• Keeping biotechnology research safe

    Increasingly, scientists across the world and in the Unites States are reporting new and groundbreaking innovations in biotechnology with transformative implications in human health and environmental sustainability. While these technologies are developed in laboratories, researchers are not only giving utmost consideration to the potential beneficial impacts but also to a new set of potential risks arising in synthetic biology research. It is crucial that scientists employ the highest level of safety measures within the laboratory to prevent any unintentional effects on human health or environment. The Wyss Institute is developing a proactive biosafety process to review all proposed biotechnology research and manage potential risks pre-emptively.

  • Warm ocean hot spots caused mid-1930s U.S. Dust Bowl

    The unusually hot summers of 1934 and 1936 broke heat records that still stand today. They were part of the devastating dust bowl decade in the United States when massive dust storms traveled as far as New York, Boston, and Atlanta, covering the decks of ships with silt 450 km off the east coast. Two ocean hot spots have been found to be the potential drivers of these hot 1934 and 1936 summers in the central United States, knowledge that may help predict future calamities.

  • Halting response to the 4 Ebola cases in U.S. valuable in preparations for bioterror attacks

    The Ebola outbreak in West Africa has killed at least 10,000 people to date. There were only four Ebola diagnoses in the United States, one of which resulted in a death, but many public health officials say the U.S. response to in-country cases is a lesson on how government can prepare for a bioterror attack. Experts warn, though, thatthe United States is only prepared to confront a fraction of the fifteen potential biological agents that could be released in an attack, adding that many U.S. cities would be left scrambling to respond.

  • Seattle infectious disease research center hosts “Rally for Global Health”

    Fourteen million people die from infectious diseases around the world every year. The Seattle, Washington-based Center for Infectious Disease Research (formerly Seattle BioMed) hosted the “Rally for Global Health” last week to raise awareness for the Washington state global health and life-sciences industries and formally launch a petition urging congress to increase funding for the National Institutes of Health. During the event, the Center for Infectious Disease Research, which is the largest independent nonprofit in the world focused solely on infectious disease research, officially announced the organization has changed its name and is no longer Seattle BioMed.

  • Deepwater Horizon consequences continues to plague Gulf Coast communities

    Five years after the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history, communities along the Gulf of Mexico continue to struggle with the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, according to researchers. While most of the nation’s attention continues to focus on the environmental and financial toll of the spill that killed eleven workers and flooded Gulf waters with millions of gallons of oil, the less obvious consequences, including those related to public health, may prove the most long-lasting, the researchers say.

  • Developing a car wash to protect the food supply

    Whether it is a bacon cheeseburger that comes through a drive-thru window or a steak dinner at a five-star restaurant, food safety is universally important, and it starts long before a meal is on the table. This is a prime concern for the agricultural industry as they transport cattle, swine, and other livestock across the country in the hundreds of millions each year. One of the key elements to decreasing the effects of an outbreak is to decontaminate areas where animals have been located. This is no small feat, however.

  • What works and doesn’t in disaster health response

    On Saturday, 24 April 2015, a major (Magnitude 7.8) earthquake hit Nepal shortly after midday. At the moment, the most important question is how can the global community best respond? What can and what should international relief teams be prepared to do when responding to such an event? Research provides some well-documented evidence that many international health-oriented responses are poorly targeted and may be influenced by objectives that play well on the home front rather than what’s needed on the ground. As we respond to Nepal’s earthquake, and as we look forward to the next international earthquake responses, let us take into account what we have learned from past experiences, and, in coordination with our local hosts, provide the kinds of health assistance that are most likely to meet the needs of the people affected.

  • Coffee production starting to decline as a result of warming

    Coffee is the world’s most valuable tropical export crop and the industry supports an estimated 100 million people worldwide. Scientists have provided the first on-the-ground evidence that climate change has already had a substantial impact on coffee production in the East African Highlands region. The study, using data from the northern Tanzanian highlands, verifies for the first time the increasing night time (minimum) temperature as the most significant climatic variable being responsible for diminishing Coffea arabica coffee yields between 1961 and 2012 and proves that climate change is an ongoing reality.

  • Building healthier communities essential for recovering from disasters

    U.S. communities and federal agencies should more intentionally seek to create healthier communities during disaster preparation and recovery efforts — something that rarely happens now, says a new report from the Institute of Medicine. By adding a health “lens” to planning and recovery, a community can both mitigate the health damage caused by disasters and recover in ways that make the community healthier and more resilient than it was before.

  • California vaccine bill on hold as opposing parents threaten to keep their children out of school

    California Senate Bill 277, which would require parents in California to vaccinate their children as a condition for enrollmentin either public or private schools, is facing opposition, after parents and lawmakers expressed their concerns that some children might be denied an education.

  • Mystery disease, which kills within 24 hours of infection, so far claims 30 in Nigeria

    A “mysterious” disease which that kills patients within twenty-four hours of infection has so far claimed at least thirty lives in a south-eastern Nigerian town, the Nigerian government said. “Twenty-three people were affected and eighteen deaths were recorded,” the Ondo state health commissioner said. The World Health Organization said it had information on fourteen additional cases, of which twelve had already died. WHO doctors said that common symptoms were sudden blurred vision, headache, loss of consciousness followed by death, occurring within twenty-four hours. Laboratory tests on samples from the bodies of those who died have so far ruled out Ebola or any other virus.

  • Scientists: Global pandemic of fake, sub-standard medicines poses dire risk

    Poor quality medicines are a real and urgent threat that could undermine decades of successful efforts to combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis, according to the editors of a collection of journal articles published yesterday. Scientists report up to 41 percent of specimens failed to meet quality standards in global studies of about 17,000 drug samples. Among the collection is an article describing the discovery of falsified and substandard malaria drugs that caused an estimated 122,350 deaths in African children in 2013. Other studies identified poor quality antibiotics, which may harm health and increase antimicrobial resistance.

  • Water shortage grows, and so does the need for technological solutions

    The value of freshwater is becoming more apparent, as more and more areas around the world are suffering from dwindling supply as a result of climate change. The World Bank estimates that water is $1 trillion privatized commodity. Last week, California imposed mandatory restrictions on water use for the first time in its history. California’s unprecedented move is just one example of the political and social issues which will accompany a growing water shortage moving forward.

  • Epidemiologist warns Maine is unprepared to deal with disease outbreaks

    Last year, when Kaci Hickox, a nurse who returned to her home state of Maine from West Africa, she was quarantined despite showing no signs of the disease. The way she was treated led the CDC to warn that in the absence of detailed preparations, public hysteria and paranoia often accompany, and complicate response to, an outbreak. Since then, Maine officials have been debating whether or not state agencies are prepared to tackle an outbreak.

     

  • U.S. training foreign health personnel to tackle future epidemics in North Africa, Middle East

    In an effort to prevent an Ebola-like disease outbreak in North Africa and the Middle East, a U.S. science envoy is leading a government-sponsored program which would train foreign health experts on how to produce vaccines in time to prevent an epidemic. It is uncertain what disease threat might emerge in North Africa and the Middle East, so the scientists want to be prepared for a number of candidates. They worrys most about leishmaniasis, schistosomiasis, MERS, dengue fever, and alkhurma hemorrhagic fever, diseases for which there are no licensed vaccines; and tuberculosis, for which the only vaccine, BCG, offers at best modest protection.