Online health care and medtech AI have risen in prominence in the country as the government seeks more equal access to medicines and treatment for its citizens, spread across a vast land mass. The urgency has been heightened by the impact from Covid-19 – with Indonesia recently overtaking the Philippines as the hardest-hit country in Southeast Asia.
Indonesia’s fast-growing manufacturing sector also presents opportunities for medtech innovation as well as research and development.
In a recent study of the upper atmosphere of Venus, finding the chemical fingerprint of phosphine has led to speculation that it may be tied to airborne life high in the clouds of our sister planet [1]. We harbour similar suspicion of microbial life on Mars [2], Saturn’s moon Enceledus [3], and Europa, the icy Galilean of the Jovian system [4]. The dwarf planet Ceres of the asteroid belt could be added to that list also, with recent evidence of oceanic water [5], while more exotic variations of life may exist on Titan, which is known to be teeming with organic materials [6]. Should we be more wary of our Solar System as an environment to explore, and the potential of pathogens we may encounter?
If one rewinds 500 years, to when exploration of new worlds involved sailing the oceans, the discovery of the Americas introduced viruses which decimated the native population at that time [7]. That in itself was far from a unique event in history, of course. There have been many occurrences throughout history where travel between distant lands has resulted in the introduction of devastating plagues to one population or the other — not least the Black Death, which arrived in Europe from commercial travel with Asia in the 1300s [8]. Meanwhile, 2020 has reminded us how a novel virus can prove virtually unstoppable from spreading worldwide in a matter of months and reaching pandemic level, once introduced to our now interconnected world [9].
Indeed when the first astronauts returned from the Moon in the 60s, they had to undergo weeks of quarantine as a precaution against introducing a lunar pathogen to Earth [10]. We now know the Moon to be a sterile world, but this should not give us a false sense of security when visiting and returning from other worlds, which are far more likely to harbour microbial life. It is quite plausible to consider that any microbes which have evolved to survive in the harsh environments on other worlds could multiply out of control if introduced to a more fertile environment on Earth. The likelihood of any such foreign microbes being capable of becoming infectious pathogens to our species is difficult to measure, but one could still cause problems regardless, by undermining Earth’s ecosystem in competing with native microbial life as a runaway invasive species.
Fortunately, due to the vast distances involved in inter-planetary travel, returning astronauts would likely show symptoms of infection from any dangerous pathogen long before reaching home, as such a journey would be expected to take many months, even with more advanced propulsion technology than we use in space travel today. That is not to say they could not inadvertently return with microbial life on board — or even on the exterior of craft: Earth’s tardigrades, for example, have proven quite durable in journeys into outer space [11].
Undoubtedly, finding life on any other world — even if just primitive microbial life — would be hailed as an unprecedented scientific discovery. As that potential draws nearer, any such discovery should surely be met with due caution, rather than wild excitement. While not as dramatic as an invasion of Spiders from Mars, the discovery of microbial life on other worlds could prove to be a far more sobering prospect — and pose new ethical questions of whether to leave their ecosystems preserved intact, or take the risk blending them with ours.
[1] Strange chemical in clouds of Venus defies explanation. Could it be a sign of life?
https://www.space.com/venus-clouds-possible-life-chemical-discovery.html
[2] How Martian Microbes Could Survive in the Salty Puddles of the Red Planet https://www.space.com/salt-tolerant-microbes-life-on-mars.html
[3] If There’s Life on Saturn’s Moon Enceladus, It Might Look Like This https://www.wired.com/story/if-theres-life-on-saturns-moon-enceladus-it-might-look-like-this/
[4] ‘Racing certainty’ there’s life on Europa, says leading UK space scientist
https://phys.org/news/2020-02-certainty-life-europa-mars-uk.html
[5] The dwarf planet Ceres might be home to an underground ocean of water
https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/08/11/1006447/ceres-largest-asteroid-dwarf-planet-underground-ocean-salty-water
[6] ‘Possibility of life’: scientists map Saturn’s exotic moon Titan
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-space-titan-idUSKBN1XS2H2
[7] How Europeans brought sickness to the New World
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/06/how-europeans-brought-sickness-new-world
[8] The Black Death: The Greatest Catastrophe Ever
https://www.historytoday.com/archive/black-death-greatest-catastrophe-ever
[9] Coronavirus: A timeline of how the deadly COVID-19 outbreak is evolving
https://www.pharmaceutical-technology.com/news/coronavirus-a-timeline-of-how-the-deadly-outbreak-evolved/
[10] Apollo 11 Astronauts Spent 3 Weeks in Quarantine, Just in Case of Moon Plague
https://www.space.com/apollo-11-astronauts-quarantined-after-splashdown.html
[11] How do tardigrades survive in space?
https://cen.acs.org/biological-chemistry/biochemistry/tardigrades-survive-space/97/i41
U.S. company can keep hosting vast coronavirus-related project but must protect French citizens’ health data from American government, court rules.
A French court has ruled that Microsoft Corp. can continue hosting a government-run project aggregating citizens’ anonymous health data to use for AI-based research, but must guarantee no data will be sent to the U.S. or be shared with American intelligence authorities.
The ruling, handed down last week, contradicts the stance of France’s data protection authority, which told the court this month that any U.S. cloud provider could be forced to comply with U.S. surveillance laws and should therefore not be allowed to host sensitive health data. The regulator’s opinion could provide clues for other companies handling such data, legal experts say.
Companies are wrestling with tricky decisions about moving their data from the European Union to the U.S., following a court decision this summer that required personal data transferred there to include special guarantees against surveillance by the American government.
So now, there are AI doctors.
Machine learning is taking medical diagnosis by storm. From eye disease, breast and other cancers, to more amorphous neurological disorders, AI is routinely matching physician performance, if not beating them outright.
Yet how much can we take those results at face value? When it comes to life and death decisions, when can we put our full trust in enigmatic algorithms—“black boxes” that even their creators cannot fully explain or understand? The problem gets more complex as medical AI crosses multiple disciplines and developers, including both academic and industry powerhouses such as Google, Amazon, or Apple, with disparate incentives.
This week, the two sides battled it out in a heated duel in one of the most prestigious science journals, Nature. On one side are prominent AI researchers at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, University of Toronto, Stanford University, Johns Hopkins, Harvard, MIT, and others. On the other side is the titan Google Health.
Someone from Oxford’s vaccine trial has passed away.
BRAZIL’S health authority has confirmed a volunteer has died after participating in the clinical trials of the coronavirus vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University.
FERNDALE, Mich. – Samples from Ferndale’s municipal water system have lead levels in the drinking water exceeding state standards, according to officials.
Oakland County Health Division (OCHD) was notified by the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) about the results from testing. Testing occurred as part of routine compliance sampling required by EGLE under Michigan’s Safe Drinking Water Act.
The OCHD is coordinating the distribution of free water filter kits to Ferndale residents who qualify on Oct. 28 from 3 to 6 p.m. at the Gary Kulick Community Center (1201 Livernois St, Ferndale, MI 48220).
An odd lump on Elizabeth Cowles Johnston’s breast prompted a Friday morning call to her primary care physician Rebecca Andrews at UConn Health.
Dr. Andrews quickly fit her in, and upon checking the lump sent her to Dr. Alex Merkulov, Section Head of Women’s Imaging at the Beekley Imaging Center at UConn Health for a mammogram and ultrasound. The following Monday she had a biopsy of her breast and by that Wednesday she had the diagnosis of breast cancer.
“It was all very quick,” says Johnston.
So exercise in the morning is better?
A new study, published in the International Journal of Cancer, has found that exercising in the mornings especially can stave off cancer.
It looks like micro-plastics are now found inside human bodies.
Researchers found evidence of plastic contamination in tissue samples taken from the lungs, liver, spleen and kidneys of donated human cadavers.
“We have detected these chemicals of plastics in every single organ that we have investigated,” said senior researcher Rolf Halden, director of the Arizona State University (ASU) Biodesign Center for Environmental Health Engineering.
There’s long been concern that the chemicals in plastics could have a wide range of health effects ranging from diabetes and obesity to sexual dysfunction and infertility.
Posted in biotech/medical, health | Leave a Comment on Beyond Air to Initiate Clinical Study Evaluating High Concentration Nitric Oxide for the Treatment of COVID-19 Patients in the United States
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) agrees to a trial using the LungFit™™ system to treat COVID-19 patients
Applications pending with Health Canada and the Israel Ministry of Health to allow studies to be conducted using high concentration nitric oxide to treat COVID-19 patients
GARDEN CITY, N.Y., April 16, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Beyond Air, Inc. (NASDAQ: XAIR), a clinical-stage medical device and biopharmaceutical company focused on developing inhaled Nitric Oxide (NO) for the treatment of patients with respiratory conditions, including serious lung infections and pulmonary hypertension, and gaseous NO for the treatment of solid tumors, today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) agreed with the initiation of a clinical study in the U.S. using its LungFit™TM system to treat COVID-19 patients. Applications for funding are pending with the Biomedical Advance Research and Development Authority (BARDA), a division of Health and Human Services (HHS).