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CORONA VIRUS SOCIAL MEDIA DASHBOARD FORMED; COVID19 CASES HIT 100K, BUT COVID19 TEST KITS IN SHORT SUPPLY

There can be no doubt that cases of COVID19 aka Corona Virus has now spread worldwide. We are now in the midst of a worldwide PANDEMIC with over  100,731 confirmed cases and 3,412 deaths.  The good news is that 55,997 cases have fully recovered.

On February 4, 2020, the U.S Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued an emergency use authorization (EUA) to enable emergency use of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) 2019-nCoV Real-Time RT-PCR Diagnostic Panel. To date, this test has been limited to use at CDC laboratories; today’s authorization allows the use of the test at any CDC-qualified lab across the country.

FDA Commissioner Stephen M. Hahn, M.D. said, 

“Since this outbreak first emerged, we’ve been working closely with our partners across the U.S government and around the globe to expedite the development and availability of critical medical products to help end this outbreak as quickly as possible. This continues to be an evolving situation and the ability to distribute this diagnostic test to qualified labs is a critical step forward in protecting the public health.  Our collaboration with the CDC has been vital to rapidly developing and facilitating access to this diagnostic test. The FDA remains deeply committed to utilizing our regulatory tools and leveraging our technical and scientific expertise to advance the availability of critical medical products to respond to this outbreak in the most expeditious, safe and effective manner possible.”

The full FDA press release is included below:

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD THE CORONA VIRUS FDA NEWS RELEASE 2-4-2020

Pharmaceutical companies are in the spotlight as they race to develop treatments for the rapidly spreading Wuhan Corona Virus.  Firms like Novavax, AbbVie and Vir Biotechnology are among those developing potential vaccines and treatments for the disease.  

GlobalData’s new Coronavirus Social Media Dashboard analyses Twitter activity to help readers identify the latest trending keywords, hashtags, mentioned companies and countries. The dashboard tracks Twitter activity around the outbreak in near real-time providing a unique insight into what expert influencers and leading organisations are saying about the spread of the disease.

COMMENTARY:

Corona Virus FDA approved CDC Corona Virus Test Kits in Short Supply

After a weekslong delay, thousands of Corona Virus test kits are headed to state and local laboratories, Vice President Mike Pence said Wednesday, March 4, 2020.

But questions remain about when, exactly, those promised test kits will arrive and how well they will work.

Pence said during a meeting Wednesday with diagnostic lab CEOs.

"We have more than 2,500 kits that are being distributed around the country this week that will make more than 1.5 million tests available at hospitals that have requested them, and in areas of the country that have been particularly impacted by the Corona Virus."

Federal health officials have been scrambling to increase access to Corona Virus testing following a series of initial blunders, including limiting testing strictly to those with symptoms and those who had either come into contact with a known patient or had traveled from China.

FDA approved CDC Corona Virus COVID19 Test Kits (Click Image To Enlarge)

What's more, the test kits the CDC first sent labs in January proved to be faulty, giving inconclusive results.

Such a large-scale snafu appears to be unprecedented.

Kelly Wroblewski, director of infection diseases for the Association of Pubic Health Laboratories, told NBC News,

"I can't remember it ever happening before.  This was just, perhaps, the most unfortunate timing to have a manufacturing issue."

On Tuesday, Food and Drug Administration head Dr. Stephen Hahn testified before a Senate committee that the FDA was working with a private company to increase testing capacity, though this will not happen immediately. Wednesday afternoon, Pence said that two of the major commercial diagnostic labs, LabCorp and Quest Diagnostics, would be conducting the test next week.

As of Wednesday morning, only about 70 public health labs were able to test for the Corona Virus, Wroblewski said. (The private company mentioned by Hahn will be providing tests to other labs, not public health labs.)

Those 70 include hospitals, military bases, Department of Defense labs, as well as other state and local public health labs, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The Association of Public Health Laboratories estimates that if 100 labs are up and running by the end of this week, about 10,000 tests per day could be performed.

Wroblewski said. 

"Everybody feels better this week than they did last week.  For the last three weeks or so, we've been so focused on having a test up and running. We're excited to be in a place where we're able to do that."

The Department of Forensic Sciences in Washington, D.C., a public health facility, started testing for the new Corona Virus on Monday.

How GlobalData's Corona Virus Social Media Dashboard Can Help Marketers and Medical Industry

On March 4, 2020, President Donald Trump appointed Vice-President Mike Pence to control all information concerning the Corona Virus aka COVID19 from the infectious disease government agencies.  The establishment by the White House to put a muzzle on all information flowing from the federal government health agencies like the HHS, CDC, NIH, FDA, HRSA and NCEZI, to name a few, means that the true story regarding the extent of infections caused by the Corona Virus may not be accurate. 

President Donald Trump's attempt to limit information about the Corona Virus originating from federal health agencies is nothing less than attempt by the President to limit the impact of information that may affect his ability to get re-elected.  Never in the history of our country has a President placed a muzzle on federal government information in order to insure he is re-elected.  This is what despots and dictators do, so watch out.

If you are a marketer, economist, human resource official, health or medical official (local, state or federal), a member of the mainstream media that relies on accurate information about the Corona Virus, I would refer you to the Corona Virus Social Media Dashboard to get a real-time "big picture" of what is going on right now as the Corona Virus infections and deaths increase. 

The Corona Virus Social Media Dashboard consolidates the data in the form of tweets appearing on the Twitter social network.  This data includes tweets from key Twitter influencers which cover and report on the Corona Virus. 

The Dashboard looks at all #hashtags like #CoronaVirus, #COVID19, #CDC, #FDA, #HHS, etc and consolidates them to form a graph like the one below.  As the volume of data (tweets and #hashtags) increases and added to the real-time graph a clearer picture starts to emerge.  As you can see from the graph below tweets about the Corona Virus are running at historic highs.  This is a Red Flag of the actuality of what is being reported by the public on Twitter.          

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If you are a marketer for a company that relies on imports from China where the Corona Virus originated, you are very much aware of how a pandemic of this magnitude can profoundly affect your bottom line, particularly if you cannot produce finished goods because you cannot get the needed parts or generate sales if you don't have the inventory on hand to meet consumer demand.  Already there is a run on surgical gloves, masks, gas masks, hand sanitizers and many other products originating from China, So Korea, Japan and Italy.

Entire industries have already been affected by the Corona Virus.   Travel has been hit hard.  The airlines, hospitality and cruise lines have been hit the hardest.  The airlines could lose $65-$113 billion this year.   The White House is discussing the possibility of providing financial support like Trump did for farmers hit by the imposition of tariffs against China. 

The novel Corona Virus continues to wreak havoc in the global technology industry.  Many companies have shut factories and banned business-related travel and major industry events like Facebook's F8, the Geneva Motor Show, Google I/O and Mobile World Congress continue to be called off because of the outbreak.  Apple's production of iPhones has been affected reducing the number of iPhones available to consumers.

The stock markets have all been affected as fears of the Corona Virus' affect on earnings have investors scrambling for safe havens like gold.  Particularly hard hit has been the Dow-Jones Industrial Average (DOW).  The DOW was at 29,551.42 on February 12.  By March 6, the DOW had dropped to 25,865.78.    

Courtesy of Pharmaceutical Technology's Corona Virus Social Media Dashboard, an FDA News Release dated February 4, 2020 for Emergency Use Authorization of Corona Virus Test Kit and an NBC News article dated March 4, 2020 titled "Officials Say Corona Virus Test Kits Are Here, But Where Are They?"

 

KITE: THE AMAZING SQUARE MOSQUITO REPELLANT STICKER, COULD END THE SPREAD OF MOSQUITO-BORNE DISEASES IN AFRICA

The Kite Patch acts like an impenetrable force field to keep mosquitos from biting people. (Click Image To Enlarge)

The Kite Patch is a little square sticker that emits a cloak of chemical compounds that block a mosquito's ability to sense humans. Image: ieCrowd

Mosquitos were born to bite us, and aside from lighting worthless tiki candles, haplessly swatting them away, or resorting to spraying toxic DEET all over ourselves, there’s really not a whole lot we can do about it. Imagine then, if you could be encapsulated in an anti-mosquito bubble simply by wearing a small square sticker. Not only would it save mosquito-magnets like myself some really uncomfortable moments, it could be a major game changer in the way we prevent mosquito-borne illnesses like Malaria, Dengue Fever, and West Nile Virus.

The Like Patch has one purpose: Make humans "invisible" to mosquitos (Click Image To Enlarge)

The good news is that a sticker like this is not some far away concept dreamed up by scientists in a lab–it’s actually a real thing that you’ll likely be able to find on the shelves of your local Walgreens sometime in the not-so-distant future.

The Kite Patch could be the solution to ending the spread of mosquito transmitted diseases like Malaria, Dengue Fever, West Nile Fever (Click Image To Enlarge)

Essentially, the Kite Patch is a little square sticker that emits a cloak of chemical compounds that blocks a mosquito’s ability to sense humans. According to its developers, users simply have to place the patch onto their clothes, and they become invisible to mosquitoes for up to 48 hours. This is big news for developing countries like Uganda, where residents have little beyond mosquito nets and toxic sprays to combat the illness-spreading insects.

Olfactor Laboratories developed non-toxic compounds that work against mosquitoes' long-range abilities to detect humans through CO2, as well as dampening the bug’s short-range ability to sense us from our basic human odors. Image courtesy of Olfactor Laboratories (Click Image To Enlarge)

That’s exactly where Kite’s creators, a collaborative team made up of innovation venture capital group ieCrowd and Olfactor Laboratories, intend to ship these off to as soon as they’re done blowing past their second goal on global crowdsourcing site Indiegogo. Launched just last month, the campaign surpassed its original goal of $75,000 in just four days and is now gunning for a new goal of $385,000 (currently at $336,000).

 

Though the Kite seems a little fantastical, it’s backed by some legitimate technology. Back in 2011, Dr. Anandasankar Ray, an entomologist at the University of California, Riverside (and founder of Olfactor Labs), found that certain chemical compounds can inhibit the carbon dioxide receptors in mosquitoes. These smelly compounds, which act like a anti-mosquito force field, are able to disorient the bugs, whose main method of tracking down humans is through our exhalation of CO2.

A scientist testing the chemical compounds in the Kite Patch. Image courtesy of Olfactor Laboratories. (Click Image To Enlarge)

The findings were considered a breakthrough moment in the field, but the technology was far from ready to be applied to a consumer product mostly because the compounds were toxic and wouldn’t be able to pass through FDA and EPA approval.  Grey Frandsen, Vice President at ieCrowd explains.  

“It wasn’t ready to be placed into a product that could mean something globally.” 

The hand on the left shows how mosquitos react to the Kite Patch not containing the mosquito repellant compounds, and the hand on the right shows that mosquitos are repelled as a result of the repellant compounds in the Kite Patch. (Click Image To Enlarges)

That’s where his company came in.

ieCrowd basically functions as the belt of an innovation assembly line, guiding an idea through the necessary steps so it can become a widely distributed, (hopefully) world-changing product.  It begins with acquiring the intellectual property, like they did with Dr. Ray’s research. From there they provide all of the business infrastructure, marketing, and general support so subsidiary companies can focus exclusively on developing new technology.   In the case of the Kite Patch, ieCrowd worked with a group of scientists at Olfactor Laboratories, a research facility in Riverside, Calif. that developed a new targeted library of chemical compounds based on Dr. Ray’s original research.

Olfactor’s non-toxic compounds work against mosquitoes’ long-range abilities to detect humans through CO2, as well as dampening the insect’s short-range ability to sense us from our basic human odors.  These chemicals, which give off a “faint pleasant smell,” will be applied to a small sticker, which Frandsen notes is the cheapest, easiest, and most adaptable way to design a spatial insect repellant. The patches will then be shipped off to Uganda for field testing, which should begin before the end of the year. Frandsen says of ieCrowd’s method.

“Really, what we’re doing is creating a rapid scientific development process, a rapid prototyping process and then a very aggressive go to market strategy.” 

The Kite Patch needed to be affordable, adaptable and easy to use, which is why it was designed as a square sticker. Image by ieCrowd.  (Click Image To Enlarge)

The product has had a little help along the way, namely from the National Institutes of Health, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. Frandsen says.

“The big names behind us have helped us advance the science.  But those grants do not cover product development.”

All of the money raised from the Indiegogo campaign will be funneled into extensive field testing. Originally, the testing was going to provide 20,000 patches (around 1 million hours of coverage) to one district in Uganda. The extra money raised will double the number of Kite Patches shipped and expand the coverage to four million hours in three political districts in the country.

The idea is to refine the Kite as much as possible during the field testing and hone in on three main goals:  

• Analyze the adaptability of the patch.  
  • Is it easy to apply and wear? 
  • Does it work well both at morning and at night? 
  • Does it fall off people’s clothing at after a certain point? 
• Test the effectiveness of the technology in harsh conditions found in places like Sub-Saharan Africa. Scientists have yet to determine exactly how far the sticker’s spatial radius extends and will be looking to see how it reacts to wind and extreme weather. 
• Begin field testing to evaluate how the sticker interacts with and can supplement current malaria prevention technology like bed nets.

Frandsen says.

“We’re looking at: What are any shortfalls specifically relating to the design that we can solve for that don’t come from testing it with 100 people in the Canadian Rockies or in Florida?  So there’s this real life, real world use and evaluation of that.”

The Kite has reportedly performed well inside the highly-controlled confines of a lab, but Frandsen says the most vital evaluation will come from the Kite Patch’s time in Africa.  He says of the extensive field testing. 

“It’s a really unique way of doing product development.  It’s a lot easier to deal in private-equity markets or investments and just finish it.”

But, he continues,

“This technology is too important to just funnel directly to the Walgreens. It needs to be part and parcel of people’s daily lives all over the world.”

You can donate to the Kite Patch campaign on Indiegogo.

COMMENTARY:    The Kite Patch is a no-brainer that is destined to become a game changer.   The Kite Patch is a product that screams for capital to speedup the research needed to test the patch's adaptability, efficacy and begin field testing.  I say the faster the better.  The Kite Patch is needed right now, especially in tropical countries of the world where mosquito-borne diseases like Malaria, kill millions of people each year.  

Courtesy of an article dated August 16, 2013 appearing in Wired 

 

A MAP OF CANCER'S GLOBAL FOOTPRINT, BUT WHY DO WEALTHY COUNTRIES HAVE THE HIGHEST CANCER RATES?

Brain cancer cells magnified under a microscope (Click Image To Enlarge)

Cancer is a leading cause of death in many wealthy countries, and its toll is rising in poorer regions. A 2012 study in The Lancet Oncology predicted that from 2008-2030, cancer incidence will rise 75 percent globally and will double in the least developed countries. Explore this data visualization to learn more.

 

Learn about data visualization tools.

 

COMMENTARY:   Developed nations like the U.S. and those in Europe have higher cancer rates than those in developing and under-developed countries.  There has to be a correlation between wealth and cancer, but what is it?   

Courtesy of an article dated December 15, 2012 appearing in Visual.ly

MYSTERIOUS ILLNESS WITH TOURETTE'S-LIKE TWITCHING SYMPTOMS STRIKES TEENS IN LE ROY, N.Y., MEDICAL EXPERTS PERPLEXED AS TO THE CAUSE

The doctors have tried to tell her every way they know how over the past three months: delicately, constantly, even urgently. But as Heather Parker sips coffee in her weathered clapboard house, she still isn’t buying that the Tourette’s-like twitches that have consumed her 17-year-old daughter, Lydia, since she woke up from an October nap are a product of a psychological disorder, not a physical one.

Says Parker about her daughter Lydia.  

“I just can’t make sense of it, it’s just so obvious that something is really wrong in her body.”

Parker, a single mother with a ponytail and glasses who’s lived all her life around Le Roy, a town of 7,500 near Rochester, where, before a slew of teenage girls started reporting such tics, the only attraction of note was the Jell-O museum. Beside her sits Lydia, an unhappy-looking girl with coal-black dyed hair whose right arm swings like an orchestra conductor’s every five seconds or so. Lydia, a senior, hasn’t been in school since the tics started. She’s supposed to be going to her tutor, but often she can’t get herself out of bed, so now she may have to drop out and get a GED.  Says her mother.

“She was going to be the first person in the family to finish high school, but because of what’s happened to her health, that doesn’t look good now.”

When the girls—there are more than 20 of them now, with four new cases last week alone—started reporting similar symptoms, it didn’t take long for the TV cameras to descend. Since January, there have been dozens of crews crowding the counter at places like Java’s on Main, the local coffee shop, clutching tripods and cappuccinos, hoping for footage of the girls and their parents. In the past few weeks, producers fromGood Morning America, The Today Show, Anderson Cooper 360° and HLN's Dr. Drew (see below) have swooped in, offering anxious moms a chance to go on air with their daughters, to beg for answers.

 

There have been several theories as to what is causing this mysterious illness which is affecting the teens of Le Roy, N.Y.  

• Toxins from hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) in the natural-gas wells that ring the girls’ school. 
• On January 28, 2012,  Erin Brockovich, the environmental crusader, appeared on HLN's Dr Drew, and believes that a 1971 train derailment that spilled one ton of cyanide and 45,000 gallons of Trichloroethylene (TCE) only four miles from Le Roy High School is the cause of the mysterious illness.  Ms Brokovich has made a career out of investigating and litigating toxic spills, recently sent a trusted aide to the scene to dig up soil samples from the school grounds, there was reason to suspect a cover-up.  
• On February 6,  2012, Dr. Rosario Trifiletti , a New Jersey neurologist reported on HLN's Dr. Drew that he reviewed blood tests on eight of the upstate Le Roy, New York teens who are suffering from a strange tic disorder — which has affected 18 girls and one boy since last fall — and diagnosed them with Pediatric Autoimmune Illness Associated with Streptococci or PANDAS. 
• Some folks on the Internet believe that vaccinations like Gardasil could be the source of the mysterious illness.  

For months, the marquee on the front of the Living Waters Church on Main Street bespoke the community’s fears:

“We are praying for our h.s. girls.”

But amid the soundbites from contentious public meetings and the bustle of production assistants ushering red-eyed mothers to the makeup chair lies a very inconvenient truth: the cluster in Le Roy is, by all reasonable judgment, a mass hallucination. Aided by media of all sorts, what the girls are suffering from is perhaps the ultimate disease of our era.

Over the past months, even as health officials have methodically ruled out organic causes, the cases have stubbornly spread through this working-class community. Laszlo Mechtler, from the Dent Neurologic Institute, a leading neurologist in the area, at the request of the National Institute of Health, is investigating the mysterious illness for confirmation of PANDAS, and Dr. Mechtler has had 18 of the girls in his office says. 

“It’s a very hard thing for parents, for people in general, to accept.”

 

Leaning forward in a leather chair at the end of a long day, he says that he and a female colleague recognized as soon as the girls started streaming into their office that they had “conversion disorder,” named because the mind unconsciously “converts” emotional disturbances into physical symptoms. In addition to the girls, one woman in her 30s and a teenage boy have also developed symptoms.

He says.  

“This is nothing that people want to hear.”

Next door, in an examining room, a colleague is talking to yet another girl who tics uncontrollably as her mother stands by in horror. While as many as 15 percent of the people who come to him turn out to be suffering from a conversion disorder, “mass psychogenic illness,” as he refers to the cluster in Le Roy, is rare. When it does strike, it is almost always confined to groups of girls, often in rural areas. During the early 20th century it struck all-female factories; before that, nunneries, according to Timothy F. Jones, an epidemiologist who began studying the phenomenon after a similar outbreak in a high school in Tennessee in 1998. Mechtler says.  

“This isn’t a sexist observation. It’s just a fact. These girls in this case are under an enormous amount of stress, and that has surfaced in this difficult way. The attention, the cameras, all the social media, it has made things much worse.”

Heather Parker doesn’t get all the talk about stress.  She says  

“Lydia didn’t even have a test in school the next day."

In fact, things had been looking up ever since 2009, when Parker had finally gotten up the nerve to kick out the kids’ father, who has done time for assaulting his daughter. That was a bad stretch, she acknowledges, but not as bad as what happened to another girl, whose mother had discovered that her boyfriend was secretly filming her daughter undressing in her bedroom. When the mother confronted him, the guy blew his head off, right in front of the girl and her mother.  Mechtler says.

“The more you ask these kids about their lives, the more you find out.  But if you ask them if there are stressors in their life they have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Treatment for conversion disorders includes therapy and medication for depression and anxiety. Some of the girls are already recovering, he says,

“The ones who’ve stayed off TV, whose parents are keeping them off Facebook.”

Some parents have persuaded Erin Brockovich to send an associate back to Le Roy on Feb. 20 (Brockovich did not respond to requests for comment). And Dr. Rosario Trifiletti, who has made a name for himself diagnosing PANDAS, is convinced the blood samples from some of the girls show that they have “triggers” for the disease.  Dr. Tifiletti says.  

"All eight girls tested show evidence of infection with at least one of these pathogens. Both of these agents have been associated with a PANDAS-like illness with the sudden onset of motor and vocal tics. Thus, a PANDAS-like illness is my working diagnosis, rather than a mass conversion disorder."

Although Trifiletti conceded that much about the disorder remains unknown, he said:

“I suspect that genetic, environmental factors provide an immune background where the PANDAS-like response is possible to common pathogens. The infectious exposure is simply the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

About 40% to 60% of childhood tic disorders are believed to be initiated by infections, but the exact numbers aren’t known due to lack of research.

However, the report by the New York State Department of Health released at the end of January states flatly:

“None of the cases meet the PANDAS criteria.”

Furthermore, Laszlo Mechtler, from the Dent Neurologic Institute, the leading PANDAS expert from the National Institute of Mental Health said that’s unlikely, given that PANDAS is exceedingly rare and has never occurred in clusters like that in Le Roy, N.Y.   Nonetheless, Trifiletti, who last week was on Nightline, is treating the girls with antibiotics. He did not return calls for comment.  Mechtler says. 

“It’s ridiculous, but maybe this will give some of the girls a way to get better without shame.”

There are many reasons for skepticism. Dr. Susan Swedo, branch chief of pediatrics and developmental neuropsychiatry at the National Institute on Mental Health, who is responsible for having named PANDAS, says she has not “personally evaluated any of the teens in Le Roy, so would not be able to determine if they have PANDAS or not,” but notes discrepancies between what is known about the Le Roy, N.Y., cases and about PANDAS.

For one thing, PANDAS doesn’t usually occur in clusters. Indeed, Swedo says that she is “not aware” of any epidemics of PANDAS ever occurring. The last epidemic of illness following strep infections — a cluster of rheumatic fever, which is an inflammatory disorder — happened in the 1980s. (Both PANDAS and rheumatic fever are caused by overzealous immune responses to infections; immune cells mistakenly attack particular organs or tissues, in addition to the infectious agents.)

Another red flag: strep is extremely common and PANDAS is very rare. Only about 1 in 100 children have OCD or tic disorders — and they aren’t all caused by infections. In contrast, Swedo notes, “In some school-aged children, positive titers [for strep] are found in 60% to 70% of kids at this time of year.”

Further, the fact that virtually only females have been affected by the tic disorder in Le Roy weighs against a PANDAS diagnosis.  Swedo says.  

“Tic disorders, like childhood-onset OCD, are about three times as common in boys as girls, so if you had a ‘tic epidemic,’ one would expect to see 40 to 60 boys, if 14 girls were affected.”

Consistent with the prevailing diagnosis of psychogenic origin, Swedo notes that tic disorders may worsen in the presence of stress (regardless of what caused the tics in the first place).  She says.

“Tics increase in times of stress and decrease during rest for most people, though sometimes the opposite occurs.”

As for Lana Parker, she disregards the talk of PANDAS.  She and her daughter have accepted that the condition will remain a mystery, at least to them. For now, Lydia is on disability and Medicaid. Parker says.  

“Overall I’m really proud of the way she’s handling it.” 

On Main Street, the townspeople seem to be wearying of the whole affair. They tolerated the media when things looked dire, “and we certainly got a lot of extra business with all the crews,” says Melissa Lytle, who works behind the counter at Java’s on Main. But as the environmental fears subside and the cases keep mounting, tempers are starting to fray. At the back table of the coffee shop, a clutch of older men working the crossword together regard with obvious disdain a Swedish producer flipping madly through a local phonebook in search of girls who’ll go on air. “If they’d just go away, maybe this would all pass,” says one of the men in a fierce whisper.

At the Living Waters Church, as a light snow begins to fall, a worker emerges to silently slide the letters off the marquee out front. In minutes the prayer for the girls is gone. In its place: “Le Roy: Still a Great Place to Live.” 

COMMENTARY:    Whatever is causing the mysterious tic illness that has now afflicted 20 high school students in Le Roy, N.Y., appears to be localized in Le Roy, N.Y.  This is good news for the medical profession.  

However, there appears to be broad differences of opinion as to what is really the cause of this mystery illness.  Hopefully, the medical profession and health institutions will come together compare results, and conduct more conclusive research into the illness.  

I am inclined to believe that it is not mass hysteria or mass psychogenic illness, but a combination of the effects of environmental toxins stemming from the railroad derailment that released the cyanide and TCE into the ground, contaminated soil used in the construction of Le Roy High School, and PANDAS.   These toxins could've weakened the autoimmune systems of the young victims enough to allow a Strep infection to trigger PANDAS.  That's just my theory.  Dr. Toy has said his peace. 

Courtesy of an article dated February 12, 2012 appearing in The Daily Beast, an article dated February 6, 2012 appearing in Time Healthland 

RUSSIAN SCIENTISTS FINALLY REACH LAKE VOSTOK, A 1-MILLION YR OLD SUBGLACIAL LAKE UNDER THE ANTARCTIC ICE CAP, AFTER 20 YRS OF DRILLING

A man stands near drilling apparatus at the Vostok research camp in Antarctica (Click Image To Enlarge)

After drilling into Lake Vostok for over two decades, Russian scientists have confirmed that they reached the mysterious freshwater lake that was sealed beneath over two miles of Antarctic ice.

 

After decades of drilling, Russian scientists in the arctic have uncovered a rare piece of nature, an ancient lake buried thousands of feet under the ice. RT's Sean Thomas, toured the frozen continent exactly a year ago, and now explains what this discovery could mean.

Beneath the vast white landscape, Lake Vostok is the deepest and most isolated of Antarctica's subglacial lakes. Its size compares to Siberia's Lake Baikal or one of the Great Lakes, increasing the chance of biodiversity in its waters. Scientists estimate the body of water is roughly 1 million years old and supersaturated with oxygen, resembling no other known environment on Earth. John Priscu of Montana State University suspects that an oasis of life may lurk there, teeming around thermal vents.

A radar satellite image of the ice over Lake Vostok, a freshwater lake with a surface area of 14,000 square kilometres, that is under 4 kilometres of ice (Click Image To Enlarge)

Although reports on Lake Vostok came in Monday, the feat was not confirmed for two days. The Associated Press wrote Wednesday morning that according to a statement by Russia's Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute, its team reached Lake Vostok on Sunday.

Russian news source RT reports that the scientists were able to retrieve 40 liters of water from Lake Vostok which they are taking home in sterile containers to test.

Cross-section drawing showing the location of Lake Vostok, 2.2 miles below the Anarctic Ice Cap (Click Image To Enlarge)

Lake Vostok, which hasn't been touched by light in millions of years, has been a target of scientific exploration because of the unique lifeforms it may contain.

AP writes,

"The discovery has been avidly anticipated by scientists around the world, who hope that the lake, comparable in area to Lake Ontario, may contain microbial life and provide a clue in the search for life on other planets in similar conditions."

Click Image To Enlarge

According to Wired, Lake Vostok likely contains 50 times the amount of oxygen found in a typical freshwater lake. The conditions in the lake "are thought to be similar" to Jupiter's moon Europa and Saturn's Enceladus.

Despite the excitement surrounding the Russians' accomplishment, the project was not without environmental fears. The Washington Post explained that concerns exist that Lake Vostok "could be contaminated by the kerosene, Freon and other materials being used in the drilling."

AP reports,

"Russian researchers have argued that the water from the lake would rush up the borehole driven by a jump in pressure, safely sealing pollutants."

Russia's RT writes that drilling liquids did not enter Lake Vostok. They explained,

"The lake water, rising up to 40 meters due to under-pressure in the crack, pushed the drilling liquid back onto the surface."

Russian scientists pose for group photo after their drill hole successfully reached Lake Vostok on February 5, 2012 (Click Image To Enlarge)

Even with the concerns, the Russians' accomplishment at Lake Vostok has excited the scientific community. John Priscu, an Antarctic specialist at Montana State University, told The Washington Post,

"If they were successful, their efforts will transform the way we do science in Antarctica and provide us with an entirely new view of what exists under the vast Antarctic ice sheet."

The Russian operation is also significant because of the surface conditions which the scientists endured. The area above Lake Vostok is one of the most inhospitable places on Earth. The lowest ever temperature on Earth, negative 128 degrees Fahrenheit (-82 C) was recorded there in 1983, according to the BBC.

In comparison, the temperature outside a commercial jetliner at a cruising altitude of around 35,000 feet is only about negative 69 degrees Fahrenheit.

COMMENTARY:   This is an incredible feat and if the Russians are able to successfully retrieve water from Lake Vostok after all these millions of years, and discover living microbes, sea life or other forms of life, the 20 years they spent drilling, would all be worth it.  We could end up discovering new species of life that existed in prehistoric times before Man walked on Earth.   

But Russia must wait for the Antarctic summer to collect and study water samples, leaving the door open for U.S. and British missions to explore two other subglacial lakes and beat it to be the first to answer the question of whether life exists under the polar ice. Martin Siegert, head of the University of Edinburgh's School of Geosciences, said. 

"This is scientific exploration, this is work that no one has ever done before.  This is probably one of the last frontiers on our planet that remains largely unknown to us."

Siegert is leading a British expedition to explore Lake Ellsworth in West Antarctica in 2012-2013.

The British camp at the Lake Ellsworth drilling site as a team of British engineers have completed the first phase of a project to explore an ancient subglacial lake buried 1.8 miles beneath the ice in Antarctica (Click Image To Enlarge)

There's obvious cause for concern by British and American scientists that the Russians may release living microbes that may be harmful or dangerous to Man.  Let's hope that the Russians don't fuck this up.

 Courtesy of an article dated February 8, 2012 appearing in Huffington Post Green and an article dated February 9, 2012 appearing in The Guardian

JOHNS HOPKINS MALARIA RESEARCH INSTITUTE RESEARCHERS GENETICALLY ENGINEER MOSQUITO IMMUNE SYSTEM TO BLOCK MALARIA

The three mosquitoes with glowing eyes are from three strains genetically engineered to better kill the malaria parasites in their guts. The mosquito at the far right, with yellow eyes, is a hybrid of the two other modified strains and was the most effective of the three at killing the parasite. (Credit: George Dimopoulos, JHU)

Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute demonstrated for the first time that the Anopheles mosquito’s innate immune system could be genetically engineered to block the transmission of the malaria-causing parasite to humans. In addition, they showed that the genetic modification had little impact on the mosquito’s fitness under laboratory conditions. The researchers’ findings were published December 22 in the online journal PLoS Pathogens.

George Dimopoulos, PhD, senior author of the study and associate professor in the W. Harry Feinstone Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health said.

“The immune system of the Anopheles mosquito is capable of killing a large proportion—but not all—of the disease-causing parasites that are ingested when the mosquito feeds on an infected human. We’ve genetically engineered this immune system to create mosquitoes that are better at blocking the transmission of the human malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum. “

For the study, Dimopoulos and his team genetically engineered Anopheles mosquitoes to produce higher than normal levels of an immune system protein Rel2 when they feed on blood. Rel2 acts against the malaria parasite in the mosquito by launching an immune attack involving a variety of anti-parasitic molecules. Through this approach, instead of introducing a new gene into the mosquito DNA, the researchers used one of the insect’s own genes to strengthen its parasite-fighting capabilities.According to the researchers, this type of genetically modified mosquito could be further developed and used to convert malaria-transmitting to Plasmodium-resistant mosquito populations. One possible obstacle for this approach is the fitness of the genetically modified malaria resistant mosquitoes, since they would have to compete with the natural malaria-transmitting mosquitoes. The researchers showed with their study that the Rel2 genetically modified mosquito strain lived as long, and laid as many eggs, as the non-modified wild type mosquitoes, thereby suggesting that their fitness had not become significantly impaired.

Dimopoulos said.

“Malaria is one of world’s most serious public health problems. Mosquitoes and the malaria parasite are becoming more resistant to insecticides and drugs, and new control methods are urgently needed. We’ve taken a giant step towards the development of new mosquito strains that could be released to limit malaria transmission, but further studies are needed to render this approach safe and fail-proof.”

Worldwide, malaria afflicts more than 225 million people. Each year, the disease kills approximately 800,000, many of whom are children living in Africa.

Authors of “Engineered Anopheles immunity to Plasmodium infection” are Yuemei Dong, Suchismita Das, Chris Cirimotich, Jayme A. Souza-Neto, Kyle J. McLean and George Dimopoulos.

The Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute is a state-of-the-art research facility at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. It focuses on a broad program of basic science research to treat and control malaria, develop a vaccine and find new drug targets to prevent and cure this deadly disease.

Funding was provided by the National Institutes of Health and the Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute.

COMMENTARY:   

Quick Facts About Malaria

• More than 40 percent of the world’s population lives in areas where there is a risk of contracting malaria.
• A child dies of malaria every 30 seconds.
• Nearly one million people die of malaria every year, mostly infants, young children, and pregnant women and most of them in Africa.
• Approximately 300 to 500 million cases of clinical malaria occur each year.
• Malaria accounts for at least $12 billion in economic losses each year in Africa, and a reduction in annual economic growth estimated at 1.3 percent.

Source: World Health Organization

What Causes Malaria

Malaria is caused by a single-celled parasite from the genus Plasmodium. More than 100 different species of Plasmodium exist. They produce malaria in many types of animals and birds, as well as in humans.

Four species of Plasmodium commonly infect humans. Each one has a distinctive appearance under the microscope, and each one produces a somewhat different pattern of symptoms. Two or more species can live in the same area and infect a single person at the same time.

• Plasmodium falciparum is responsible for most malaria deaths, especially in Africa. The infection can develop suddenly and produce several life-threatening complications. With prompt, effective treatment, however, it is almost always curable.
• Plasmodium vivax, the most geographically widespread of the species, produces less severe symptoms. Relapses, however, can occur for up to 3 years, and chronic disease is debilitating. Once common in temperate climates, P. vivax is now found mostly in the tropics, especially throughout Asia.
• Plasmodium malariae infections not only produce typical malaria symptoms but also can persist in the blood for very long periods, possibly decades, without ever producing symptoms. A person with asymptomatic (no symptoms) P. malariae, however, can infect others, either through blood donation or mosquito bites. P. malariae has been wiped out from temperate climates, but it persists in Africa.
• Plasmodium ovale is rare, can cause relapses, and generally occurs in West Africa.

Four Species of Plasmodium malaria parasite (Click Image To Enlarge)

Transmission

The malaria parasite typically is transmitted to people by mosquitoes belonging to the genus Anopheles. In rare cases, a person may contract malaria through contaminated blood. Malaria also may be transmitted from a mother to her fetus before or during delivery ("congenital" malaria).

Because the malaria parasite is found in red blood cells, malaria can also be transmitted through blood transfusion, organ transplant, or the shared use of needles or syringes contaminated with blood. 

The Life Cycle of the Malaria Parasite

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1. A female Anopheles mosquito carrying malaria-causing parasites feeds on a human and injects the parasites in the form of sporozoites into the bloodstream. The sporozoites travel to the liver and invade liver cells.
2. Over 5-16 days*, the sporozoites grow, divide, and produce tens of thousands of haploid forms, called merozoites, per liver cell. Some malaria parasite species remain dormant for extended periods in the liver, causing relapses weeks or months later.
3. The merozoites exit the liver cells and re-enter the bloodstream, beginning a cycle of invasion of red blood cells, asexual replication, and release of newly formed merozoites from the red blood cells repeatedly over 1-3 days*. This multiplication can result in thousands of parasite-infected cells in the host bloodstream, leading to illness and complications of malaria that can last for months if not treated.
4. Some of the merozoite-infected blood cells leave the cycle of asexual multiplication. Instead of replicating, the merozoites in these cells develop into sexual forms of the parasite, called male and female gametocytes, that circulate in the bloodstream. 
5. When a mosquito bites an infected human, it ingests the gametocytes. In the mosquito gut, the infected human blood cells burst, releasing the gametocytes, which develop further into mature sex cells called gametes. Male and female gametes fuse to form diploid zygotes, which develop into actively moving ookinetes that burrow into the mosquito midgut wall and form oocysts. 
6. Growth and division of each oocyst produces thousands of active haploid forms called sporozoites. After 8-15 days*, the oocyst bursts, releasing sporozoites into the body cavity of the mosquito, from which they travel to and invade the mosquito salivary glands. The cycle of human infection re-starts when the mosquito takes a blood meal, injecting the sporozoites from its salivary glands into the human bloodstream .

Glossary

Diploid: Cells containing a full set of chromosomes. 
Gametes: Reproductive elements, male and female. 
Gametocytes: Precursors of the sexual forms of the malaria parasite, which release either male or female gametes within the stomach of the mosquito. 
Haploid: Cells containing a half set of chromosomes.
Merozoite: The form of the malaria parasite that invades red blood cells.
Oocyst: A stage of the malaria parasite within the mosquito which is produced when male and female gametes combine. 
Ookinete: The actively moving zygote of the malarial organism that penetrates the mosquito stomach to form an oocyst under the outer gut lining. 
Sporozoite: The infectious form of the malaria parasite, which is injected into people by mosquitoes. 
Zygote: The diploid cell resulting from union of a male and a female gamete. 

Symptoms

Malaria typically produces a string of recurrent attacks, or paroxysms, each of which has three stages—chills, followed by fever, and then sweating. Along with chills, the person is likely to have headache, malaise, fatigue, muscular pains, occasional nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. Within an hour or two, the body temperature rises, and the skin feels hot and dry. Then, as the body temperature falls, a drenching sweat begins. The person, feeling tired and weak, is likely to fall asleep.

The symptoms first appear some 10 to 16 days after the infectious mosquito bite and coincide with the bursting of infected red blood cells (RBCs). When many RBCs are infected and break at the same time, malaria attacks can recur at regular time periods—every 2 days for Plasmodium vivaxmalaria and P. ovale, and every 3 days for P. malariae.

With P. vivax malaria, the person may feel fine between attacks. Even without treatment, the paroxysms subside in a few weeks. A person with P. falciparum malaria, however, is likely to feel miserable even between attacks and, without treatment, may die. One reason P. falciparum malaria is so virulent is that the parasite can infect RBCs in all stages of development, leading to very high parasite levels in the blood. In contrast, P. vivax parasites infect only young RBCs, which means the number of parasites in the blood does not reach the same high levels as seen in P. falciparuminfection.

Diagnosis

Healthcare providers should suspect malaria in anyone who has been in the tropics recently, who received a blood transfusion, and who develops a fever and other signs that resemble the flu. They examine blood smears taken from a finger prick under a microscope to confirm the diagnosis. A "thick" smear makes it possible to examine a large amount of blood. Then, the species of parasite can be identified by looking at a corresponding "thin" smear. Because mixed infections are possible, these techniques are important for deciding the best treatment. For example, a person can be infected with Plasmodium vivax as well as the more dangerous P. falciparum.

Treatment

In most cases, healthcare providers can successfully treat people with malaria. To decide which medicine to use, they should try to identify the species of parasite responsible and the geographical location where the person was infected. International travel clinics, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the World Health Organization offer up-to-date information on the geography of malaria, including

• Which species are present in which areas
• Whether chloroquine-resistant parasites are present
• Which seasons of the year carry the greatest risk

Prevention

Before leaving home, anyone traveling to an area with malaria should consult a knowledgeable healthcare provider, an international travel clinic, a local health department, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), or the World Health Organization (WHO) to obtain advice on what medicines to take before, during, and after the trip. Health risks for malaria vary with the destination, conditions of travel, and types of activities the traveler will undertake. A traveler who spends even a single night in a malaria-endemic area risks getting infected.

CDC and WHO have information on how to limit contact with mosquitoes, as well as current guidelines on antimalarial drugs.

Malaria Cases and Deaths

CASES; According to the World Health Organization's World Malaria Report 2011, here were an estimated 216 million cases of malaria worldwide in 2010 of which 91% were due to P. falciparum. The vast majority of cases (81%) were in the African region followed by South-East Asia (13%) and Eastern Mediterranean Regions (5%).  The number of confirmed cases reported by NMCPs was only 11% of the estimated number of cases. The gap between case reports and estimated incidence was largest in the South-East Asia Region, and the smallest in the American and European Regions.   

The estimated number of malaria cases  per 1000 cases of persons at risk of malaria, which takes into account population growth over time, shows a reduction in case incidence of 17% globally between 2000 and 2010.  Declines in cases incidence are seen in every Region but are greatest in the European (100%), American (60%) and Western Pacific Regions (38%).

DEATHS: There were an estimated 655 000 malaria deaths worldwide in 2010. It is estimated that 91% of deaths in 2010 were in the African Region, followed by South-East Asia Region (6%) and Eastern Mediterranean Regions (3%). About 86% of deaths globally were in children under 5 years of age. 

The total number of deaths is substantially lower than that presented in the World Malaria Report 2010, 781,000 deaths, partly because of a downward revision of the number of child deaths occurring globally made by the UN Interagency Group for Child Mortality Estimation (22). This revision reduced the estimates of malaria deaths in the WHO African Region by approximately 11%. Thus, of the difference  (113,000) between the total number of deaths estimated for the African Region in 2010 (709,000), and the estimated deaths in 2011 for 2010 (596,000), approximately 78,000 of the decrease is due to methodological while approximately 35,000 is due to a real decrease in the real number of malaria deaths.   This decrease can be attributed, at least in part, to improved malaria control.

The estimated number of malaria deaths per 100 000 persons at risk of malaria shows a reduction in malaria mortality rates of 26% globally between 2000 and 2010.  The largest percentage decreases in malaria mortality rates were seen in the European (99%), American (55%), Western Pacific Regions (42%) and African Regions (33%).  

Click Image To Enlarge

World Malaria Map

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WHO World Malaria Report 2011

The World Health Organization (WHO) produces the WHO World Malaria Report each year.  The report is one of the most highly detailed and comprehensive reports on the incidence and deaths from malaria, latest research on the treatment of malaria, and country profiles for malaria. You can download a copy of their 2011 report by clicking on the following image. 

 Click Image To Download

Courtesy of a press release issued on December 22, 2011 by Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute, The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and

 

DUTCH RESEARCHER CREATES A SUPER-DEADLY INFLUENZA VIRUS WITH THE POTENTIAL TO KILL HALF OF EARTH'S POPULATION

A Dutch researcher has created a virus with the potential to kill half of the planet’s population. Now, researchers and experts in bioterrorism debate whether it is a good idea to publish the virus creation ”recipe”. However, several voices argue that such research should have not happened in the first place.

The virus is a strain of avian influenza H5N1 genetically modified to be extremely contagious. It was created by researcher Ron Fouchier of the Erasmus Medical Center Rotterdam, Netherlands. The work was first presented at a conference dedicated to influenza, that took place in September in Malta.

Avian influenza emerged in Asia about 10 years ago. Since then there were fewer than 600 infection cases reported in humans. On the other hand, Fouchier’s genetically modified strain is extremely contagious and dangerous, killing about 50% of infected patients. The former strain did not represent a global threat, as transmission from human to human is rare. Or, at least, it was before Fouchier genetically modified it.

Fouchier and his team used a pair of ferrets for testing because they react in similar ways as humans, when exposed to the flu virus. Researchers transmitted the deadly virus from one ferret to another, in order to make the virus more adaptable to a new host. After 10 generations, the virus has mutated allowing it to spread through air. The result was that ferrets could get sick just being near another infected animal.

A genetic study showed that new virus strain presented five mutations, and all could be also observed in nature - but only separately, not all five combined. Fouchier’s strain is as contagious as seasonal human influenza, which kills tens of thousands of people, just that, much more lethal.

 

Paul Keim, a specialist in microbial genetics who worked for many years with the anthrax bacillus commented.

“I can not think of a pathogenic organism to be more dangerous than this one.  I think the anthrax is not at all scary, when compared with this virus.”

Keim is the coordinator of the U.S. National Committee dedicated to biosecurity issues and now he has to make a decision. If Fouchier wants to publish his study detailing how the virus was created, Keim’s and his committee must approve.

Many scientists are concerned about possible negative consequences that could precede the publication of this research. There are many fears regarding bioterrorists that might find useful tips or a whole ’recipe’ to plan biological attacks. Demands are beeing made for the establishment of an international institution to oversee such dangerous research projects.

Dr. Thomas Inglesby, a bioterrorism expert says. 

“It’s just a bad idea for scientists to turn a lethal virus into a lethal and highly contagious virus. And it’s a second bad idea for them to publish how they did it so others can copy it.”

On the other hand, if the study becomes available for the scientific community, it could allow researchers to ”be prepared” for a potential H5N1 pandemic. Since Fouchier’s study suggests that the risk for this to occur is greater than previously thought. Some researchers believe that banning the paper will leave mankind helpless if the virus naturally mutates and becomes contagious.

COMMENTARY:    When news of the new super-deadly influenza virus was delivered in July 2011, it was chilling.  It meant that Dr. Fouchier’s research group had taken one of the most dangerous flu viruses ever known and made it even more dangerous — by tweaking it genetically to make it more contagious.

What shocked the researchers was how easy it had been, Dr. Fouchier said. Just a few mutations was all it took to make the virus go airborne.

 

The discovery has led advisers to the United States government, which paid for the research, to urge that the details be kept secret and not published in scientific journals to prevent the work from being replicated by terrorists, hostile governments or rogue scientists.

The experiment in Rotterdam transformed the virus into the supergerm of virologists’ nightmares, enabling it to spread from one animal to another through the air. The work was done in ferrets, which catch flu the same way people do and are considered the best model for studying it.

Richard H. Ebright, a chemistry professor and bioweapons expert at Rutgers University who has long opposed such research said.

“This research should not have been done.” 

He warned that germs that could be used as bioweapons had already been unintentionally released hundreds of times from labs in the United States and predicted that the same thing would happen with the new virus.

He said. 

“It will inevitably escape, and within a decade.”

Though he added that security measures like restricting possession of the virus to fewer scientists and fewer laboratories would lower the chances of that happening so soon.

This reminds me too much of the Hollywood film "Contagion."

This mutated H5N1 avian influenza virus needs to be contained and controlled by as few medical research facilities and laboratories as possible.  If this strain of h5n1 avain influenza virus gets loos in the wild, we will have a catastrophy of incredible dimensions.  God help us if a terrorist organization should get their hands on this virus.  The fact that it is airborne means that it can be transmitted through all living things and we will never be able to get it under control. This truly scary.

Courtesy of an article dated November 28, 2011 appearing in Doctor Tipster

HOW ARTHUR OLSON'S MOLECULAR GRAPHICS LAB AT SCRIPPS IS USING 3D PRINTING AND AUGMENTED REALITY TO DESIGN BETTER DRUGS

Pathbreaking work at Arthur Olson's Molecular Graphics Lab.

Drug design is a scientific problem so important that researchers are willing to throw just about any kind of creative problem-solving approach at it, including tech-buzzwords like gamification and augmented reality.  The latter approach comes from Arthur Olson's Molecular Graphics Laboratory at the Scripps Research Institute:  He uses 3-D printers to spit out physical models of drugs and enzymes, and attaches augmented-reality tags to them so that computer vision can help researchers find the optimal fit.

 

The reason this approach is worth exploring is that designing drugs comes down to piecing together the molecular structure of their chemical parts in the best possible way, so that they literally latch onto the surface of their targets like a magnetic Tetris piece. Tactile feedback is a very powerful tool for this kind of puzzle-solving, which is where Olson's 3-D-printed models come in--think of it like playing with a Rubik's cube, except the solution may help cure HIV.

But this is science, after all, and fiddling with a physical model won't provide detailed measure-ments of molecular energetics. That's where the augmented reality comes in.  A tag on the model is recognized by a webcam and Olson's software, which generates a pixel-accurate digital overlay on a computer screen that the researcher can watch like a real-time heads-up display as she manipulates the model. The digital overlay computes and displays all kinds of scientific detail that isn't manifest in the model, which can help guide the researcher's manipulations into even more productive directions.

Click Image To Enlarge

Finding the right molecular "fit" isn't something that can be effectively calculated using brute force--it has to be discovered, using a fusion of human intuition and digital visualization. Olson's interface ingeniously combines both kinds of intelligence in a way that lets them complement each other instead of get in the way, so that unexpected breakthroughs may have a better chance at surfacing.

COMMENTARY:  I have always been fascinated with molecular engineering (ME),  or the science of manufacturing molecules.  ME may be used to create, on an extremely small scale, most typically one at a time, new molecules which may not exist in nature, or be stable beyond a very narrow range of conditions.

Historically, ME is an extremely difficult process, requiring manual manipulation of molecules using devices such as a scanning tunneling microscope (STM), an instrument for imaging surfaces at the atomic leve.   

ME is a precision form of  chemical engineering-- the design, improvement and maintenance of processes of transforming raw materials  or chemicals into more useful or valuable forms.  

ME is an important part of pharmaceutical research for new drug design and materials science. Chemical or biological transformations includes protein engineering, the creation of protein molecules, a process that occurs naturally in biochemistry.   However, ME provides far more control than genetic modification of an existing genome, which must rely strictly on existing biochemistry to express genes as proteins, and has little power to produce any non-proteins.

In the following video, professor Arthur J. Olson of the Scripps Research Institute demonstrates a 3D printed model of a virus that self assembles when shaken. 

 

Professor Olson is head of the Molecular Graphics Laboratory, which uses 3D computer models, 3D printing, and augmented reality to create tools for life science researchers and educators. He is also the project leader of Fight Aids at Home, a tool that allows home computer users to share their resources as part of a massive project to find new HIV drugs.

Work Of Olson's Molecular Graphics Laboratory

Anti-HIV Drug Design

• HIV-1 protease, or PR, is essential to the replication of human immunodeficiency virus-1, and is consequently the target of major drug design programs worldwide. Our computational work is part of a closely-knit Program, involving several other laboratories, to develop both novel and mature tools to aid in the drug design cycle for anti-retroviral agents. The program consists of the following integrated parts:
  • Computational methods for docking active site ligands (inhibitors), and for elaboration and refined design of inhibitor lead compounds;
  • Design and chemical synthesis of retroviral protease inhibitors using new chemical approaches;
  • X-ray crystallographic studies of the feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV PR) and inhibitor complexes;
  • Molecular biology/virology of the FIV system.
• Our laboratory is exploring a new paradigm in distributed computing, by launching www.FightAIDSatHome.org in September 2000. Tens of thousands of people around the world run AutoDock on HIV Protease on their personal computers. The goal? To design better protease inhibitors that are more robust in the face of HIV resistance.

Ligand-Protein Docking

• AutoDock: rapid automated docking of flexible ligands to macromolecules, with estimated free energies of binding and genetic algorithm-based searching.
• Vina: new program for fast receptor-ligand docking and affinity prediction.
• AutoDockTools (ADT) is a GUI that can be used to set up dockings, as well as view and analyze the results.

Python Software Development

• Related links - papers, documentation, tutorials, downloads. (March 2001)

Protein-Protein Docking

• Spherical harmonics approximation of molecular surfaces.
• Evolutionary programming for protein-protein docking.

Protein Folding

• Lattice representations of proteins.

Macromolecular Visualization

• Rapid calculation of molecular surfaces.
• Simulation of molecules in living cells.
• Macromolecular animation and illustration.

Tangible Molecular Models

• Tangibles Interfaces for Molecular Biology
• PyARTK: an augmented reality toolkit.
• Images of Molecular Model Prototypes.

Molecular Cell Biology of Tissue Factor and Endothelia

• The goals of this project are elucidation of the molecular biology, structure-functionrelationships and three-dimentional structure of tissue factor.

Courtesy of an article dated October 20, 2011 appearing in Fast Company Design

NEW SUPER-TOXIC KILLER STRAIN OF E.COLI SPREADS THROUGHOUT EUROPE, ORIGINATED IN GERMANY, RESISTANT TO ALL ANTIBIOTICS

LONDON -- Scientists on Thursday blamed Europe's worst recorded food-poisoning outbreak on a "super-toxic" strain of E. coli bacteria that may be brand new.

 

But while suspicion has fallen on raw tomatoes, cucumbers and lettuce as the source of the germ, researchers have been unable to pinpoint the food responsible for the frightening illness, which has killed at least 18 people, sickened more than 1,600 and spread to least 10 European countries.

An alarmingly large number of victims - about 500 - have developed kidney complications that can be deadly.

Chinese and German scientists analyzed the DNA of the E. coli bacteria and determined that the outbreak was caused by "an entirely new, super-toxic" strain that contains several antibiotic-resistant genes, according to a statement from the Shenzhen, China-based laboratory BGI. It said the strain appeared to be a combination of two types of E. coli.

Hilde Kruse, a food safety expert at the World Health Organization, told The Associated Press,

"This is a unique strain that has never been isolated from patients before. The new strain has various characteristics that make it more virulent and toxin-producing than the many E. coli strains people naturally carry in their intestines."

However, Dr. Robert Tauxe, a foodborne-disease expert at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, questioned whether the strain is truly new, saying it had previously caused a single case in Korea in the 1990s. He said genetic fingerprints may vary from specimen to specimen, but that is not necessarily enough to constitute a new strain.  Said Dr. Tauxe,

"Though it appears to have been around awhile, it hasn't called attention to itself as a major public health problem before."

Elsewhere in Europe, Russia extended a ban on vegetables from Spain and Germany to the entire European Union to try to stop the outbreak spreading east, a move the EU quickly called disproportionate and Italy's farmers denounced as "absurd." No deaths or infections have been reported in Russia.

In Hamburg, Philipp, a 29-year-old photojournalist, was hospitalized on Monday after falling ill. He would not provide his last name because he did not want people to know he had the E. coli strain.

After suffering from stomach aches and bloody stools, he developed neurological symptoms and couldn't feel his left arm or leg. Despite three blood plasma transfusions to wash the toxins out of his blood, he hasn't improved.

Philipp said he recalls eating some vegetables the night before he got sick.

Some scientists suspect the deadly E. coli might have been in manure used to fertilize vegetables.

Kruse said it is not uncommon for bacteria to evolve and swap genes. It is difficult to explain where the new strain came from, she said, but bacteria from humans and animals easily trade genes.

Previous E. coli outbreaks have mainly hit children and the elderly, but this one is disproportionately affecting adults, especially women. Kruse said there might be something particular about the bacteria strain that makes it more dangerous for adults. Other experts said women tend to eat more produce.

Nearly all the sick either live in Germany or recently traveled there. British officials announced four new cases, including three Britons who recently visited Germany and a German on vacation in England.

The WHO recommends that to avoid food-borne illnesses, people wash their hands, keep raw meat separate from other foods, thoroughly cook their food, and wash fruits and vegetables, especially if eaten raw. Experts also recommend peeling raw fruits and vegetables if possible.

The fact that the strain may be new may have complicated the response to the outbreak.  

Paul Hunter, a professor of health protection at the University of East Anglia in England said,

"Officials may not have had the correct tests to detect it, which may explain the initial delay in reporting," 

He said the number of new cases would probably slow to a trickle in the next few days. The incubation period for this type of E. coli is about three to eight days.  Said Hunter,

"Salads have a relatively short shelf life and it's likely the contaminated food would have been consumed in one to two weeks."

But Hunter warned the outbreak could continue if there is secondary transmission of the disease, which often happens when children are infected. E. coli is present in feces and can be spread by sloppy bathroom habits, such as failure to wash one's hands.

 

Meanwhile, Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero slammed the European Commission and Germany for singling out the country's produce early on as a possible source of the outbreak, and said the government would demand "conclusive explanations and sufficient reparations."

Spanish farmers say the accusations have devastated their credibility and exports. In Valencia, protesting farmers dumped some 300 kilos (700 pounds) of fruit and vegetables - cabbage, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and other produce - outside the German consulate.

The outbreak is already considered the third-largest involving E. coli in recent world history, and it may be the deadliest. Twelve people died in a 1996 Japanese outbreak that reportedly sickened more than 9,000, and seven died in a Canadian outbreak in 2000.

 

COMMENTARY:   This is one scary E.coli bacteria.  The two previous strains are killer's but this strain is believed to be a combination of two different E.coli strains.  It's  a super-toxic strain that has already killed two individuals (both females) in the U.S.   They supposedly returned from Europe.  If you watch the above video, this does not look good at all because the new strain is resistant to all anti-biotics.  It's back to the lab and find out how to kill it.  If it spreads to our agricultural food chain, it could really create panic.  

The real concern is that the new super-toxic strain could morph into another E.coli strain and all of a sudden we have more than one version.  So far they suspect organic vegetables, but God only knows the real source.  You can become infected with E.coli just be touching the surface of any object, desk, chair, table, utensil, etc.  Every year it calls thousands in our hospitals.   

Courtesy of an article June 2, 2011 appearing in HuffPost AOL News