Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Category: biotech/medical

Article at gnews reports on announcement by Dr. Ozaki, chairman of the Tokyo Metropolitan Medical Association Greenlight for Ivermectin in Japan. Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

Since Tokyo summer Olympic Game ended on August 8 2021, the urgent status of the pandemic as Japan is now in its worst surge of the COVID-19 pandemic since the onset of the crisis in such a megacity of 14 million. Most recently, a record number of new cases were reported at 20,140 on August 14. Deaths aren’t as high as successive waves of the pandemic from February2021to the end of May, but nerves are frayed with record numbers of infections. Dr. Ozaki, The chairman of the Tokyo Metropolitan Medical Association, recently led an emergency press conference on August 13 Dr. Haruo Ozaki shared those 18,000 new infections are reported daily. However, the death count has eased as compared to previous surges.

How to deal with the current dilemma is a huge challenge to Japanese government and medical agencies? Fortunately, India has an excellent testimonial. Since April 28 India medical officials started providing Hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin to its massive population. As India is the major pharmaceutical manufacture in the world, they were ready for this massive drug distribution. Miraculously, COVID cases have plummeted quickly since then thanks to the new rules.

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Mutations are a part of life. Every time a virus replicates, there is a chance that its genetic code won’t be copied accurately. These typos travel inside new virus particles as they leave one body and move on to infect the next. Some of these mutations die out; others survive and circulate widely. Some mutations are harmless; others increase infectivity or allow a virus to better escape the immune system—that’s when public health bodies might deem that strain a variant of concern.

Swaps or deletions of single amino acids can change the shapes of different proteins. Mutations can happen in any of the proteins of SARS-CoV-2, and these may change the virus’s properties. Many of the worrisome mutations are found on the spike protein, as it is the target of antibody treatments and is mimicked by the currently authorized COVID-19 vaccines. Researchers are especially troubled when typos occur in two parts of the spike protein—the N-terminal domain, which is at the beginning of the protein and which some antibodies target, and the receptor-binding domain (RBD), which grabs hold of ACE2 receptors on human cells and starts the process of infection.

To understand how specific mutations affect the structure and function of the spike protein and what those changes mean for treatments and vaccines, C&EN talked to Priyamvada Acharya, Rory Henderson, and Sophie Gobeil at Duke University. With colleagues, these researchers have combined biochemical assays, cryo-electron microscopy, and modeling to show how the mutations seen in the variants of concern work together to change the stability of the spike protein. The spike is a trimer of three identical protein strands folded and interwoven together. Before the virus has infected a cell, the spike takes on two conformations: a down state, in which the RBD is hidden, and an up state, in which the RBD faces out, ready to bind to ACE2. The team found that different mutations can increase binding in different ways. This process, in which similar features are arrived at independently, is called convergent evolution.

SARS-CoV-2 variants are emerging and gaining traction around the world. What does that mean for our vaccines and treatments for COVID-19?

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Are there vertebrates occupying the planet today whose lifespans extend back to before the founding of the United States? Based on recent research, it seems very likely — and they exist in the form of sharks whose fermented meat are used in a very distinctive Icelandic dish. Scientists have found evidence that Greenland sharks live for hundreds of years — and that there are some whose lifespans extend to 400 or even 500 years.

For some scientists, the lengthy lifespans of certain creatures can also have an impact on research into making humans live longer. That’s true for the immortal jellyfish, and it also applies to the Greenland shark. A recent article by Jonathan Moens at Atlas Obscura explores what scientists have learned from their studies of the long-lived sharks — and what it might mean for humanity.

Greenland sharks’ longevity could be chalked up to genetic or lifestyle factors, or some combination of the two. The University of Manchester’s Holly Shiels suggested that, as Moens writes, “Greenland sharks may have a uniquely sophisticated system to repair damaged DNA.” Other scientists point to the sharks’ habitat — cold Arctic waters — and their ability to live for a long period of time on a relatively small amount of food as signs of a very efficient metabolism.

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Circa 2009

The researchers expect to have a working prototype of the product in four years. “We are just at the beginning of this project,” Wang said. “During the first two years, our primary focus will be on the sensor systems. Integrating enzyme logic onto electrodes that can read biomarker inputs from the body will be one of our first major challenges.”

“Achieving the goal of the program is estimated to take nearly a decade,” Chrisey said.

Developing an effective interface between complex physiological processes and wearable devices could have a broader impact, Wang said. If the researchers are successful, they could pave the way for “autonomous, individual, on-demand medical care, which is the goal of the new field of personalized medicine,” he added.

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