FactsRun

Surfaces contaminated with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, pose a grave threat to the safety of healthcare workers, patients, frontline responders, military service members, cruise line passengers, hotel guests and people everywhere. A new study published on medRxiv reports the effectiveness of a broad spectrum, pulsed xenon ultraviolet (PX-UV) disinfection system in quickly deactivating SARS-CoV-2 on surfaces, and the implications for reducing the risk of COVID-19 transmission everywhere that people work, travel, play and live. The study authors include renowned infectious disease physicians, infection prevention experts, and representatives from the Central Texas Veterans Healthcare System, HonorHealth, Mayo Clinic, Texas Biomedical Research Institute, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, University of Michigan, University of California-San Francisco, WVU Medicine, and Xenex. Deactivating SARS-CoV-2 on surfaces is a critical and necessary step to protect peo...

As the Covid-19 pandemic continues its destructive course, two theories are being widely aired. Coronavirus pandemic may have been the result of an attack at a biosafety level 4 laboratory in China’s Wuhan city. Two, and this is more fanciful but not impossible, that China deliberately launched a biological attack in order to position itself as the single greatest superpower, while flattening its rivals’ industrial and economic capacity. Both theories have strong supporters armed with a battery of ‘facts’. The problem is not with data, though. It’s China itself, with its habitual secrecy, big ambitions, and absolute disregard for life or the environment. Allied to that is the fact that bio labs everywhere have been a source of serious threats, with the big powers seeing them as potentially usable as weapons of mass destruction, proved by the large number of...

Origin of SARS-CoV in Bats The earlier SARS outbreak in China was the result of a virus almost entirely identical to that in market civets in the Chinese province of Guangdong. Following this, many other similar CoVs, called SARS-related (SARSr) CoVs, have been found all over China and Europe, in horseshoe bats, sharing 96% of nucleotides with both human and civet SARS-CoVs. The greatest consistent variability was in the spike protein-encoding region and the accessory protein ORF3, and 8. Every single nucleotide in the SARS-CoV has been found in one or other bat CoV genome. This indicates that the SARS-CoV could well have arisen in bats through recombination. It is essential to find the key sites on the virus, which play a crucial part in the ability to jump species since these could predict the odds of such events occurring between animals and humans. The researchers have already discovered a variety of SARSr-CoV viruses that can infect Chinese horseshoe bats, ...

New research in mice suggests that when the DNA allows it, the brain neutralizes fearful memories using ‘fear extinction.’ The flexibility of a person’s DNA structure may correlate with a ‘flexibility of memory,’ according to new research. When confronted with danger, fear spurs a person into defensive actions. This is invaluable as a survival mechanism; however, there is little reason for fear to persist once a threat passes. The brain neutralizes the memory of that feeling with something called “fear extinction.” This process involves a non-fearful memory with similar circumstances competing with the fear memory to try to suppress it. A new study finds that the ability to neutralize fear depends on the flexibility of one’s DNA. “Fear memories need to be plastic. They can be very useful for survival, but they can also get in the way of normal functioning,” says Dr. Paul Marshall of the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. He is the lead author of the study, which...

By analysing virus genomes from over 7,500 people infected with Covid-19, a UCL-led research team has characterised patterns of diversity of SARS-CoV-2 virus genome, offering clues to direct drugs and vaccine targets. The study, led by the UCL Genetics Institute, identified close to 200 recurrent genetic mutations in the virus, highlighting how it may be adapting and evolving to its human hosts. Researchers found that a large proportion of the global genetic diversity of SARS-CoV-2 is found in all hardest-hit countries, suggesting extensive global transmission from early on in the epidemic and the absence of single 'Patient Zeroes' in most countries. The findings, published today in   Infection, Genetics and Evolution , also further establish the virus only emerged recently in late 2019, before quickly spreading across the globe. Scientists analysed the emergence of genomic diversity in SARS-CoV-2, the new coronavirus causing Covid-19, by screening the g...

For the past 70 years, the best indicator of life expectancy for a patient with glioblastoma (GBM) -- the most common and the most aggressive brain cancer -- has simply been age at diagnosis. Now, an international team of scientists has experimentally validated a predictor that is not only more accurate but also more clinically relevant: a pattern of co-occurring changes in DNA abundance levels, or copy numbers, at hundreds of thousands of sites across the whole tumor genome. Patients with the genome-wide pattern survive for a median of one year. However, patients without it survive three times as long, for a median of three years. The results came from a retrospective clinical trial that was published today in the journal  Applied Physics Letters  (APL)  Bioengineering . Having a predictor of a patient's life expectancy can help inform medical decisions. The GBM pattern can, in principle, be used in this way today. For example, when a patient has...

I was just scrolling through twitter and noticed people changing profile pictures to the Mumbai police logo. Even on the International nurses day a very few people changed their profile pictures to thank nurses. So, I felt it important to write this blog in  consideration and respect to our doctors who are working sincerely and earnestly with full dedication to serve the mankind and save it from getting vanquished from a microscopic unicellular organism that doesn't even has its own DNA. I salute the doctors and nurses who came up like a warrior and shield for the mankind. So, people wake up if a patient dies its not because of the doctor and the nurses. People wake up and salute, respect, follow what our warriors and superheroes say. People wake up and see where in this situation everyone is panic -striken and fearfull of their own lives these people called doctors and nurses come up in the Palliation,Help, assuage of the mankind. People stop being immature...

In an article published today in   Cell Host and Microbe , Professor Kanta  Subbarao stressed the importance of detecting a neutralizing antibody response in recovered COVID-19 patients, and of studies of COVID-19 vaccines in animal models. Neutralising antibodies prevent infection by binding to a virus and blocking their ability to infect. After an infection, a host can produce neutralising antibodies to protect against future "The speed with which SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, has spread around the world and its toll in numbers of cases, severe illness, and death has been staggering," Says,Kanta Subbarao, Professor, University of Melbourne infection. Professor Subbarao was the Chief of the Emerging Respiratory Viruses Section of the Laboratory of Infectious Diseases at the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Disease at the US National Institutes of Health during the SARS outbreak in 2002-2003, and was central to an important d...

I was just scrolling through the internet and I came across a News that is like a hope of vaccine coming soon so just have a look at this. The biomedical visualization studio Visual Science has created the most detailed and scientifically accurate 3D model of the full SARS-CoV-2 virus at atomic resolution. The model is based on the latest scientific research into the structure of coronaviruses and communication with virologists currently working with the virus. The SARS-CoV-2 virus model is a part of Visual Science's non-commercial Viral Park project. Its past successes include models of HIV, influenza A/H1N1, Ebola, papilloma, and Zika virions. Below there is an interview of Ivan Konstantinov, CEO, and founder of Visual Science. "Visual Science employed the same techniques of structural bioinformatics used in basic research and drug development. The model reflects scientists' current understanding of the virus's architecture. " ...

Contact tracing is a specialized skill . To be done effectively, it requires people with the training, supervision, and access to social and medical support for patients and contacts. Requisite knowledge and skills for contact tracers include, but are not limited to: An understanding of patient confidentiality, including the ability to conduct interviews without violating confidentiality (e.g., to those who might overhear their conversations) Understanding of the medical terms and principles of exposure, infection, infectious period, potentially infectious interactions, symptoms of disease, pre-symptomatic and asymptomatic infection. Resourcefulness in locating patients. Understanding of when to refer individuals or situations to medical, social, or supervisory resources Cultural competency appropriate to the local community Contact tracing is part of the process of supporting patients and warning contacts of exposure in order to stop chains of transmission. ...

Amid this situation and chaos between people about the new virus which is the fear factor of the people this days. I was driven to write about this topic. The CORONA VIRUS or COVID-19.    What is corona virus? Corona virus is a group of related RNA  viruses that cause respiratory tract infections in mammals and animals. Which can range from mild to lethal. Some of the mild infections include common cold which predominantly caused by Rhinovirus. While more lethal varieties include SARS ( Severe acute respiratory syndrome   ), MERS ( Middle east respiratory syndrome) and Covid-19.   Who are more likely to be affected? As the virus causes respiratory problems people with complications like diabetes, high blood pressure. The people who already smoke have their lungs and respiratory tract damaged so these people are more likely to severely affected. What are the preventive measures? Daily take: 1. Vitamin-C. 2.  Vitamin -E. 3.  Sunli...

Is There Any Other Intelligent Life In The Universe? A living being like you or me usually has two elements:a set of instructions that tell the system how to keep going and how to reproduce itself, and a mechanism to carry out the instructions. In biology, these two parts are called genes and metabolism. What we normally think of as 'life' is based on chains of carbon atoms, with few other atoms such as nitrogen or phosphorus. Carbon atoms should exist at all, with all the properties they have, requires a fine adjustment of physical constants such as the QCD scale, the electric charge and even the dimension of space and time. If these constants had a significantly different values , either the carbon atom would not be stable or electrons would collapse on the nucleus. For the Strong Anthropic Principle, one supposes that there are many different universes , each with different values of physical constant. That values allow the existence of the carbon atom which act ...