Mi­cro­cosm: The Cur­rent Is­sue

by Elio and Roberto

The house or­gan of the ASM, Mi­cro­cosm, is a highly in­for­ma­tive pub­li­ca­tion that is sent to all its mem­bers. It is pub­lished three times a year and is awaited with an­tic­i­pa­tion by its fans. The cur­rent is­sue (Fall 2020) is no­table for its fo­cus on vac­cines, hence this spe­cial men­tion.

Fig­ure 1. Front cover of the Fall 2020 is­sue of Mi­cro­cosm. Source: Elio Schaecter

The scope of the cov­er­age of this is­sue is im­pres­sive: it goes from tips on how to be an ad­vo­cate for vac­ci­na­tion to in­ter­est­ing bits of sci­ence. In­cluded are ar­ti­cles on a uni­ver­sal flu vac­cine, the quest for an HIV vac­cine, a schematic on the var­i­ous sci­ence plat­forms in vac­ci­nol­ogy, how to im­prove clin­i­cal test­ing, and a re­cap (by the ASM pres­i­dent) on ASM's ac­com­plish­ments dur­ing the cur­rent pan­demic. Also of­fered is a time­line of the his­tory of vac­cine de­vel­op­ment from an­cient times to the present. Here we learned that a hexa­va­lent vac­cine for in­fants has been ap­proved by the FDA. It is de­signed to pro­tect against diph­the­ria, tetanus, per­tus­sis, he­pati­tis B, po­lio, and in­va­sive in­fec­tion by He­mo­philus in­fluen­zae, no less! The kids will have to get one sin­gle shot!

We should note that the ed­i­tor-in-chief of Mi­cro­cosm, Stan­ley Maloy, is a friend of ours.