Ryan Thrower, D.M.D., describes being the first dentist to administer a COVID vaccine on Dec. 16 and says the moment indicated “the light at the end of the tunnel.”

Derick Du Vivier, M.D., M.B.A., Kelly Gonzales, Ph.D., M.P.H., and Kalani Raphael, M.D., have been appointed to Oregon’s COVID-19 Vaccine Advisory Committee, which will provide guidance on the sequence through which the vaccine is given to various groups.

In a story about new strains of the novel coronavirus containing genetic mutations, Brian O’Roak, Ph.D., says “we haven’t had a national coordinated system in place to do (COVID genetic sequencing) at a high scale. Maybe now with the U.K. strain, it’s really a wake-up call for many out there in the public health world.”

Arona Inc., an OHSU startup company that is developing new blood clot therapies, is moving into a larger office in downtown Portland.

An Annals of Biomedical Engineering study co-written by Reid Wilson, M.D., describes a way to mimic conditions in intestines that provides mechanical model for the real-time growth of bacterial infections.

Former OHSU resident Molly Hubbard, M.D., is remembered as one of the victims of the Jan. 7, 2020, avalanche at Silver Mountain Resort in Idaho.

OHSU infectious disease specialist have toured the Oregon state Capitol, and found the Capitol Operations Safety Plan is “thorough and well-conceived.”

OHSU lent the Umatilla County a freezer needed to story the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine so the county’s public health department could begin vaccinating locals.

Esther Choo, M.D., says social media has become part of many physicians’ daily duties and that online exposure creates “an incredible opportunity to correct misinformation and contribute to the conversations we need to have” about the pandemic.

A Phase 1 clinical trial evaluating an HIV vaccine candidate marks the first time a cytomegalovirus-based vaccine platform developed by Louis Picker, M.D., Klaus Frueh, Ph.D., and others at the OHSU Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute is being tested in people.