Training Elite Athletes: 50 Years of Thinking About Practice and Research for Endurance Sports.

This essay summarizes and integrates my experiences and observations-starting in the middle 1970s-as an athlete, scientist interested in human performance, biomedical researcher, and "expert," who sometimes advises athletes, coaches, and sports policy-makers. In this context, my focus has been primarily on endurance sports and five concepts underpin what I have learned over the last 50 years. (1) The "competitive significance principle" whereby athletes, coaches, and policy-makers are frequently interested in performance improvements of 1% or less.

Evidence on sex differences in sports performance.

Sex differences in sports performances continue to attract considerable scientific and public attention, driven in part by high profile cases of: 1) biological male (XY) athletes who seek to compete in the female category after gender transition, and 2) XY athletes with medical syndromes collectively known as disorders or differences of sex development (DSD). In this perspective we highlight scientific evidence that informs eligibility criteria and applicable regulations for sex categories in sport. There are profound sex differences in human performance in athletic events determined by strength, speed, power, endurance, and body size such that males outperform females.

The Safety Profile of COVID-19 Convalescent Plasma.

Despite concerns about potential side effects, based both on historical experience with plasma products and more recent concerns about contemporary use of plasma, COVID-19 convalescent plasma has been shown to be a very safe product. Research early in the COVID-19 pandemic documented-among the very large population of convalescent plasma recipients in the US Convalescent Plasma Study component of the FDA-authorized Expanded Access Program-that the overall risk profile was no different than that seen for fresh frozen plasma, a product used routinely in medical practice. The safety of CCP was further demonstrated using real-world evidence, pragmatic trials, and formal randomized trials.

Using Passive Antibody Therapies in the Next Pandemic.

The twenty-first century has witnessed seven human viral pandemics. Approximately once every three to four years over the past quarter-century, the world has experienced a new viral epidemic that expanded well beyond its original national borders to become a pandemic. The probability that another pandemic caused by a previously unknown agent will occur in the near future is thus very high and public health agencies must prioritize mechanisms for detecting their first signals.

Human Papilloma Virus Circulating Cell-Free DNA Kinetics in Cervical Cancer Patients Undergoing Definitive Chemoradiation.

Purpose: The human papillomavirus (HPV) is a significant cause of cervical cancer. We hypothesized that detecting viral cell-free HPV DNA (cfDNA) before, during, and after chemoradiation (chemoRT) could provide insights into disease extent, clinical staging, and treatment response.

Experimental Design: Sixty-six patients with locally advanced cervical cancer were enrolled between 2017 and 2023.