Source: United States Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND)
Senator Highlights North Dakota’s Contribution to Antibody Therapy Discovery
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND), member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, advocated for an expansion of service members’ access to comprehensive, non-invasive family planning and highlighted North Dakota’s contribution to antibody therapy at a hearing for Department of Defense nominees. The senator focused his questions on Dr. Lester Martinez-Lopez, nominee to be Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs.
“Fertility Awareness-Based Methods are natural pregnancy prevention approaches which enable women to avoid unplanned conception by observing and charting changes in one or more biomarkers. These methods have no side effects and are cost-effective, but currently, there is a lack of access to them at Military Treatment Facilities and TRICARE does not cover it. Will you commit to looking into adding Fertility Awareness-Based Methods to the options that our service members have when they’re doing their family planning?” asked Senator Cramer.
“If confirmed, I commit to you we need to look at ways to bring parity to reproductive health issues related to our service members. So yes I will be looking into those kind of issues,” answered Dr. Martinez-Lopez.
The senator then pivoted to the Department of Defense’s pandemic preparedness program, highlighting the work of Genovac, a North Dakota company, in advancing antibody discovery.
“The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) pandemic preparedness program was integral in lots of ways. It was particularly integral for antibody discovery programs and that of course led to a therapeutic to combat COVID. Now when we look back on that and as we look forward, we see that these therapies are the best defense, and maybe even the best offense, in combatting COVID and perhaps other viruses in the future. There’s a company in North Dakota, Genovac, that’s been leading and working with DARPA in antibody discovery. Through them, I’ve seen how fast we can respond and how quickly we can develop targeted responses to other viral threats. Do you agree we should be devoting as much if not more resources for therapeutic discovery and development? And then if you want to elaborate on what else can DoD be doing to prepare for future pandemics along these lines?” asked Senator Cramer.
“If confirmed, sir, I would love to keep being a proud member of that team that advances the science for the country and comes out with new solutions sets to the new problems we are going to be facing,” responded Dr. Martinez-Lopez.
Senator Cramer also invited Dr. Martinez-Lopez to Fargo, North Dakota to see ongoing, cutting-edge research firsthand.