Apple’s visionary founder, the late Steve Jobs once said, “the biggest innovations of the 21st century will be at the intersection of biology and technology”. And that prediction is coming true in the drug discovery field where biology, nanotechnology and AI are uniting against previously untreatable diseases, pandemics, and human ageing. “Out of COVID’s [...]
Chemical separation processes are essential in the manufacturing of many products from gasoline to whiskey. Such processes are energetically costly, accounting for approximately 10–15 percent of global energy consumption. In particular, the use of so-called "thermal separation processes," such as distillation for separating petroleum-based hydrocarbons, is deeply ingrained in the chemical industry and has [...]
Scientists have recently developed electrochemical immunosensors based on graphene oxide−gold (GO−Au) nanocomposites. These immunosensors are highly sensitive with dual function, i.e., they can detect severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) antigen and antibody. This study is available in the journal ACS Applied Bio Materials. Impact of Global Outbreak of Diseases In the last century, [...]
Omicron relatives called BA.4 and BA.5 are behind a fresh wave of COVID-19 in South Africa, and could be signs of a more predictable future for SARS-CoV-2. Here we go again. Nearly six months after researchers in South Africa identified the Omicron coronavirus variant, two offshoots of the game-changing lineage are once again driving [...]
Early detection of the SARS-CoV-2 virus (COVID-19) is critical to stopping the spread of this contagious disease. The current diagnostic methods for COVID-19 are expensive and difficult to handle. Hence, there is a need for a quick, efficient, and user-friendly detection method. In an article recently published in Analytica Chimica Acta, the authors fabricated a [...]
WHO data suggests richer countries have so far received 87 per cent of doses globally. Waiving patents on COVID-19 vaccines would remove "a legal hurdle" to companies and developing countries producing the shots and fixing a global supply problem, says an advocate with Oxfam Canada. "It allows them to produce it without having to [...]
New estimates from the World Health Organization (WHO) show that the full death toll associated directly or indirectly with the COVID-19 pandemic (described as “excess mortality”) between 1 January 2020 and 31 December 2021 was approximately 14.9 million (range 13.3 million to 16.6 million). “These sobering data not only point to the impact of [...]
Cognitive impairment as a result of severe COVID-19 is similar to that sustained between 50 and 70 years of age and is the equivalent to losing 10 IQ points, say a team of scientists from the University of Cambridge and Imperial College London. The findings, published in the journal eClinicalMedicine, emerge from the NIHR COVID-19 BioResource. [...]
Rhinostics, Inc., an innovator in sample collection technologies, today announced that it has received Health Canada approval for sale of its RHINOstic™ Automated Nasal Swab for medically supervised collection or self-collection for ages 18 and above. With this COVID-19 Medical Device Authorization for Importation or Sale, Rhinostics may immediately begin supplying the RHINOstic™ to [...]
Pfizer Inc (PFE.N) on Friday said a large trial found that its COVID-19 oral antiviral treatment Paxlovid was not effective at preventing coronavirus infection in people living with someone infected with the virus. The trial enrolled 3,000 adults who were household contacts exposed to an individual who was experiencing symptoms and had recently tested [...]
