• “CoronaCheck” Website Combats Spread of Misinformation

    Researchers have developed an automated system that uses machine learning, data analysis, and human feedback to automatically verify statistical claims about the new coronavirus. “CoronaCheck,” based on ongoing research from Cornell University’s Immanuel Trummer, launched internationally in March and has already been used more than 9,600 times. The database – now available in English, French, and Italian – checks claims on COVID-19’s spread based on reliable sources such as the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

  • Pandemics Can Fast Forward the Rise and Fall of Great Powers

    Fortunately for the United States, my research shows that democracies generally outperform their autocratic competitors in great power rivalries. Still, there is no time to lose. As U.S. leaders formulate their response to the coronavirus, they must think not only in terms of the immediate public health crisis, but also about the very future of American global leadership.

  • Trial Drug Can Significantly Block Early Stages of COVID-19 in Engineered Human Tissues

    An international team led by University of British Columbia researcher Dr. Josef Penninger has found a trial drug that effectively blocks the cellular door SARS-CoV-2 uses to infect its hosts.
    UBC says that the findings, published today in Cell, hold promise as a treatment capable of stopping early infection of the novel coronavirus that, as of April 2, has affected more than 981,000 people and claimed the lives of 50,000 people worldwide.
    The study provides new insights into key aspects of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, and its interactions on a cellular level, as well as how the virus can infect blood vessels and kidneys.

  • BARDA, Department of Defense, and SAb Biotherapeutics to Partner to Develop a Novel COVID-19 Therapeutic

    A therapeutic to treat novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is moving forward in development through a partnership between the U.S. Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), the Department of Defense Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear Defense (JPEO - CBRND), and SAb Biotherapeutics, Inc. (SAb), of Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
    Using an interagency agreement with JPEO’s Medical CBRN Defense Consortium, BARDA transferred approximately $7.2 million in funding to (JPEO - CBRND) to support SAb to complete manufacturing and preclinical studies, with an option to conduct a Phase 1 clinical trial.
    The therapeutic, called SAB-185, is part of a new class of immunotherapies that relies on SAb’s platform technology to produce fully human polyclonal antibodies as the basis for the drug. This technology produces the antibodies without the need for blood donations from people who have recovered from the virus; this approach produces greater quantities of the drug than the traditional human antibody donor methods.

  • Resilient Teams: How Harvard Innovation Labs Ventures Are Responding to the COVID-19 Pandemic

    During a time when the world faces unprecedented challenges due to COVID-19, it’s more important than ever to share the stories of the innovators and entrepreneurs who are working tirelessly to keep people healthy and connected to each other.  Harvard says that many startups in the Harvard Innovation Labs Spring Venture Program are creating products and services that have the potential to reduce the spread of the virus, improve patient care, and create community when in person gatherings are not possible. We’ve also recently seen numerous examples of former ventures re-focusing their efforts on inspiring initiatives related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Here, we’ve highlighted a few of the products and services that current and former Harvard Innovation Labs ventures are working on. In the coming weeks, we will update this post regularly as our ventures continue to respond and adapt to this global challenge. 

  • GSK, AstraZeneca in Talks to Help U.K. Government on Virus Tests

    U.K. pharmaceutical giants GlaxoSmithKline Plc and AstraZeneca Plc are in talks to set up a lab to explore new ways of testing for the coronavirus to help overcome shortages of diagnostic materials, according to a person with knowledge of the plans.
    Suzi Ring and James Paton write in Bloomberg that the drugmakers will evaluate the use of different raw materials needed to carry out the tests and use their know-how and resources to help other companies or the U.K.’s National Health Service increase production, according to the person, who asked not to be identified because the details of the discussions aren’t yet public.
    U.K. Health Secretary Matt Hancock pledged Thursday to increase coronavirus testing to 100,000 a day by the end of April. 

     

  • Coronavirus: China Floods Europe With Defective Medical Equipment

    As the coronavirus rages across Europe, a growing number of countries are reporting that millions of pieces of medical equipment donated by, or purchased from, China to defeat the pandemic are defective and unusable. Soeren Kern writes for the Gatestone Institute that the revelations are fueling distrust of a public relations effort by Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Communist Party to portray China as the world’s new humanitarian superpower. Two examples: In Spain, the Ministry of Health revealed that 640,000 coronavirus tests that it had purchased from a Chinese supplier were defective. In addition, a further million coronavirus tests delivered to Spain on March 30 by another Chinese manufacturer were also defective. The Czech news site iRozhlas reported that 300,000 coronavirus test kits delivered by China had an error rate of 80 percent. The Czech Ministry of Interior had paid $2.1 million for the kits.

  • These Drugs Don’t Target the Coronavirus—They Target Us

    In another example of the blinding speed at which science is moving during the pandemic era, researchers at Aarhus University in Denmark will start a clinical trial of a drug named camostat mesylate tomorrow—barely 1 month after a Cell paper showed the compound can prevent the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, from entering human cells.
    Kai Kupferschmidt writes in Science that one reason the Danish researchers can act so fast is that camostat mesylate is already licensed in Japan and South Korea to treat pancreatitis, a potentially fatal inflammation of the pancreas. Enough safety data were available to convince an ethical panel to greenlight the trial.
    The trial also illustrates a new approach to combatting the virus. Thousands of researchers around the world are investigating existing drugs as potential therapies for COVID-19, most of them looking at antivirals, such as remdesivir, developed to treat Ebola, or Kaletra, a combination drug against HIV. But Nevan Krogan, a molecular biologist at the University of California, San Francisco, sees another opportunity: “The virus can’t live by itself, right? It needs our genes and proteins in order to live and to replicate.” Camostat mesylate is one of several candidate drugs that block those interactions. They don’t target the virus, but us, the host.

  • How the Coronavirus Pandemic Is Killing Cash

    There is much talk about how COVID-19 will change the world. There is less about how it is simply accelerating trends that were already underway. Merryn Somerset Webb writes in MoneyWeek that one to keep a particular eye on is a theme we have been watching for some time – the death of cash.
    No one wants to touch cash today. It’s always been known to be pretty filthy stuff; now it isn’t just grubby, it is potentially lethal. No wonder, then, that the use of cash has halved in the last week and that “card only” signs are appearing everywhere. Some large chains stopped taking card payments altogether (even before lockdown) and the contactless upper limit has been moved from £30 to £45.

  • Global COVID-19 Total Races Past 1 Million Mark

    After just four months, the global COVID-19 total topped the 1 million mark yesterday, with more countries on several continents reporting exponential growth, even in some African nations. Meanwhile, the world’s number of deaths from the virus passed 50,000, with more than half of them from Europe’s hot spots. The Johns Hopkins online tracker shows 1,002,159 cases and 51,485 deaths.

  • There Are Many COVID-19 Tests in the U.S. – How Are They Being Regulated?

    When it comes to COVID-19 testing in the United States, the situation is about as messy as it gets. The U.S. went from having no tests, or assays, available for COVID-19 diagnostics to having multiple different tests available in a span of just a few weeks. Today more than 230 test developers have alerted the Food and Drug Administration that they are requesting emergency authorization for their tests; 20 have been granted. And 110 laboratories around the country, including my own, are also using their own tests. Having this number of diagnostic tests available to detect a single virus in such a short time frame is unprecedented.

  • DOJ: Deliberately Spreading COVID-19 to Be Prosecuted as Domestic Terrorism

    As panic and fear spread with the COVID-19 pandemic, stupid, or malicious, acts may soon be considered criminal offenses and subject to terrorism laws. DOJ has circulated a memo to law enforcement and federal prosecutors saying that deliberate acts to spread the coronavirus could be prosecuted under federal terrorism laws given that the virus is a biological agent.

  • Russia Using COVID-19 Disinformation, Conspiracy Theories to “Subvert the West”: Repot

    Russian President Vladimir Putin and his administration are using the coronavirus crisis to spread conspiracy theories in a bid to “subvert the West” and create a new world order, a new report has charges. The report says that Russia was propagating disinformation and conspiracy theories via social media accounts, fake news outlets, state-controlled media, pseudo-scientists and Russians living in the West.

  • Social Media Can Help Track the Spread of Disease

    Disease surveillance means monitoring the spread of disease through populations in order to establish patterns and minimize harm caused by outbreaks. A recent study explored how to effectively and ethically include social media and broader Internet tracking as part of public health surveillance efforts.

  • Tracking the Spread of Disease on Social Media

    For many years, researchers have turned to the public logs of search engine terms to help them track the spread of disease. They can analyze the keywords and phrases that people use and when they become interested in a disease or have symptoms.