if you’ve heard this one before: a tried-and-true cure for a hangover is _________. Insert hair of the dog, Gatorade/Pedialyte, Coca-Cola, coffee/no coffee, Red Bull, pickle juice, fruit, biscuits and gravy or burgers and fries, and liquor before beer, a...
Rates of head and neck cancer are dramatically on the rise because of infection with human papilloma virus (HPV) from open-mouthed kissing or snogging (otherwise known as deep or French kissing) and oral sex. The greater the number of sexual partners, the greater the...
“Word is Bond. James Bond” Mucositis For more information see the accompanying infographic on severe oral mucositis Definition: Noun: Mucositis or stomatitis refers to painful inflammation of the mucosa, the membrane rich in mucus glands that lines the mouth and the...
The three most important words in real estate are location, location, location. Perhaps the three most important words in endometriosis, a chronic, painful gynecological disease without a cure, are inflammation, inflammation, inflammation. A recent feature in the...
With the tech gladiator fight between Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg now reportedly off, let’s recap Round 1 of the much more significant and important battle between AdAPT-001 and refractory cancer that took place earlier this year. The Goliath in this case was/is...
“Take a peek at the Word of the Week.” ALS/MND Definition: Noun: A fatal motor neuron disease that involves gradual deterioration of voluntary muscle function. Symptoms include muscle weakness and paralysis, as well as difficulty to speak, swallow, and breathe. The...
On the surface, the big budget Barbie blockbuster and the overly ornate Oppenheimer opus, whose combined returns shattered box office expectations, are nothing at all alike. However, on a much, much deeper level, to where almost certainly no one else but us would ever...
In solemn commemoration of the 78th anniversary of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and Nagasaki on August 9, 1945, when the first nuclear weapons were detonated, let us strengthen our resolve to never ever again use them. As Einstein famously said, “I know not with what...
Just what is it about the algebraic letter X that serial entrepreneur and real-life X man, Elon Musk, likes so much? Hmm…let’s see…his son is named X Æ A-Xii, “X” for short and really thank goodness because how do you pronounce THAT???, one of his first ventures was...
“Mary, Mary quite contrary, please expand your vocabulary.” Radiochemoprotection or Chemoradioprotection Variation. Radiochemopretection or Chemoradiopretection Definition: Noun: A term to describe the prevention or mitigation of the harmful effects of exposure to...
The new International Nonproprietary Name (INN) for RRx-001 is nibrozetone (pronunciation: NA-ih-broh-tseh-TOH-uun). See blog post EpicentRx Word of the Week: NO and press release United States Adopted Name (USAN) Council and International Nonproprietary Names (INN)...
We recently talked to a hedge fund manager, an obsessed scratch golfer, let’s call him Bill, because of how pricey he is, about the EpicentRx anticancer therapy, AdAPT-001. He asked us to explain AdAPT-001 to him in the simplest language possible, and to keep the...
“Word to the wise” AdAPT-ed Definition: Noun: Education (ed) about the AdAPT platform of adenoviral vectors. Verb past tense: Designed for use as an adenoviral gene delivery vector. Example sentences: “Here is some AdAPT-ed (education): did you know that there are...
Forget about Aliens, Nightmare on Elm Street, the Omen, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Friday the 13th and Jaws. No, by far the scariest monster movie that we have ever seen is Christopher Nolan’s, Oppenheimer. The Frankenstein that the Los Alamos scientists cobbled...
“Entering Twitter HQ – let that sink in!” October 26, 2022 Give Elon Musk credit. Close to one year later, “let that sink in”, referring straightforwardly to the actual sink that Elon carries, and on a deeper level to his takeover of Twitter, is still one of the best...
"The meek shall inherit the... words of the week." SNO Definition: Abbreviation: SNO stands for S-nitrosothiol. This is an organic compound that contains a nitroso (-NO) group attached to a sulfur. Example sentences: “Nibrozetone (RRx-001) releases a “SNO storm” in...
As Shakespeare might have put it had he lived in 2023 amid the record-breaking heatwave that has gripped parts of Eastern Asia, Europe, and North America, “Now is the summer of our discontent”. Or, as Glenn Frye, founding member of the Eagles, famously voiced, “The...
Cisplatin (cis-diamminedichloroplatinum) plus intensity-modulated radiation therapy, also called IMRT, is the mainstay of treatment for head and neck cancer (HNC). In a randomized Phase 2 trial called PREVLAR, the addition of nibrozetone (RRx-001) to chemoradiation...
Necessity is the mother of invention, so the saying goes. Sometimes it is also the father. The father in this case is Dr. Tony Reid, previously the Primary Investigator (PI) on the first-in-human (FIH) clinical trial for nibrozetone (RRx-001) (see blog post entitled...
“The meek shall inherit…the Words of the Week.” NO Definition: Noun: A colorless gas and a stable free radical that nibrozetone (RRx-001) generates at extremely high levels in hypoxic/reductive environments. Example sentence: “NO laughing matter: NO, which stands for...
Ok, so that just happened. Elon Musk challenged Mark Zuckerberg to, ahem, a measuring contest. Well, not to wade headlong (or with another anatomical part) into this debate, but let’s just say, Mr. Musk, that size isn’t everything. Case in point: AdAPT-001. This is an...
This summer Barbie—and hot pink Barbiecore—are everywhere. And so is the plastic, recycled or otherwise, that the iconic Barbie dolls, dreamhouses, playsets, games, and pink convertibles are made from and wrapped in. With over a billion dolls sold worldwide and a new...
The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees the right to freedom of expression. (See blog post entitled, AdAPT-001 and the Bill of Rights.) AdAPT-001, a modified common cold adenovirus, which carries a transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-β) trap,...
“WOW (Word of the Week) your friends” Nibrozetone Definition: Noun: The international nonproprietary name (INN) for RRx-001. Example sentence: “Nibrozetone (RRx-001) plus a platinum doublet is under evaluation in a Phase 3 small cell lung cancer (SCLC) trial called...
Welcome back, everyone. We hope you enjoyed a fun and safe 4th of July. Did you know that the right to assemble in the name of fun, franks, fireworks, and fender-to-fender traffic this 4th was guaranteed not by the 1776 Declaration of Independence document but by the...