Archive for the ‘biotech/medical’ category: Page 1171
Oct 9, 2021
This DNA Factory Is Aiming to Reprogram the World
Posted by Kelvin Dafiaghor in categories: biotech/medical, innovation
After raising almost $3 billion, Ginkgo Bioworks has built the world’s largest DNA factory in a bid to alter the code behind life and replace traditional manufacturing with biology.
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Oct 8, 2021
Researchers create ‘self-aware’ algorithm to ward off hacking attempts
Posted by Quinn Sena in categories: biotech/medical, cybercrime/malcode, information science, nuclear energy, robotics/AI
It sounds like a scene from a spy thriller. An attacker gets through the IT defenses of a nuclear power plant and feeds it fake, realistic data, tricking its computer systems and personnel into thinking operations are normal. The attacker then disrupts the function of key plant machinery, causing it to misperform or break down. By the time system operators realize they’ve been duped, it’s too late, with catastrophic results.
The scenario isn’t fictional; it happened in 2,010 when the Stuxnet virus was used to damage nuclear centrifuges in Iran. And as ransomware and other cyberattacks around the world increase, system operators worry more about these sophisticated “false data injection” strikes. In the wrong hands, the computer models and data analytics—based on artificial intelligence—that ensure smooth operation of today’s electric grids, manufacturing facilities, and power plants could be turned against themselves.
Purdue University’s Hany Abdel-Khalik has come up with a powerful response: To make the computer models that run these cyberphysical systems both self-aware and self-healing. Using the background noise within these systems’ data streams, Abdel-Khalik and his students embed invisible, ever-changing, one-time-use signals that turn passive components into active watchers. Even if an attacker is armed with a perfect duplicate of a system’s model, any attempt to introduce falsified data will be immediately detected and rejected by the system itself, requiring no human response.
Oct 8, 2021
The Chinese government is developing biological weapons that can attack DNA | CLIP | Crossroads
Posted by Raphael Ramos in categories: biotech/medical, government
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Oct 8, 2021
CRISPR: The future or undoing of humanity? | Walter Isaacson | Big Think
Posted by Raphael Ramos in categories: biotech/medical, futurism
Oct 8, 2021
Waning Immune Humoral Response to BNT162b2 Covid-19 Vaccine over 6 Months
Posted by Omuterema Akhahenda in categories: biotech/medical, health
Despite high vaccine coverage and effectiveness, the incidence of symptomatic infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has been increasing in Israel. Whether the increasing incidence of infection is due to waning immunity after the receipt of two doses of the BNT162b2 vaccine is unclear.
As the rollout of vaccines against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)1,2 is expanding worldwide, data on the durability of protection are limited. A randomized, controlled trial and real-world studies have shown vaccine efficacy of 94 to 95% with the BNT162b2 vaccine (Pfizer–BioNTech) and vaccine effectiveness in preventing symptomatic coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) 7 days or more after receipt of the second dose of vaccine.1,3–5 Real-world effectiveness and immunogenicity data describing the antibody kinetics over time after vaccination are beginning to appear, but a complete picture of the duration of immunity is not yet available. We recently reported that breakthrough infection in BNT162b2-vaccinated persons was correlated with neutralizing antibody titers.6 However, a threshold titer that can predict breakthrough infection has not been defined.
The BNT162b2 vaccine elicits high IgG and neutralizing antibody responses 7 to 14 days after receipt of the second dose. Lower antibody levels have been shown to develop in older persons, men, and persons with an immunosuppressed condition, which suggests that antibody titers in these populations may decrease earlier than in other populations.7,8 A decrease in anti-spike (S) antibody levels by a factor of two was observed from the peak (at 21 to 40 days) to 84 days after receipt of the second dose of the BNT162b2 vaccine among 197 vaccinated persons.9 Here, we report the results of a large-scale, real-world, longitudinal study involving health care workers that was conducted to assess the kinetics of immune response among persons with different demographic characteristics and coexisting conditions throughout the 6-month period after receipt of the second dose of the BNT162b2 vaccine.
Oct 8, 2021
How COVID is changing data analytics
Posted by Gemechu Taye in categories: biotech/medical, business, robotics/AI
Analytics has played a significant role in the fight against COVID-19. Would we be as far along in the battle without it?
The COVID-19 pandemic has changed many things in business, producing a new normal that all of us now operate in—and analytics is no exception.
“As companies adapt to the new normal created by COVID, one of the primary questions we’re asked in analytics is how to retrain artificial intelligence (AI) models with a more diverse data set,” said David Tareen, director of AI and analytics at SAS.
Oct 8, 2021
Scientists pinpoint evolutionary genes that allow lizards to give birth like mammals
Posted by Jason Blain in categories: biotech/medical, evolution
Dr. Hans Recknagel, who led the field and genome research during his Ph.D. and postdoctoral research, said: This was fascinating research, not least because in this species of lizard egg-laying populations still occur and interbreed with live-bearing ones.
Scientists studying the evolution of birth in lizards, from egg-laying to live births, have pinpointed the evolutionary genes from which the species is evolving to ‘build’ a new mode of reproduction.
The study—led by the University of Glasgow and published in Nature Ecology and Evolution —found that a significantly similar amount of the same genes involved in the pregnancy of lizards were shared with other mammals and live-bearing vertebrates.
Oct 8, 2021
Merck Sells Federally Financed Covid Pill to U.S. for 40 Times What It Costs to Make
Posted by Omuterema Akhahenda in categories: biotech/medical, government, health
A FIVE-DAY COURSE of molnupiravir, the new medicine being hailed as a “huge advance” in the treatment of Covid-19, costs $17.74 to produce, according to a report (pdf) issued last week by drug pricing experts at the Harvard School of Public Health and King’s College Hospital in London. Merck is charging the U.S. government $712 for the same amount of medicine, or 40 times the price. (taxpayer funded mind you)
The Covid-19 treatment molnupiravir was developed using funding from the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Defense.
Oct 8, 2021
‘Gut bugs’ can drive prostate cancer growth and treatment resistance
Posted by Jason Blain in categories: biotech/medical, genetics
Scientists also analysed microbial genetic material from the stool of men with prostate cancer and identified a specific bacterium – Ruminococcus – that may play a major role in the development of resistance. In contrast, the bacterium Prevotella stercorea was associated with favourable clinical outcomes.
Image: Section of a mouse gut. Credit: Kevin Mackenzie, University of Aberdeen.
Common gut bacteria can fuel the growth of prostate cancers and allow them to evade the effects of treatment, a new study finds.
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