Lifeboat Foundation

Yesterday, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, with the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), announced it was launching Phase III trials of REGN-COV2, the company’s two-antibody cocktail for the treatment and prevention of COVID-19. Today, it announced that it had received a $450 million contract to manufacture and supply the antibody cocktail as part of Operation Warp Speed from the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA).

BARDA is part of the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The contract was also with the Department of Defense Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Defense.

A Phase I trial in 30 hospitalized and non-hospitalized patients with COVID-19 received a positive review from the Independent Data Monitoring Committee.

Continue reading “Regeneron Receives $450 Million BARDA Contract for COVID-19 Antibody Cocktail” »

Can they print one for me next?

Circa 2018 o.,.o.

Rock singer Steve Ludwin has been injecting himself with snake venom for 30 years. In a strange twist, his bizarre habit could now save thousands of lives. His former partner Britt Collins tells his outlandish story.

Continue reading “Poison pass: the man who became immune to snake venom” »

San Jose State’s Claire Komives is testing an antivenom inspired by opossum biochemistry against various snake species to prevent deaths in the developing world.

Ow they are coming for you.

You can add giant swarms of flying ants to your 2020 scary-sounding insects Bingo card alongside murder hornets and hordes of noisy cicadas.

The UK’s Met Office shared radar imagery that showed the ants flying over the southeast part of the country.

“It’s not raining in London, Kent or Sussex, but our radar says otherwise,” it said in a tweet on Friday.

While the issue of aging and DNA methylation is an area that is well-studied, modifications of DNA to reduce or reverse aging remains an area in need of exploration. Studies in mice utilizing interventions such as caloric restriction and the drug rapamycin have reversed and/or slowed age-related DNA methylation by up to 40%. Understanding the cross-species aging based on similar DNA behaviors may open more doors to investigating therapeutics to minimize lifetime risks of age-related illnesses such as Alzheimer’s disease and cancers.

A recent study published in Cell Systems sought to debunk one of the most common myths about dogs: much to our surprise, one “dog year” does not equal seven “human years.” As described in a recent Forbes piece by Sara Tabin, the relationship between dog years and human years is not linear, but is based on a logarithmic formula. The research group, based at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), created the formula as follows:

Age in human years = 16 ln(age in dog years) +31. (ln means “natural logarithm).

Continue reading “The Answer To Anti-Aging Therapies May Lie In Your Aging Dog” »

The Fermilab magnet team has done it again. After setting a world record for an accelerator magnet in 2019, they have broken it a year later.

In a June 2020 test, a demonstrator magnet designed and built by the magnet team at the Department of Energy’s Fermilab achieved a 14.5-tesla field strength for an accelerator steering dipole magnet, surpassing their previous record of 14.1 T.

This test is an important step toward addressing the demanding magnet requirements of a future hadron collider under discussion in the particle physics community. If built, such a collider would be four times larger and almost eight times more powerful than the 17-mile-circumference Large Hadron Collider at the European laboratory CERN, which operates at a steering field of 7.8 T. Current future-collider designs estimate the field strength for a steering magnet — the magnet responsible for bending particle beams around a curve — to be up to 16 T.

New research shows that neuroscientists can identify us from our distinct brain signatures, much like a thumbprint. Will this procedure be used someday to improve hiring procedures, reduce absenteeism or predict job performance, productivity and career success?

https://youtube.com/watch?v=KxGWye97ytk

Scientists and historians working at McMaster University, the Mütter Museum and the University of Sydney have pieced together the genomes of old viruses that were used as vaccination strains during and after the American Civil War ultimately leading to the eradication of smallpox.

Smallpox was one of the most devastating viral diseases ever to strike humankind, killing about three out of every 10 people who were infected. Those who survived were frequently disabled, blind or disfigured.

Continue reading “Scientists Trace Origin of Smallpox Vaccine Strains Used in the Civil War” »