Lifeboat Foundation

Big biotech company Amgen Inc. is joining the race to discover new drugs that can treat the novel coronavirus, the latest drugmaker redirecting resources toward the pandemic.

Amgen, which is partnering with Adaptive Biotechnologies Corp. in the effort, is an unlikely hunter of antiviral treatments. The company, a pioneer of biotechnology, is best known for its drugs for cancer, with other products targeting high cholesterol, kidney disease and migraines.

What is Universal Basic Income (UBI) and how could it help us deal with the coronavirus outbreak? What if… we gave people free money?

The idea of a basic income is that everybody would receive a modest amount paid each week or each month without conditions, paid equally to every man and every woman with a smaller amount to pay for every child.

Continue reading “Coronavirus and the Case for Universal Basic Income | WIRED UK” »

Infectious disease

Protein mapping finds 69 potential treatments for COVID-19.

Many are FDA-approved drugs that could be repurposed.

Retired astronaut Chris Hadfield is spending lockdown searching for a better test for COVID-19, rewiring his stove, and talking to Euronews about what isolation means — and how to deal with it.

Dozens of other teams around the world have potential vaccines in development.

But the Pittsburgh research is the first study on a Covid-19 vaccine candidate to be published after critique from fellow scientists at outside institutions.

Continue reading “Potential coronavirus vaccine ‘generates enough antibodies to fight off virus’” »

Can we build a better world with the lessons learned around this pandemic?

There is discussion that globalism will give way to community resilience and local digital manufacture, storage and transportation to provide abundant resources for normal and unanticipated needs.

#CommunityResilience #CommunityResourceCentres

Continue reading “We aren’t just stopping coronavirus. We’re building a new world” »

Cells will ramp up gene expression in response to physical forces alone, a new study finds. Gene activation, the first step of protein production, starts less than one millisecond after a cell is stretched—hundreds of times faster than chemical signals can travel, the researchers report.

The scientists tested forces that are biologically relevant—equivalent to those exerted on human cells by breathing, exercising or vocalizing. They report their findings in the journal Science Advances.

“We found that force can activate genes without intermediates, without enzymes or signaling molecules in the cytoplasm,” said University of Illinois mechanical science and engineering professor Ning Wang, who led the research. “We also discovered why some genes can be activated by force and some cannot.”

The U.S. passed 1,000 coronavirus deaths in a single day Wednesday, a daily death toll more than double lung cancer and the flu.

Australian government scientists have begun the first stages of testing for a potential vaccine against the SARS CoV-2 coronavirus, which causes the disease COVID-19. Australia’s national science agency CSIRO said Thursday that testing at a biosecurity facility was expected to take three months. The testing is being undertaken in cooperation with the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), a global group that aims to help speedily develop vaccines against emerging infectious diseases.

Australia’s national science agency will test two vaccine candidates over the next three months. It is part of a global race to halt the coronavirus pandemic.