Vaccines, useless

I had a really nice dinner with Djimde from Mali and Eili, from Princeton/RFF. Then we went to the vaccine session and I wish I had gone the way of the clinicians, because none of them were there. The super-exciting vaccine news was um, yeah, it's complicated; hey I tested this irradiated attenuated version on myself and it seemed to work so now I expect to have it ready in 8 years; and something about the molecular chemistry of something where the binding site is opposite the polymorphic part means Sweet, we could try to make a vaccine out of this!

At least I know for myself that I could care less and of course I wish all the vaccine people the best of luck.

The conference, as promised, was really really good, and quite fun most of the time, and extremely useful. Of course I wish I had talked more with a few people in particular but sort of made up by the people I talked to anyway. Now it's back to the grindstone and I have a sheaf of documents to review on the plane, so the two (ok five) movies I brought with me will have to wait until, hm, maybe Thanksgiving to be watched.

I have to say, too, it's really nice being surrounded by highly motivated people, especially highly motivated Africans. Might be just the kick in the ass I need.