Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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CERN has established a task force to identify and support contributions from the Organization’s 18 000-strong global community to combatting the COVID-19 pandemic. Set up by the Director-General at the end of March, the CERN against COVID-19 task force has already received hundreds of messages suggesting ideas ranging from producing sanitizer gel to designing and building sophisticated medical equipment. The design of a novel ventilator, expected to be tested by healthcare experts in the coming weeks, is an example of deployment of CERN’s technology to the service of society in these troubled times. Details of the initiatives and projects supported will be published on the dedicated website cern.ch/against-covid-19, which will be regularly updated.

“CERN is a world leading laboratory in particle physics and in the related technologies. As such, it’s a hub of resources, including the World-wide LHC Computing Grid, WLCG, mechanical workshops, sophisticated design and prototyping facilities, advanced technologies and expertise ranging from science and engineering to industrialisation,” said Director-General Fabiola Gianotti. “We want to deploy our resources and competences to contribute to the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.”

CERN’s overall approach is to ensure effective and well-coordinated action, drawing on CERN’s many competencies and advanced technologies and working closely with experts in healthcare, drug development, epidemiology and emergency response so as to maximise the impact of the Organization’s contributions. To this end, the Organization has established links with local hospitals and emergency services, and in the context of an agreement established in 2011, entered into dialogue with experts at the World Health Organization. Discussions are also underway with sister European scientific organisations, the European Molecular Biology Organization and the European Bioinformatics Institute.

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At the height of the epidemic in the city, Jinyintan was treating close to 500 coronavirus patients, he said. It currently still has 123 under observation, he said. A study published last month in the New England Journal of Medicine, based on a test in Chinese patients with severe COVID-19 at Jinyintan, said that Kaletra, also known as Aluvia, was not effective as a potential treatment.

Last month, Israel approved the licensing of a generic version of Kaletra to treat patients infected with the coronavirus.

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A lunar crater on the farside of the Moon could be turned into a new radio telescope resembling the Death Star from Star Wars, under new plans from NASA.

Funding for the project has come from the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) Programme, designed to support potentially game changing projects.

If the telescope is ever built it would be the largest open radio telescope in the solar system, according to the NASA team behind the idea.

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Sarkis Tatigian joined the Navy in 1942. He’s been there ever since, until his death this week at the age of 96.

Tatigian — who first enlisted as a radio inspector at the now-defunct Philadelphia Naval Shipyard — went on to become the small business advocate at Naval Sea Systems Command. He had held that title since 1979, six years after he first became eligible for retirement. But he’d been working on the Navy’s small business programs since 1951, two years before the Small Business Administration even existed.

Even well into his 90s, Tatigian reportedly commuted to work at the Washington Navy Yard via public transit every day. When we last spoke to him in late 2017, he had only taken one vacation day that year.

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Many companies have made strong commitments to support their employees, customers, suppliers and communities through what is perhaps the gravest global crisis since the second world war. And all at a time when they are themselves counting the costs of lockdowns and physical distancing.

Others have joined more directly in fighting the outbreak. Amazon is distributing coronavirus tests, Diageo is making hand sanitiser, while Formula 1 teams are designing ventilators.

But business has a powerful opportunity to go further and play a critical part in resolving the crisis — as well as in managing it — by helping fund the vital research that provides the only viable exit strategy that can bring the world back to business as usual.

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It also said it plans to support studies to determine whether existing Pfizer medicines, including its rheumatoid arthritis drug Xeljanz, may provide benefits for those struggling with the COVID-19 respiratory illness caused by the coronavirus. More than a dozen large drugmakers, including Pfizer, have announced plans in recent months to develop vaccines and treatments for the coronavirus, although few if any are likely to reach patients in time to stem the current outbreak. Pfizer first revealed plans to try to develop an antiviral compound for COVID-19 in March, and later said it was working with BioNTech SE (22UAy. F) on a potential vaccine based on messenger RNA technology.

U.S. drugmaker Pfizer Inc said on Thursday that early data has helped it identify a drug candidate with the potential to help treat patients infected with the novel coronavirus.

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