Barack Obama at his last press briefing with reporters, 2017: "I have enjoyed working with all of you. That does not, of course, mean that I've enjoyed every story that you have filed, but that's the point of this relationship. You're not supposed to be sycophants. You're supposed to be skeptics. You're supposed to ask me tough questions. You're not supposed to be complimentary, but you're supposed to cast a critical eye on folks who hold enormous power."

The concept of terraforming Mars seemed like science fiction to me before I met @erika_alden_d. It has been a pleasure to support the @Pioneer__Labs team as they build the roadmap to achieve this ambitious goal, and then begin to execute on the hard science, step-by-step.

Yesterday, we lost a cherished member of our family. We got Sunny at the start of our second term in the White House, and all of us – including our first dog, Bo – immediately fell in love. We also had trouble keeping up with her, for Sunny was a force of nature. Athletic and full of boundless energy, she leapt over the hedges on the South Lawn like they weren’t even there, chasing squirrels, birds and anything else that moved. And whereas the way to Bo’s heart usually involved a treat, Sunny was more interested in having us run around with her, roll on the floor with her, or have her belly rubbed for as long as we were willing. She loved the girls, even if they were pestering her when she was napping. She loved our team, and would often follow them around, helping them on the job. She was fiercely protective of Bo, who she rightly sensed wasn’t always as alert and attentive as she was. She had her eccentricities: other than Bo, she preferred people to dogs; she was a loud and sloppy drinker; and despite being a Portuguese Water Dog, she hated getting wet. But as far as our family was concerned, she was pretty much perfect, and for thirteen years, she would be by our side – always loyal, always sweet, always ready for adventure, still fiery and gorgeous till the very end of her days. We will miss her terribly, and imagine she’s with her big brother now, making sure he’s okay.

So impressive for a CEO of such a major pharma company to prioritize and emphasize the subtleties of study interpretation and analysis like this! @EliLillyandCo

As US Ambassador to NATO on 9/11, the first to call me to suggest we invoke Article 5 was Canadian Ambassador David Wright. Our allies came to our rescue that terrible day. I’ll call David this morning 25 years later to thank him and our great neighbor Canada once again!

If you were young in 2001, or weren’t even born yet, it can be hard to imagine what 9/11 felt like. The shock of that beautiful, cloudless morning. The heartbreak of the families whose loved ones were taken with such swiftness and cruelty. The realization that the forces of malevolence and violence were closer, and the future less certain, than we knew. But in the days that followed, we felt something else, too. Pride in the rescue workers who had rushed to the scene, and the passengers who had stormed the cockpit. Admiration for the men and women who left behind lives of comfort to serve their country. A deep resolve that nothing would break the will of a truly United States of America. Today Michelle and I are remembering those we lost that day, and those who made the ultimate sacrifice in the wars that followed. We pray for their families. And we hope Americans everywhere remember the true lesson of 9/11: that we can survive even our darkest days as long as we move forward as one nation and one people.

The AI field is going to “cure all diseases” in the next five years and then make the human race go extinct shortly thereafter. 😂

Developing medicines that could help save people’s lives is highly regulated & takes over a decade. Biopharma is cast as a villain despite painstakingly process w patients at the forefront. AI companies: “We believe our technology could end civilization in the next decade”

I asked my AI to solve this long-standing problem before you asked yours.

On the Lp(a)HORIZON pelacarsen results: 1. It is still prudent (and evidence-based imo) to obtain Lp(a) diagnostic testing once, ideally early in life. Knowing you are at high risk (~10% of general pop has Lp(a) > 70 mg/dL, which confers ~50% higher risk of ASCVD) should prompt TODAY what this trial called "risk-therapy optimization" in the months PRIOR to enrollment in the study. This means starting the full sweep of already approved CV risk modifying agents: statins, PCSK9i, antihypertensives, etc. This single trial result on Lp(a) perturbation does not negate the predictive value of Lp(a) dx testing 2. The HORIZON trial result definitely does NOT mean that human genetics defined targets 'don't work'. C'mon people, stop the hysteria. It just means that in a group of people with exceptionally well-controlled LDL, whose (very profound!) CV disease biology has already revealed itself as a heart attack / stroke / symptomatic PAD, lowering Lp(a) by 70-80% for a period of only 2.5-6 yrs, starting at an avg age of ~60, is not enough to significantly decrease the risk that the same biology rears its ugly head again. Many possible hypotheses remain 3. To all the investigators and pharma companies who have committed themselves to running CVOTs, applause and gratitude. These studies could potentially produce some of the most widely practice-changing and life-saving results most of us will ever see in a lifetime. Personally I remain optimistic about studies that will 'treat earlier and treat longer', especially for primary prevention. eg Lilly's lepodisiran (siRNA) trial ACCLAIM-Lp(a) includes a primary prevention arm

What would happen if Xi Jinping posted a map where 🇨🇳 has taken over all of East Asia, and Putin one of 🇷🇺 having absorbed all of Western Europe? It would have been seen as either insane or dangerous - or both.

The name Lake Ontario comes from the Wendat word Ontari’io, which, appropriately, means “the lake is beautiful, the lake is big”. The name is more than 400 years old, predating both the Confederation of Canada and the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America. We know that America is changing. Their trading relationships, their foreign policies, their national monuments, their hydronyms. Canadians also know that naming reality means calling it Lake Ontario – then, now and always.

We've got a revenue problem, and Republican tax cuts are the reason. From 1980-2000, revenue grew 7.1% per year while spending grew 5.7%. But after the Bush & Trump tax cuts and three Republican recessions, revenue growth was cut nearly in half. cbo.gov/data/budget-economic…

Since 1965, there have been 6 fiscal years when federal spending fell relative to the preceding year: 🔵1965 - LBJ 🔵2010 - Obama 🔵2012 - Obama 🔵2013 - Obama 🔵2022 - Biden 🔵2023 - Biden No Republican president in the last 60 years has cut spending vs. prior year.

Most PDB structures show one frozen conformation. But proteins are not static. New work from @stephanie_mul at @radialscience's @diffUSEproject reprocessed ~80,000 high-res PDB structures with qFit, recovering hidden conformational heterogeneity. Result: 60,000+ multiconformer models, the largest experimentally-derived ensemble dataset to date. Better fit to the data (lower R-free) in ~90% of cases. MD-based ensemble predictors are capped by simulation time and force-field accuracy. This dataset pulls real ensemble signal straight out of X-ray/cryo-EM data instead. Paper, code, data: thestacks.org/publications/q…

Happy 80th birthday to my friend George W. Bush! Your friendship—and that of your father and your entire family—has been one of the great gifts of my life. It has always reminded me that long before we’re politicians, we’re fellow Americans and, above all, human beings. And for the next month, I’m especially grateful to finally have someone older than me! Wishing you many more years of good health, happiness, and friendship. Our country is stronger when we remember that what unites us is greater than what divides us.

Love this re-imagining of America’s founding using Docs, Gmail, Calendar and more from @GoogleWorkspace. Really puts the history in version history :)

Anthropic's biggest advantage in drug development may not be access to model intelligence (becoming more widespread; more labeled biological data exists elsewhere) -- it may be access to capital The combination of both is particularly striking: many prior promising drug campaigns have been abandoned due to high cost of risk capital, and many prior 'tech industry' efforts lacked biopharma industry intelligence Personally think the effort is worth watching seriously, with optimism this time

To George and Laura, Bill and Hillary — we're grateful for your friendship, counsel, and devotion to this country. And to Joe and Jill, thank you for being on this journey with us.