Love biotech, love your heart

Happy Valentine’s Day! On the day celebrating love—during American Heart Month—we look at new cardiovascular research and innovations that make us love biotech. Enjoy your chocolate today—because climate change is coming. (522 words, 2 minutes, 36 seconds)

American Heart Month: 5 reasons to love biotech

As we mark Valentine’s Day and American Heart Month, our thoughts turn to love—and the number one killer, cardiovascular disease. Here are five things to know about heart health and biotech innovations for heart disease. 

1. A broken heart is more dangerous than you think,explains Bio.News. Takotsubo cardiomyopathy, or “broken heart syndrome,” is apparently caused by a surge of stress hormones, like adrenaline, which can stun the heart. While there are no specific treatments (yet), researchers are exploring prognostic biomarkers.

2. Patients are often reluctant to take statins, which lower cholesterol—but a new enzyme, bempedoic acid, inhibits cholesterol biosynthesis and acts only in the liver, has the potential to reduce side effects. Studies are underway.

3. Another approach to controlling “bad” cholesterol: inhibiting the PCSK9 protein. While intravenous treatments are effective, Merck is now in phase 3 clinical trials with a pill, which would be even easier for patients to take. (Merck’s Joerg Koglin, M.D, told us about it.)

4. CRISPR is coming. Researchers edited the genes in the hearts of mice using CRISPR Cas9 technology to repair the damage caused by a heart attack.

5. Another win for COVID vaccines:The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports the bivalent mRNA COVID-19 vaccine appears to prevent COVID-related thromboembolism (blood clots) among high-risk patients, over 65 or with late-stage kidney disease. (Another reason to stay up to date on your vaccines.)

Did you know? Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in women. During American Heart Month, the CDC encourages everyone—especially women—to focus on their heart health and learn about the warning signs of heart disease.

Climate change comes for our chocolate

The cost of showing your love on Valentine’s Day has gone up, as climate change makes chocolate more precious than ever.

What’s happening: Extreme rain followed by an extreme dry season hit Ghana and Ivory Coast, which produce 60% of the world’s cocoa, causing the highest prices in about 50 years. Current prices are more than $5,500 a ton.

While agricultural shortages usually encourage more production, driving prices back down, farmers can’t simply grow more chocolate if the climate isn’t behaving, Bloomberg reports.

Other crops could be next: “Volatility is increasingly common as frequent droughts or heavy rains hit production, especially for crops with restricted growing locations,” warns Bloomberg. “Some key regions are already becoming too hot or too dry for what they typically cultivate.”

We urgently need climate solutions. Sure, pricier chocolate is bad, but food staples we rely on to survive are under threat, too.

What biotech’s doing:increasing farm productivity despite changing weather through gene editing to make more productive and drought-tolerant crops, reducing food loss, improving nutrition, and helping livestock withstand the heat. In the long term, biotech can reduce factors that drive climate change.

Supportive policy needed: BIO has been pushing for improved regulation that enables innovators to tackle climate challenges. BIO also advocates for passage of a five-year Farm Bill, which can address many BIO priorities.

President Biden’s Wednesday: No public events scheduled.

What’s Happening on Capitol Hill: Representatives of patient groups are among witnesses scheduled to testify at the Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee hearing, Legislative Proposals to Support Patients and Caregivers.