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Category: biotech/medical – Page 1790

HOUSTON, May 1, 2020 — Rice University researchers plan to reconfigure their wastewater-treatment technology to capture and deactivate the virus that causes COVID-19. Their chemical-free nanotechnology, introduced earlier this year as a way to kill bacterial “superbugs” and degrade their antibiotic resistance genes in wastewater, will use graphitic carbon nitride to selectively adsorb viruses and then disable them by activating nearby catalysts with light. The team believes that this photocatalytic approach to disinfection — what it calls the “trap-and-zap” treatment approach — could be used to recognize coronaviruses that cause not only COVID-19 but also MERS and SARS.

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An injectable antibiotic developed by a team at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem could have a deep impact not only on treating COVID-19 patients, but also on all those affected by antibiotic-resistant infections.

Prof. Yechezkel Barenholz and Dr. Ahuva Cern with their team at the Laboratory of Membrane and Liposome Research at Hadassah-University Medical Center in Jerusalem have been working on improving the performance of drugs in treating different illnesses, including cancer and infectious diseases, for many years. Their method is based on encapsulating the drugs in particles that can be injected into the body.

“We take well-known and established drugs and encapsulate them in two types of particles, called ‘liposomes’ because they are made of lipids, meaning fats,” Barenholz told The Jerusalem Post. “These particles imitate the human cell because they feature a membrane separating the outer world and the inner world of the unit.”

This way the large lipsomes can be injected locally to target the specific area of the body affected, increasing the efficacy of the cure, he said. If the drug was injected without encapsulating it first, it would just disappear before being able to display its effects.

Continue reading “Israeli team finds way to inject drug against COVID-19-related infections” | >

The debate is focused on a subset of gain-of-function studies that manipulate deadly viruses to increase their transmissibility or virulence. “This is what happens to viruses in the wild”, explains Carrie Wolinetz, head of the NIH Office of Science Policy. “Gain-of-function experiments allow us to understand how pandemic viruses evolve, so that we can make predictions, develop countermeasures, and do disease surveillance”. Although none of the widely publicised mishaps of 2014 involved such work, the NIH decided to suspend funding for gain-of-function studies involving influenza, MERS-CoV, and SARS-CoV.

The US moratorium on gain-of-function experiments has been rescinded, but scientists are split over the benefits—and risks—of such studies. Talha Burki reports.

On Dec 19, 2017, the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced that they would resume funding gain-of-function experiments involving influenza, Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus, and severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus. A moratorium had been in place since October, 2014. At the time, the NIH had stated that the moratorium “will be effective until a robust and broad deliberative process is completed that results in the adoption of a new US Government gain-of-function research policy”. This process has now concluded. It was spearheaded by the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) and led to the development of a new framework for assessing funding decisions for research involving pathogens with enhanced pandemic potential. The release of the framework by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), of which NIH is part, signalled the end of the funding pause.

The situation has its roots in 2011, when the NSABB suppressed two studies involving H5N1 viruses that had been modified to allow airborne transmission from ferret to ferret. They worried that malign actors could replicate the work to deliberately cause an outbreak in human beings. After much debate, the studies were published in full in 2012. HHS subsequently issued guidelines for funding decisions on experiments likely to result in highly pathogenic H5N1 viruses transmissible from mammal to mammal via respiratory droplets. The guidelines were later expanded to include H7N9 viruses.

Continue reading “Ban on gain-of-function studies ends” | >

Key ingreduent of Madagascar “Miracle Cure” Artemisia Annua to be tested for COVID-19.

The Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, Potsdam (Germany) will collaborate with ArtemiLife Inc., a US based company and medical researchers in Denmark and Germany to test Artemisia annua plant extract and artemisinin derivatives in laboratory cell studies against the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19).

Currently, there are no effective treatments against COVID-19. Medications commonly used against malaria or Ebola, as well as antiviral drugs, are being considered for repurposing. Herbal treatments used in Traditional Chinese Medicine were explored to treat coronavirus infections during the SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV outbreaks. Initial studies in China showed the alcoholic extract of sweet wormwood (Artemisia annua) was the second most potent herbal medicine used on the 2005 SARS-CoV.

“I am excited about the international collaboration of academic and private sector scientists to conduct cell study testing of Artemisia annua against coronavirus.” said Professor Peter H. Seeberger, Director at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces in Potsdam.

Continue reading “Artemisia annua to be tested against COVID-19” | >

O,.o I used vitamin c and a probiotic it seemed to work well. I also had a flu shot for the year. Besides eating well and staying healthy not much is needed. It is sorta like the flu as much as I can see. I am no doctor but that worked for me.

Korean scientists claim that a lactic acid bacteria from sea buckthorn berries, could potentially inhibit the proliferation of SARS-CoV-2 by repressing purine activation.

Lactobacillus species in the gut microbiota have been found to block pro-inflammatory cytokines to inhibit harmful bacteria like Helicobacter pylori. While studying similar mechanisms against bladder inflammation (cystitis) causing E. coli, a team led by Professor Hana Yoon of Ewha Womans University Medical Center in Seoul, found abundant amounts of Lactobacillus gasseri present in the fermented extracts of sea buckthorn berries.

The probiotic has now been found to repress the activation of purine thereby preventing the SARS-CoV-2 from proliferating. Purine is an important compound required for nucleotide formation. Recent studies have found that the new coronavirus attacks purines in order to form its spike proteins and invade normal cells. The Korean team also found that the berries had several antioxidants, minerals, amino acids, and two other bacteria, Streptococcus thermophilus, and Lactobacillus rhamnosus that use the same binding site as that of SARS-CoV-2.

Continue reading “Purine Repressing Probiotic Might Halt COVID-19, says Korean Researchers” | >

The coronavirus that originated in Wuhan, China, swept the world fast and furiously — and we’re barely starting to experience the first wave of the pandemic. However, to biologists and virologists, the sudden appearance of the coronavirus wasn’t surprising. It is simply a natural consequence of humans disturbing ecosystems in equilibrium and wildlife trade, something that we’ve done at an increasing rate with each passing decade.

Pandemics such as COVID-19 might become increasingly frequent as humans continue unabated on their course to expand their range at the expense of wildlife.

High rates of deforestation in Asia over the last four decades have prompted many scientists to sound the alarm, warning the world of the risk of dangerous microorganisms migrating to humans.

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