Lifeboat Foundation

China is seeing a high-tech greenhouse boom as food supply disruptions sparked by coronavirus lockdowns accelerated the development of modern farming techniques.

SHANGHAI, June 4 (Reuters) — At Chongming Island just outside Shanghai, China’s most populous city, workers collect and pack tomatoes and cucumbers at a glass greenhouse operated by Dutch company FoodVentures, which harvested their first batch of produce at the site in May.

The facility is one of dozens sprouting up on the outskirts of China’s megacities that utilise high-end technology to manage irrigation, temperature and lighting systems to grow vegetables within easy reach of a large and affluent consumer base.

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Shingles vaccination is the only way to protect against shingles and postherpetic neuralgia (PHN), the most common complication from shingles. CDC recommends that healthy adults 50 years and older get two doses of the shingles vaccine called Shingrix (recombinant zoster vaccine), separated by 2 to 6 months, to prevent shingles and the complications from the disease. Your doctor or pharmacist can give you Shingrix as a shot in your upper arm.

Shingrix provides strong protection against shingles and PHN. Two doses of Shingrix is more than 90% effective at preventing shingles and PHN. Protection stays above 85% for at least the first four years after you get vaccinated.

All plant cells obtain their energy mainly from two organelles they contain—chloroplasts (responsible for photosynthesis) and mitochondria (responsible for the biochemical cycle of respiration that converts sugars into energy). However, a large number of a plant cell’s genes in its mitochondria and chloroplasts can develop defects, jeopardizing their function. Nevertheless, plant cells evolved an amazing tool called the RNA editosome (a large protein complex) to repair these kinds of errors. It can modify defective messenger RNA that result from defective DNA by transforming (deamination) of certain mRNA nucleotides.

Automatic error correction in plant cells

Automatic error correction in plants was discovered about 30 years ago by a team headed by plant physiologist Axel Brennicke and two other groups simultaneously. This mechanism converts certain cytidine nucleotides in the messenger RNA into uridine in order to correct errors in the chloroplast DNA or mitochondrial DNA. RNA editing is therefore essential to processes such as photosynthesis and cellular respiration in plants. Years later, further studies showed that a group of proteins referred to as PPR proteins with DYW domains play a central role in plant RNA editing. These PPR proteins with DYW domains are transcribed in the cell nucleus and migrate through the cells to chloroplasts and mitochondria. However, they are inactive on their way to these organelles. Only once they are within the organelles do they become active and execute their function at a specific mRNA site. How this activation works, however, has been a mystery until now.

Most cases of Parkinson’s disease are considered idiopathic – they lack a clear cause. Yet researchers increasingly believe that one factor is environmental exposure to trichloroethylene (TCE), a chemical compound used in industrial degreasing, dry-cleaning and household products such as some shoe polishes and carpet cleaners.

To date, the clearest evidence around the risk of TCE to human health is derived from workers who are exposed to the chemical in the work-place. A 2008 peer-reviewed study in the Annals of Neurology, for example, found that TCE is “a risk factor for parkinsonism.” And a 2011 study echoed those results, finding “a six-fold increase in the risk of developing Parkinson’s in individuals exposed in the workplace to trichloroethylene (TCE).”

Dr Samuel Goldman of The Parkinson’s Institute in Sunnyvale, California, who co-led the study, which appeared in the Annals of Neurology journal, wrote: “Our study confirms that common environmental contaminants may increase the risk of developing Parkinson’s, which has considerable public health implications.” It was off the back of studies like these that the US Department of Labor issued a guidance on TCE, saying: “The Board recommends […] exposures to carbon disulfide (CS2) and trichloroethylene (TCE) be presumed to cause, contribute, or aggravate Parkinsonism.”

There are now several monoclonal antibodies, identical copies of a therapeutic antibody produced in large numbers, that are authorized for the treatment of COVID-19. But in the ongoing effort to beat this terrible pandemic, there’s plenty of room for continued improvements in treating infections with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

With this in mind, I’m pleased to share progress in the development of a specially engineered therapeutic antibody that could be delivered through a nasal spray. Preclinical studies also suggest it may work even better than existing antibody treatments to fight COVID-19, especially now that new SARS-CoV-2 “variants of concern” have become increasingly prevalent.

These findings come from Zhiqiang An, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, and Pei-Yong Shi, The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, and their colleagues. The NIH-supported team recognized that the monoclonal antibodies currently in use all require time-consuming, intravenous infusion at high doses, which has limited their use. Furthermore, because they are delivered through the bloodstream, they aren’t able to reach directly the primary sites of viral infection in the nasal passages and lungs. With the emergence of new SARS-CoV-2 variants, there’s also growing evidence that some of those therapeutic antibodies are becoming less effective in targeting the virus.-Dr Francis Collins.