Recently, I came across this news release from the FDA, where as of April 2025, the agency declared it would be phasing out animal testing for monoclonal antibodies (man-made proteins meant to stimulate the immune system) and other drugs.

I’m writing this post after reading this article from the Harvard Gazette, which discussed how the first personalized gene therapy was developed for a newborn baby with severe CPS1 deficiency, a rare genetic disorder that causes buildup of ammonia in…

10¹⁴. It’s a large number – one hundred trillion to be exact. To put that into perspective, one year contains approximately 3.15 × 10⁷ seconds, so to get to 10¹⁴ seconds, that would take about three million years.

She sat with one leg folded on top of the other, her eyes fixated on a stack of square neon sheets of paper. I’ve seen her before – if not in class, then mostly at the library. Always with headphones…

The wind rustled the leaves on the tree branches that hung over my head as I walked down the circular, marble stairs. Suddenly, a sight made me take a step back – a squirrel.