Lifeboat Foundation

Australians with COVID-19 who are at risk of hospitalisation will now have access to an additional antibody treatment, as the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) announced today it has granted provisional approval for sotrovimab to be used in Australia.

Earlier this month, the Australian Government secured an initial allocation of over 7,700 doses of the novel monoclonal antibody treatment sotrovimab and a first shipment is already in the country and ready to be deployed through the National Medical Stockpile from next week.

The sotrovimab treatment requires a single dose to be administered through an intravenous (IV) infusion in a health care facility and has been shown to reduce hospitalisation or death by 79 per cent in adults with mild to moderate COVID-19, who are at risk of developing severe COVID-19.

Donor-derived anti-CD7 chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy led to complete responses in 18 of 20 patients with relapsed or refractory (r/r) T-cell acute lymphoblastic (ALL), a first-in-human clinical trial showed.

After a median follow-up of 6.3 months, 15 of the 18 responding patients remained in remission, and seven patients had undergone stem-cell transplantation (SCT). All patients developed cytokine release syndrome (CRS), which was grade 1/2 in most instances. Because the therapy involved unmanipulated T cells, a majority of patients developed graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), grade 1/2 severity in all cases. All of the patients developed severe cytopenias, which were manageable.

The results provided the basis for an ongoing phase II trial of the donor-derived anti-CD7 therapy, reported Jing Pan, MD, of the State Key Laboratory of Experimental Hematology and Beijing Boren Hospital in China, and colleagues in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

In case someone you know needs details.

With an increase in calls to poison-control centers, the CDC and FDA strongly warn against the use of the anti-parasitic drug ivermectin for COVID-19.

An enzyme with an elusive role in severe inflammation may be a key mechanism driving COVID-19 severity and could provide a new therapeutic target to reduce COVID-19 mortality, according to a study published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

Researchers from the University of Arizona, in collaboration with Stony Brook University and Wake Forest School of Medicine, analyzed blood samples from two COVID-19 patient cohorts and found that circulation of the enzyme — secreted phospholipase A2 group IIA, or sPLA2-IIA, — may be the most important factor in predicting which patients with severe COVID-19 eventually succumb to the virus.

Researchers have identified what may be the key molecular mechanism responsible for COVID-19 mortality – an enzyme related to neurotoxins found in rattlesnake venom.

Continue reading “Like Venom Coursing Through the Body: Researchers Identify Mechanism Driving COVID-19 Mortality” »

The robots can tumble up slopes.

A new study investigates tiny tumbling soft robots that can be controlled using rotating magnetic fields. The technology could be useful for delivering drugs to the nervous system. In this latest study, researchers put the robots through their paces and showed that they can climb slopes, tumble upstream against fluid flow and deliver substances at precise locations to neural tissue.

Would you let a tiny MANiAC travel around your nervous system to treat you with drugs? You may be inclined to say no, but in the future, “magnetically aligned nanorods in alginate capsules” (MANiACs) may be part of an advanced arsenal of drug delivery technologies at doctors’ disposal. A recent study in Frontiers in Robotics and AI is the first to investigate how such tiny robots might perform as drug delivery vehicles in neural tissue. The study finds that when controlled using a magnetic field, the tiny tumbling soft robots can move against fluid flow, climb slopes and move about neural tissues, such as the spinal cord, and deposit substances at precise locations.

Continue reading “Tiny robots could deliver drugs directly to our central nervous system” »

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Ian Bremmer.

If you could cure genetic diseases by editing DNA sequences, would you?

Continue reading “CRISPR gene editing and the human race” »

For those who dream of visiting Peru’s Machu Picchu, a new virtual reality (VR) exhibit is set to fully immerse guests in the wonders of the UNESCO World Heritage site.

Debuting this October at the Boca Raton Museum of Art in Florida, the Machu Picchu and the Golden Empires of Peru exhibition is the first of its kind, offering a full-motion, 360-degree, interactive VR experience. Guests can expect to experience the ruins of Machu Picchu as if they were there in person, all while also learning about the ancient civilizations of Peru.

In order to preserve this historic site, less than one million visitors are allowed in each year. During the pandemic, that number dropped to approximately 250,000 to allow for social distancing. But with the Machu Picchu and the Golden Empires of Peru exhibition, the goal is for as many people as possible to experience these impressive ruins.

Bioengineers have repurposed a “non-working” CRISPR system to make a smaller version of the genome engineering tool. Its diminutive size should make it easier to deliver into human cells, tissues and the body for gene therapy.

Summary: Novel AI technology allows researchers to understand which brain regions directly interact with each other, which helps guide the placement of electrodes for DBS to treat neurological diseases.

Source: Mayo Clinic.

For millions of people with epilepsy and movement disorders such as Parkinson’s disease, electrical stimulation of the brain already is widening treatment possibilities. In the future, electrical stimulation may help people with psychiatric illness and direct brain injuries, such as stroke.