Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog

Category: biotech/medical – Page 1,841

Democratic Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear announced Sunday that the state had set a grim record with 273 new confirmed cases of the coronavirus, the highest single-day rise to date. Kentucky’s increase in infected individuals comes after protesters took to the streets throughout the week to call for the state to be reopened.

With the 273 additional confirmed infections, Kentucky now has 2,960 cases of the novel virus and 1,122 recoveries. Beshear also announced four new deaths on Sunday, bringing the total number of fatalities across the state to 148.

“We are still in the midst of this fight against a deadly and highly contagious virus,” the governor said during his daily news conference. “Let’s make sure, as much as we’re looking at those benchmarks and we’re looking at the future, that we are acting in the present and we are doing the things that it takes to protect one another.”

Read more | >

👽 Giant Viruses : “Mimiviruses”

(Jan 2016)

Fyodor R., issue 3, refund institute

Biologist Didier Raoult is one of the leading experts in Microbiology, he is all over TV right now in France, providing leadership during this Covid outbreak of 2020.

👽 What are they?

Mimiviruses are so large that they are visible under a light microscope. Around half a micrometre across, and first found infecting amoebae living in a water tower, they boast genomes that are larger than those of some bacteria. They are distantly related to viruses that include smallpox, but unlike most viruses, they have genes to make amino acids, DNA letters and complex proteins.

Gigantic mimiviruses fend off invaders using defences similar to the CRISPR system deployed by bacteria and other microorganisms, French researchers report. They say that the discovery of a working immune system in a mimivirus bolsters their claim that the giant virus represents a new branch in the tree of life.

Continue reading “MIMIVIRE is a defence system in mimivirus that confers resistance to virophage” | >

The novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 is a newly emerging virus. The antibody response in infected patient remains largely unknown, and the clinical values of antibody testing have not been fully demonstrated.

Methods

A total of 173 patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection were enrolled. Their serial plasma samples (n=535) collected during the hospitalization were tested for total antibodies (Ab), IgM and IgG against SARS-CoV-2. The dynamics of antibodies with the disease progress was analyzed.

Read more | >

April 1, 2020

It was supposed to be an exciting time of next-gen science, where CRISPR gene editing was being used in the first series of human trials in the hope this tech could help cure a range of diseases.

But one of its proponents, CRISPR Therapeutics, has, alongside a growing number of biopharmas, admitted the spreading COVID-19 pandemic is starting to see it be “adversely affected.”

In a Securities and Exchange Commission filing Tuesday, the biotech said: “We are conducting a number of clinical trials for product candidates in the fields of severe hemoglobinopathies and immuno-oncology in geographies which are affected by the coronavirus pandemic.

Read more | >

Circa 2015. The nature publishing has since been pulled down, but I am looking for it. I think I downloaded the pdf.

Infectious-disease researcher at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, last week (November 9) published a study on his team’s efforts to engineer a virus with the surface protein of the SHC014 coronavirus, found in horseshoe bats in China, and the backbone of one that causes human-like severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in mice. The hybrid virus could infect human airway cells and caused disease in mice, according to the team’s results, which were published in Nature Medicine.

Update (March 11, 2020): On social media and news outlets, a theory has circulated that the coronavirus at the root of the COVID-19 outbreak originated in a research lab. Scientists say there is no evidence that the SARS-CoV-2 virus escaped from a lab.

Read more | >

AMES, Iowa — Over the past month, false information about COVID-19 and food and food packaging has been reported in the media, websites and blogs, and shared through social media, note food safety and nutrition and wellness specialists with Iowa State University Extension and Outreach. Angela Shaw, Anirudh Naig, and Shannon Coleman want Iowans to know there is no evidence that COVID-19 is transmitted through food and food packaging.

Shaw is a food safety state specialist and associate professor in the ISU Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition. Naig is a food safety state specialist and associate professor in the ISU Department of Apparel, Events, and Hospitality Management. Coleman is an assistant professor and nutrition and wellness state specialist in the ISU Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition.

Read more | >

The cost of the sanitiser would be Rs 800, and the Army can turn out 10 pieces a day.

The third innovation is a 3D-printed mask priced at Rs 1,200 apiece. Other products being devised include thermal scanners and anti-aerosalination boxes to keep doctors safe. The boxes are made up of transparent acrylic sheets and kept over patients to protect doctors and other healthcare workers from infection. Holes cut into the box help medical staff administer treatment to the patient without coming into direct contact.

The Army is just one of several sections across Indian society that are trying to chip in for the country’s battle against coronavirus, from scientists who have banded together to bust myths to IITians churning out cost-effective and innovative solutions to ease the burden on the healthcare framework.

Read more | >