Narrator:
0:00
Welcome to the MedEvidence Monday Minute Radio Show hosted by Kevin Gettings of WSOS St Augustine Radio and powered by ENCORE Research Group. Each Monday morning, Dr. Michael Koren calls in to bring you the latest medical updates with insightful discussions. MedEvidence is where we help you navigate the real truth behind medical research, with both a clinical and research perspective. So sit back, relax and get ready to learn about the truth behind the data in medicine and health care. This is MedEvidence.
Kevin Geddings:
0:30
Dr. Michael Koren joins me live here on the studio line. He's a big part of our family here at WSOS. He's a medical doctor, researcher and, of course, heads up the show at ENCORE Research Group. They do clinical testing, clinical trials, for leading-edge medicines that will be coming online here over the next several years. They have offices right here in St John's County near UF Flagler Hospital and you can learn more about trials you can participate in by going to ENCOREdocs. com. That's ENCOREdocs. com, and when Dr. Koren finishes I'll give you a phone number too, so that'll give you a little bit of time to get ready, to punch it into your cell phone so you can call and learn how you can participate. Dr. Koren, good morning.
Dr. Michael Koren:
1:12
Good morning, Kevin. How are you doing fine?
Kevin Geddings:
1:14
Doing fine. So you like whisking yourself to a hospital to go save a life. That's how we envision the life of a doctor.
Dr. Michael Koren:
1:22
I'm whisking, not to the hospital this morning, oh OK.
Kevin Geddings:
1:25
No, that's fine. So we want to talk about. You know, we always hear about when you all get together and there's all these medical conferences and the like and we learn about new things maybe a new Alzheimer's drug or something like that but how do you get all the information out about the stuff that I would imagine? Globally, there's always advances being made in medicine, right?
Dr. Michael Koren:
1:47
Yeah, they are constant advances to your point, and there is a lot of communication that happens in the scientific world, and that's a really good question, because we have different means by which we share information. So, for example, in the last 10 days I worked closely with Moderna, which is really a cutting-edge research company that is responsible for the COVID-19 vaccines, and they're working now on a lot of different projects. So, for example, I did an in-person meeting in Miami about 10 days ago where we looked at a new potential treatment for congestive heart failure, and it was really interesting because one of the insights that the company came up with was that there's a hormone called serolaxin that pregnant women make naturally. That seems to protect their heart and their blood vessels from possible complications during pregnancy, and scientists started to wonder whether or not that could help people with the condition of congestive heart failure. So we're now starting studies that look at using this Moderna product, which stimulates the body's own serolaxin, to see if it helps people with heart failure. So that's one interesting example of how we look at biology look at insights from biology and then develop a new product and then, more broadly, how the information about this gets disseminated all around the world, including here in Northeast Florida, so that was kind of cool. And then over this past weekend we did a virtual meeting, which was based in Chicago, which I attended virtually. That's looking at the latest and greatest with the new flu-COVID vaccine combinations. So, as we know, flu shots save lives, covid shots save lives, but there is an inconvenience factor when you have to take multiple shots multiple times during the year. So the goal now is to create a shot that combines these things. That will perhaps be a once yearly vaccine to protect vulnerable people. So that was also really, really exciting. And the other part of that is just the advances in this now Nobel Prize winning technology. As you and I talked about last week, Kevin of the messenger RNA technology was awarded the Nobel Prize this year, and it's just getting better and better. So now the newest vaccine will just have a little snippet of RNA that's so incredibly specific for the key spike protein that you're not even putting a full RNA in your body. So I thought that was fascinating. And so how neat is that to be part of this oldest cutting age research? I personally love it.
Kevin Geddings:
4:21
Yeah, and it seems to be happening at breakneck speed, right.
Dr. Michael Koren:
4:27
Absolutely yeah. The way information disseminates these days, it's hard to keep up with.
Kevin Geddings:
4:34
Yeah, I would imagine back in the day, if you will, if you go back 20, 25 years physicians like yourself, specialists in cardiology like yourself you would wait for some sort of journal from your professional medical association. You might read and then learn about what was being done. Now, of course, it's all digital and it's online, probably pops up on your phone, right.
Dr. Michael Koren:
4:57
Yeah, exactly. Yeah absolutely yeah, you're going back to the really old days when, when Sir Isaac Newton was publishing his results, we had scientists in the colonies that couldn't wait to get their journals come by ship. And you know, back in those days, people literally were waiting at the docks for medical information. And now, just your point, we get it in seconds.
Kevin Geddings:
5:21
Yeah, no, it's. It's amazing speaking of this kind of information, they'll vary latest in terms of the progress that we're making in medicine. A good source for that kind of information is the MedE vidence website. Talk to us briefly, Dr. Koren, about that website.
Dr. Michael Koren:
5:37
Sure MedE vidence is our platform to disseminate useful medical information in a format that we called the truth behind the data, and there's so many competing claims out there that it makes your head spin. So how do you understand all these competing claims? And we help you do that on MedE vidence with a number of different techniques. One of them is just having two physicians talk about a medical issue so you can glean insights from our conversation. Others are sort of quick hits, where we go over the the risk and the benefit of different medical, different medical concepts or treatments or or interventions. And then the other point is who you are, because who you are certainly influences whether or not a particular medical breakthrough is relevant for you. So we try to help people understand this relatively complex world as simplistic as possible and in a conversational style which is more appropriate for people so they can decide if it applies to them.
Kevin Geddings:
6:36
Yeah, absolutely it's worth checking out MedE vidence. com. MedE vidence. com. We hear from our listeners all the time about how confused and how often it's hard to get good information from Dr Google. Just doing a Google or a Bing search, you know. Try getting some information from a source you can trust. Go to MedE vidence. com. That's MedE vidence. com. If you'd like to participate in some of this leading edge medical research that we talk about here on Monday mornings, call ENCORE Do cs right here in St. Augustine and St. Johns County. 904- 730- 0166. Dr. Koren, enjoy the fall like weather. Huh, you like this?
Dr. Michael Koren:
7:18
I'm loving it, Kevin.
Kevin Geddings:
7:19
All right, we'll talk to you next week. Thanks, doc. Okay, be well.
Narrator:
7:23
Thanks for joining the MedE vidence podcast. To learn more, head over to Med Evidence calm or subscribe to our podcast on your favorite podcast platform.
