Lifeboat Foundation

On 30 January 2020 COVID-19 was declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) with an official death toll of 171. By 31 December 2020, this figure stood at 1 813 188. Yet preliminary estimates suggest the total number of global deaths attributable to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 is at least 3 million, representing 1.2 million more deaths than officially reported.

With the latest COVID-19 deaths reported to WHO now exceeding 3.3 million, based on the excess mortality estimates produced for 2020, we are likely facing a significant undercount of total deaths directly and indirectly attributed to COVID-19.

Continue reading “The true death toll of COVID-19” »

Older adults who sleep just five hours a night or fewer have a greater risk of developing more than one chronic disease, new research shows. The findings underscore the importance of healthy sleep patterns throughout life, and especially in middle and old age.

The new study, published in PLOS Medicine, examined sleep duration and its effect on multimorbidity—or the occurrence of more than one chronic condition, like diabetes and cardiovascular disease, at once. People ages 50 or older who slept a total of five hours a night or less were found to have at least a 30% greater risk of multimorbidity.

Prior studies have largely focused on the link between sleep and the development of individual chronic diseases, but it’s been unclear how sleep duration contributes to the development of multiple chronic conditions. The new findings add to growing evidence suggesting that sleep deficiencies can affect health outcomes.

To convert heat into electricity, easily accessible materials from harmless raw materials open up new perspectives in the development of safe and inexpensive so-called “thermoelectric materials.” A synthetic copper mineral acquires a complex structure and microstructure through simple changes in its composition, thereby laying the foundation for the desired properties, according to a study published in the journal Angewandte Chemie.

The novel synthetic material is composed of copper, manganese, germanium, and sulfur, and it is produced in a rather simple process, explains materials scientist Emmanuel Guilmeau, CNRS researcher at CRISMAT laboratory, Caen, France, who is the corresponding author of the study. “The powders are simply mechanically alloyed by ball-milling to form a precrystallized phase, which is then densified by 600 degrees Celsius. This process can be easily scaled up,” he says.

Thermoelectric materials convert heat to electricity. This is especially useful in industrial processes where waste heat is reused as valuable electric power. The converse approach is the cooling of electronic parts, for example, in smartphones or cars. Materials used in this kind of applications have to be not only efficient, but also inexpensive and, above all, safe for health.

SAN DIEGO—(BUSINESS WIRE)— Rejuvenate Bio, today announced the launch of its new office in San Diego, which will help foster and accelerate the discovery and development of gene therapies for human and animal health. The office will support all functions including business development and clinical operations functions.

“San Diego’s life sciences industry is one of the leading biotech hubs in the nation and Rejuvenate exemplifies the spirit of innovation for which the region is known.” Tweet this

“The launch of our new office in this leading biotech hub, allows us to aggressively pursue our business development efforts and leverage the talent and expertise San Diego offers,” said Daniel Oliver, CEO & Co-Founder, Rejuvenate Bio. “This will help with our recruiting efforts, as we launch our first clinical gene therapy trial in humans next year. We look forward to continued development of our pipeline and our team in one of the fastest-growing biotech hubs.”

Microbiomes, microorganisms that populate specific environments, are known to include both beneficial and harmful bacterial species. Understanding how destructive microbiomes originate in changing environments and their effects on both the environment and human health could help to tackle global well-being challenges more effectively.

Researchers at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University and institutions and universities in China and the U.S. have recently carried out a study investigating the compositions and origins of airborne (i.e., transported in the air) microbiomes on Earth. Their findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows that humans and animals are among the primary sources of global airborne bacteria.

“We spent a total of about nine years on this global study, including drafting the initial proposal, conducting sampling across the world, collecting and processing data, and drafting and revising the manuscript,” Xiangdong Li, one of the leading researchers who carried out the study, told Phys.org. “We established a comprehensive atlas of global airborne bacteria with implications for microbiology, ecology, air pollution, and public health, and we believe that airborne bacteria will attract more and more attention from all sectors of society.”

Solar cells that are stretchable, flexible and wearable won the day and the best poster award from a pool of 215 at Research Expo 2016 April 14 at the University of California San Diego. The winning nanoengineering researchers aim to manufacture small, flexible devices that can power watches, LEDs and wearable sensors. The ultimate goal is to design and build much bigger flexible solar cells that could be used as power sources and shelter in natural disasters and other emergencies.

Research Expo is an annual showcase of top graduate research projects for the Jacobs School of Engineering at UC San Diego. During the poster session, graduate students are judged on the quality of their work and how well they articulate the significance of their research to society. Judges from industry, who often are alumni, pick the winners for each department. A group of faculty judges picks the overall winner from the six department winners.

Continue reading “Stretchable, Flexible, Wearable Solar Cells Take Top Prize at Research Expo 2016” »

Using human brain organoids, an international team of researchers, led by scientists at University of California San Diego School of Medicine and Sanford Consortium, has shown how the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 infects cortical neurons and specifically destroys their synapses — the connections between brain cells that allow them to communicate with each other.

The findings, published in the November 3, 2022 issue of PLOS Biology, also report that the antiviral drug sofosbuvir, already an approved treatment for hepatitis C, effectively inhibited SARS-CoV-2 replication and reversed neuronal alterations in infected brain organoids.

“Vaccines and emerging treatments have reduced the health consequences of COVID-19 in most patients,” said senior study author Alysson R. Muotri, PhD, professor in departments of Pediatrics and Cellular and Molecular at UC San Diego School of Medicine. “But the phenomenon of Long COVID, characterized by persisting symptoms that include neurological impairment, remains poorly understood and without any specific remedy.

Stability AI, the venture-backed startup behind the text-to-image AI system Stable Diffusion, is funding a wide-ranging effort to apply AI to the frontiers of biotech. Called OpenBioML, the endeavor’s first projects will focus on machine learning-based approaches to DNA sequencing, protein folding and computational biochemistry.

The company’s founders describe OpenBioML as an “open research laboratory” — and aims to explore the intersection of AI and biology in a setting where students, professionals and researchers can participate and collaborate, according to Stability AI CEO Emad Mostaque.

“OpenBioML is one of the independent research communities that Stability supports,” Mostaque told TechCrunch in an email interview. “Stability looks to develop and democratize AI, and through OpenBioML, we see an opportunity to advance the state of the art in sciences, health and medicine.”

It would be the first new treatment in 20 years for UTIs, which affect more than half of women at least sometime in their life, according to data compiled by the Department of Health and Human Services.

Called Gepotidacin, the antibiotic’s trial has halted enrollment early due to excellent effectiveness and safety results thus far, drugmaker GSK announced in a press release Thursday. GSK will seek approval and peer-reviewed publication early next year.

There is a need for new antibiotics such as this due to increasing antibiotic resistance. Antibiotic resistance to bacteria has become so prevalent that the World Health Organization recently began publishing a list of bacteria that pose the greatest public health threats.