Science Saturday: COVID-19 -- the pandemic that's forever changed laboratory testing
Like many people throughout the world, Matthew Binnicker, Ph.D., remembers exactly where he was and what he was doing when COVID-19 was classified as a pandemic. “Those first few months of the pandemic will be forever ingrained in my memory,” he says. For Dr. Binnicker, director of Mayo Clinic’s Clinical Virology Laboratory, two important dates stand out above the rest. “One was Feb. 17, 2020, when Dr. (William) Morice and I were talking about whether the department should… (Source: Mayo Clinic Research News)
Source: Mayo Clinic Research News - April 15, 2023 Category: Research Source Type: news
From bad to worse: How avian flu must change to trigger a human pandemic
The victims are varied, from thousands of sea lions off the coast of Peru to mink farmed for fur in Spain to grizzly bears in Montana and harbor seals in Maine. For months, the avian influenza virus that has been
decimating birds across the world
has also sickened and killed a menagerie of mammals, raising fears it might evolve to spread more efficiently between these animals, and ultimately between people.
For that nightmare to unfold, however, the virus, a subtype known as H5N1, would have to undergo a major transformation, changing from a pathogen efficient at infecting cells in the guts of birds and spr...
Source: ScienceNOW - April 6, 2023 Category: Science Source Type: news
Bird shots: Is vaccinating poultry the best defense against a deadly bird flu?
Lakeside, California—
Hilliker’s Ranch Fresh Eggs in this San Diego suburb has 30,000 chickens in three “cage-free,” open-air barns, where birds crowd the floor like rush-hour riders on a big city subway. “A cage-free aviary is a very interesting science experiment,” says Frank Hilliker, who runs the farm his
grandfather started
in 1942. He worries mightily about infections spreading through the massed birds. On his iPhone, he pulls up a list of the vaccines his chickens get: against Newcastle disease, infectious laryngotracheitis, coryza, colibacillosis, salmonella, infectious bronchitis, and fo...
Source: ScienceNOW - April 6, 2023 Category: Science Source Type: news
Scientists Revive and Characterize 13 Ancient “Zombie” Viruses Isolated from Siberian Permafrost
Viruses are between 27,000 to 48,500 years old and not dangerous, but researchers say thawing permafrost may one day release pathogens capable of infecting humans Last fall, European researchers working with virologists and genetic scientists at the Aix-Marseille University in France reported having revived and characterized 13 previously unknown “zombie” viruses isolated from Siberian permafrost […]
The post <a><strong>Scientists Revive and Characterize 13 Ancient “Zombie” Viruses Isolated from Siberian Permafrost</strong></a> appeared first on Dark Daily. (Source: Dark Daily)
Source: Dark Daily - April 3, 2023 Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Jillia Schlingman Tags: Digital Pathology International Laboratory News Laboratory Pathology Laboratory Testing Molecular Diagnostics, Genetic Testing, Whole Gene Sequencing Acanthamoeba Aix-Marseille University anatomic pathology Anthony Fauci MD Bacillus anth Source Type: news
Africa: Polio - Leading Virologist Offers a Beginner's Guide to the Different Viruses and Vaccines
[The Conversation Africa] On 17 March 2023, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that health officials in Burundi and Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) had detected cases of vaccine-derived poliovirus. The WHO said the Burundian government had declared the detection of the virus a national public health emergency after three cases were confirmed. The Conversation Africa's Wale Fatade spoke to virologist Oyewale Tomori, who maps out the terrain of polio viruses, and their mutations, as well as what's happening on the vacci (Source: AllAfrica News: Polio)
Source: AllAfrica News: Polio - March 30, 2023 Category: Infectious Diseases Source Type: news
Chinese researchers release genomic data that could help clarify origin of COVID-19 pandemic
In the face of intense pressure and criticism from many in the scientific community, Chinese researchers today released a trove of new genetic data that may offer fresh clues to the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic. They also substantially revised a related study they first posted online 13 months ago to include this evidence, which some scientists say gives more credibility to the thesis that SARS-CoV-2 could have jumped into humans from raccoon dogs or other mammals illegally sold at a Wuhan market.
The Chinese team’s initial preprint argued that the market data, consisting of genetic sequences found in 923 sample...
Source: ScienceNOW - March 30, 2023 Category: Science Source Type: news
The Guardian view on how Covid began: look to the future | Editorial
The row over whether the pandemic started with a lab leak is growing. But the most important question is what we do nowWe may never know for certain how a disease that brought the world to a standstill and has killed almost 7 million people emerged. While many experts believe thatCovid-19 arose through human contact with infected animals, most likely via a wet market in Wuhan, China, a significant number believe it probably escaped from the city ’s Institute of Virology. Othersretain an open mind. But politics has turbocharged a scientific question. Donald Trump hyped the lab leak theorywithout evidence; yet some scienti...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - March 26, 2023 Category: Science Authors: Editorial Tags: Coronavirus Science World news China US news Donald Trump Infectious diseases Wildlife Source Type: news
News at a glance: Modernizing bed nets, IDing a Solar System visitor, and health lessons from Beethoven ’s hair
PUBLIC HEALTH
Next-gen bed nets get go-ahead
A new type of malaria-fighting bed net
received a major endorsement
from the World Health Organization (WHO) last week. The net combines two chemicals to more effectively kill the mosquitoes that transmit the parasite behind malaria, a disease that killed an estimated 619,000 people in 2022, most of them young children in sub-Saharan Africa. Insecticide-treated bed nets have helped drive malaria rates down dramatically. But in recent years, resistance to the insecticide used to treat nets, pyrethroid, has been spreading. That has contributed to ...
Source: ScienceNOW - March 23, 2023 Category: Science Source Type: news
Pall of suspicion: NIH ’s secretive ‘China initiative’ has destroyed scores of academic careers
For decades, Chinese-born U.S. faculty members were applauded for working with colleagues in China, and their universities cited the rich payoff from closer ties to the emerging scientific giant. But those institutions did an about-face after they began to receive emails in late 2018 from the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH).
The emails asked some 100 institutions to investigate allegations that one or more of their faculty had violated NIH policies designed to ensure federal funds were being spent properly. Most commonly, NIH claimed a researcher was using part of a grant to do work in China through an undis...
Source: ScienceNOW - March 23, 2023 Category: Science Source Type: news
Africa: Covid Origins Debate - What to Make of New Findings Linking the Virus to Raccoon Dogs
[The Conversation Africa] The origin of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID, has long been a topic of heated debate. While many believe SARS-CoV-2 spread to humans from an animal at Wuhan's Huanan Wholesale Seafood Market, others have argued the virus was accidentally leaked from a lab at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. (Source: AllAfrica News: Health and Medicine)
Source: AllAfrica News: Health and Medicine - March 23, 2023 Category: African Health Source Type: news
Lab Leak or Not? How Politics Shaped the Battle Over Covid ’s Origin
A lab leak was once dismissed by many as a conspiracy theory. But the idea is gaining traction, even as evidence builds that the virus emerged from a market. (Source: NYT Health)
Source: NYT Health - March 19, 2023 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Benjamin Mueller Tags: Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) United States Politics and Government Laboratories and Scientific Equipment Viruses your-feed-science Wuhan Institute of Virology (China) Science and Technology Source Type: news
Scientists Found New Chinese Data Hinting at the Origin of COVID-19. Then It Was Deleted
In another twist to the ongoing search for where COVID-19 originated, an international group of researchers stumbled upon new genetic material that had been posted on a public scientific database—and then abruptly deleted.
As first reported in the Atlantic, in early March, Florence Debarre, an evolutionary biologist at the French National Center for Scientific Research, was searching the public database GISAID, where scientists upload genetic sequences of pathogens they study. On the site, she found sequences from samples collected in Jan. 2020 from the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, China, shortly after t...
Source: TIME: Health - March 17, 2023 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Alice Park Tags: Uncategorized COVID-19 healthscienceclimate Source Type: news
‘It’s inexcusable.’ WHO blasts China for not disclosing potential data on COVID-19’s origin
Maria Van Kerkhove has had a crazy, busy week.
The infectious disease epidemiologist who oversees the World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) program on emerging diseases and zoonoses began Sunday morning with a start: A researcher contacted her and said colleagues had uncovered crucial new data from China that speak to the origin of the pandemic. The researcher told Van Kerkhove—who was preparing to leave her home in Geneva for a flight to Oman—that a team led by George Gao, former head of China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention, had sat on potentially important genetic sequences from samples it coll...
Source: ScienceNOW - March 17, 2023 Category: Science Source Type: news
President of charity tied to Wuhan lab claims no lab in the world had a virus close enough to Covid
A British zoologist tied to the Wuhan Institute of Virology has once again mounted a defence against accusations Covid could have emerged from within its walls from risky gain of function research. (Source: the Mail online | Health)
Source: the Mail online | Health - March 15, 2023 Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news
Janssen Announces Novel Dengue Antiviral Demonstrates Efficacy in Pre-Clinical Data Published in Nature
BEERSE, BELGIUM, March 15, 2023 – The Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson (Janssen) announced today the publication of new data in the journal Nature showing that an early-stage clinical candidate (JNJ-1802) provides strong protection against dengue in non-human primates and mice. The first-in-class antiviral, which was shown to be safe and well tolerated in a Phase 1 first-in-human clinical study, is now progressing into Phase 2 clinical studies for the prevention and treatment of dengue.The new data indicate JNJ-1802 is effective against all four of the dengue serotypes in mouse models and provide...
Source: Johnson and Johnson - March 15, 2023 Category: Pharmaceuticals Tags: Latest News Source Type: news
