This researcher is working on a fentanyl vaccine to curb overdoses and addiction
Washington, like the entire country, has been hit hard by fentanyl.
So far this year, King County has recorded more than 650 overdose deaths involving the synthetic opioid, which can be 50 times stronger than heroin.
650 is a devastating number but it’s actually down from a peak in 2023, when more than 1,000 people died from fentanyl-related overdoses in the county. The drop mirrors a downward trend that we’ve seen across the entire country…
But the crisis is still overwhelming many communities.
A biotech company called ARMR Sciences is hoping to solve at least one piece of this very complicated puzzle: Instead of reversing these overdoses, they want to stop them from happening in the first place... through a fentanyl vaccine.
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GUESTS:
- Dr. Colin Haile, a research associate professor at the University of Houston and he’s also one of the co-founders of ARMR Sciences.
RELATED LINKS:
- A Fentanyl Vaccine Is About to Get Its First Major Test | WIRED
- Scientists Create a Vaccine Against Fentanyl
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Libby Denkmann
Host, Soundside
Libby Denkmann joined KUOW in December 2021 as the host of the midday show Soundside. She’s a native Pacific Northwesterner who grew up in Redmond, graduated from the University of Washington, and covered local news as a producer and reporter with KIRO Radio.
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Maleeha Syed
Producer, Soundside
Maleeha is a producer on Soundside, a show that helps listeners get to know the PNW and each other. Before KUOW, she worked at Cascade PBS, first as a communities reporter and then as a podcast producer on shows like Northwest Reports and Your Last Meal. Before moving to Seattle, she worked as a reporter at the Burlington Free Press in Vermont, but is originally from San Antonio.
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