Podcast appearances and mentions of Natalie E Dean

Twitter can be cacophonous at times – one a given day, serious analysis of the situation in Afghanistan, news stories about climate change, and Parry Gripp's Music for Cat Piano Volume 1 can all compete for a user's attention. This has only become more clear during the COVID 19 pandemic as it seems almost everyone is tweeting about the disease, with varying levels of expertise. However, there have been some experts who've been able to tweet through the noise, we'll talk with one of them on this Royal Statistical Society edition of Stats and Stories with guest Natalie E. Dean. Dr. Natalie Dean (@nataliexdean) is an assistant professor in the Department of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics at Emory's Rollins School of Public Health. She received her PhD in Biostatistics from Harvard University, and previously worked as a consultant for the WHO's HIV Department and as faculty at the University of Florida. Her primary research area is infectious disease epidemiology and study design, with a focus on developing innovative trial and observational study designs for evaluating vaccines during public health emergencies. She has previously worked on Ebola, Zika, dengue, chikungunya, and now COVID-19. She received the 2020 Provost Excellent Award for Assistant Professors at the University of Florida. In addition to research, she has been active in public engagement during the COVID-19 pandemic. She is verified on Twitter with over 100k followers and has authored pieces in outlets such as the Washington Post, New York Times, and Stat News.

A vaccine for COVID seems to be (almost) here... or is it? What's hype/ what's real beyond the headlines (and beyond the press release), when it comes to the announcement earlier this week from Pfizer and BioNTech that their vaccine candidate was found to be more than 90% effective in preventing COVID-19? Of course, this was just the first interim efficacy analysis -- so how close or far are we? What's the significance of the readout and case numbers? How do we put this (and related approaches, like Moderna's) in context of all the other (458!) programs in development? And how much should/ shouldn't we read into this news?After all, it's "difficult to evaluate science via press release", as some say. So in this episode of 16 Minutes with a16z bio general partners Vineeta Agarwala and Jorge Conde in conversation with Sonal Chokshi, we break it all down: the math, the science, and the practical considerations -- from "vaccine efficacy" vs. efficiency, from cold chains to distribution, from patients to the system... as well as from the past, to present future of, vaccines.references and readings cited in this episode:BioCentury.com/coronavirus, COVID-19 therapies and vaccines: Clinical; COVID-19 therapies and vaccines: Preclinical; COVID-19 Clinical Trial Dashboard, November 2020"Vaccine Efficacy 101: A biostatistician's primer", Natalie E. Dean, Twitter, September 2020"Understanding COVID-19 vaccine efficacy", Marc Lipsitch and Natalie E. Dean, Science, November 2020"Covid-19 vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech is strongly effective, early data from large trial indicate", Matthew Herper (with Helen Branswell), STAT, November 2020"A Framework for Equitable Allocation of Vaccine for the Novel Coronavirus", National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, October 2020 [report highlights pdf] [full report web preview]"I was part of a trial for Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine. It’s a miracle for genetic medicine.", Walter Isaacson, Washington Post, November 2020"On Vaccines and Vaccinology, in COVID and Beyond", with Rajeev Venkayya & Jorge Conde, a16z Podcast, August 2020

Pfizer has good news about a potential COVID-19 vaccine. Here’s what you need to know. Meet the man who went viral over the weekend for interrupting a French newscaster. And high fashion scratch-and-sniff t-shirts; plus a brief history of the technology that enabled them.Sponsor:Gabi Insurance, gabi.com/kottkeLinks:Vaccine efficacy 101 (Natalie E. Dean, PhD, Twitter) Biden's Plans for Halting the Unchecked Spread of Covid-19 in the US (Kottke)Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine is more than 90 percent effective in first analysis, company reports (Washington Post)Pfizer Vaccine Is 90% Effective, Study Says (Buzzfeed News)Temper expectations re: vaccine (James Ball, Twitter)Meet Meka Anyanetu, Aka 'Omelette Du Fromage' Man (Forbes)What in the World Is a $590 Scratch-and-Sniff T-shirt Doing in 2020? (NY Times)Kottke.OrgJackson Bird on Twitter

Ron & Natalie discuss the current status of the Coronavirus pandemic, what we can expect in the next few weeks, and the steps we need to take to get out of the crisis.

Yesterday, New York City announced that it would provide 140,000 free antibody tests to residents who want to know if they have been exposed to the coronavirus. And New York isn’t alone: large-scale antibody testing is ramping up around the country. But with faulty tests flooding the market and questions about whether a positive test really confers immunity are antibody tests really worth the bother? Guests: Shannon Palus, staff writer for Slate, and Dr. Natalie E. Dean, assistant professor of biostatistics at the University of Florida. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Yesterday, New York City announced that it would provide 140,000 free antibody tests to residents who want to know if they have been exposed to the coronavirus. And New York isn’t alone: large-scale antibody testing is ramping up around the country. But with faulty tests flooding the market and questions about whether a positive test really confers immunity are antibody tests really worth the bother? Guests: Shannon Palus, staff writer for Slate, and Dr. Natalie E. Dean, assistant professor of biostatistics at the University of Florida. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Yesterday, New York City announced that it would provide 140,000 free antibody tests to residents who want to know if they have been exposed to the coronavirus. And New York isn’t alone: large-scale antibody testing is ramping up around the country. But with faulty tests flooding the market and questions about whether a positive test really confers immunity are antibody tests really worth the bother? Guests: Shannon Palus, staff writer for Slate, and Dr. Natalie E. Dean, assistant professor of biostatistics at the University of Florida. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices