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Biochemistry

Cape Breton coronavirus artist happy to be home from Germany even in self-isolation – Cape Breton Post

Onni Nordman and Paula Muise are fairly friendly with anxiety, at this point.

After sweating the details of an accelerated departure from Europe, the Cape Breton couple are practically laughing off the impacts of self-isolation.

This is why were hoping that maybe therell be an earthquake or a plague of locusts, just to keep us on edge, Muise said Wednesday during a video chat from their home overlooking Sydney Harbour.

About a week ago, Nordman, a noted painter, was in the midst of a residency at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry, outside Munich, Germany. Having coincidentally created several works there based on viruses since early February, he and Muise had become worried about how the rapidly evolving COVID-19 situation might affect their self-financed trip.

A plan to perhaps stay in the relative comfort of a villa in Munich proved overly optimistic.

I took the paintings down from the biochemistry institute pretty much the day before they closed, said Nordman.

They were able to ship their belongings last Friday, the day before Munich pretty much shut down. Then, thanks to the determination of their travel agent, Nordman and Muise managed to get a Munich-to-Toronto flight.

We almost got sort of like the first-class treatment on the plane because there were so few people on it, Nordman said.

The (Munich) airport was eerie in its emptiness, but then everything is now.

They landed in Halifax on Monday at about 10 p.m. and drove through the overnight hours to Cape Breton. The most common sight along the way, heartening for people learning about the strains of the modern supply chain, was a steady stream of trucks.

They pulled in the driveway at about 5:30 a.m. Tuesday, just ahead of a substantial snowfall.

That last hour, it was very hard to stay awake because wed been going for 28 hours at that point, said Muise.

Our sense of this whole adventure was that we were one day ahead of trouble pretty consistently, Nordman said.

Fate didnt catch up with them till they made it home, where they discovered a power surge had compromised the electrical system in their house. The wiring was straightened out Wednesday, and friends and family were helping to boost the supplies.

Look at what just got dropped off, Muise said excitedly, showing off two bags of flour, along with yeast.

Paulas a black belt in baking, said Nordman.

And hes no slouch at creating. During the long flight to Toronto, Nordman was captivated by a single strand of humanity, illuminated just so by the light from the window, clinging to the seat in front of him. The result is a nine-minute video he calls Hair Plane.

HAIR PLANE Onni Nordman 3.23.20 from Onni Nordman on Vimeo.

I think that hair is like a breakout star, he said.

The video is silly but its serious, too. I chanced on that theme of organic life or organic matter; were in a soup of it. And that hair is kind of a stand-in for any kind of virus or bacteria. A single hair can have a human presence.

It was an interesting exercise in minimalism.

The hair video was actually trimmed from its initial form.

He showed me the first version; it was 22 minutes, Muise said.

You know, we went there for art, and hes going to continue to do art of some kind.

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Cape Breton coronavirus artist happy to be home from Germany even in self-isolation - Cape Breton Post

Biochemistry

Experts on COVID-19 – University of Victoria News

The following University of Victoria experts are available to media to discuss the COVID-19 pandemic:

Colin Bennett (Political Science) is an expert on access to information and privacy protection legislation. With many people and businesses moving online due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Bennett can provide insights on how personal data is captured, the pressing need for transparency, the importance of online privacy rights and healthy practices for data collection.(Email at cjb@uvic.ca)

Susan Breau (Law) is dean of the Faculty of Law and an expert in international humanitarian law, international human rights law and international disaster law. She can discuss emergency legislation/acts in a broad legal context, both in Canada and internationally. (Email at lawdean@uvic.ca)

Elizabeth Borycki (Health Information Science) is an expert inthe role of health information technologies in enabling patient-centred care and information safety when facing an epidemic or outbreak.She can also discuss virtual care, remote monitoring technologies,telehealth and electronic health records. (Email at emb@uvic.ca)

Martin Bunton(History) is an expert in modern Middle Eastern history. He can speak about how the Middle East in general has been affected, the impact on populations and how governments are responding. (Email at mbunton@uvic.ca)

Mark Colgate (Gustavson School of Business) is director of Gustavsons corporate MBA programs and is an expert on customer service excellence. He is able to speak about the business impacts of COVID-19 on large and small organizations, as well as consumer trends and tendencies including panic buying. (Email at colgate@uvic.ca)

Stacey Fitzsimmons(Gustavson School of Business) is an expert in international business and organizational behaviour. She can speak about the impacts of the coronavirus on employees and managers, including remote working, employee or consumer behavior in response to uncertainty and anxiety, and the effects of this situation on women, or people who have families in multiple countries, such as newcomers to Canada. (Email at sfitzsim@uvic.ca)

Rob Gillezeau (Economics) is an economist with expertise in public policy. He can speak aboutfederal, provincial and municipal economic policies related to bridging supports for individuals, firms and non-profits during the COVID-19 crisis. He can also speak to the broader economic shock of the crisis, the nature of the probable recession and what economic stimulus should look like after the COVID-19 pandemic is eventually contained.(Email at gillezr@uvic.ca)

Fred Grouzet (Psychology) is a social psychologist who can speak about how people react to fear and threat, as well as how they perceive risk. In light of the current COVID-19 pandemic, he can offer his expertise on how people can maintain positive mental health at home. Grouzet is also French-fluent. (Email at fgrouzet@uvic.ca)

Mitch Hammond (History) is a historian who specialises in early modern Europe health and epidemic disease. He can speak about the social and historical dimensions of pandemics and epidemics, including research from his new book Epidemics and the Modern World. (Email at mlewham@uvic.ca)

Edwin Hodge (Sociology) is an expert in the areas of social movement theory, gender theory and political sociology. He can speak about how the COVID-19 pandemic affects people and social groups in different ways, including conspiracy theories about the outbreak. His research interests include right-wing and traditionalist social movements, extremism and white supremacist activism in North American societies. (Email at edhodge@uvic.ca)

Olav Krigolson (Neuroscience) is an expert in living in isolation (having completed an astronaut-simulation research project in the HI-SEAS Mars Habitat in Hawaii), decision-making and statistics. In the context of COVID-19, he can discuss what happens to the brain during isolation, and how isolation affects decision-making and performance. (Email at krigolson@uvic.ca)

Andrew Marton (Pacific and Asian Studies) is an expert in contemporary Chinese studies. He can speak about the dimensions of the outbreak related to large cities and mobility in China. (Email at amarton@uvic.ca)

Bernie Pauly (Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research/Nursing) is a nurse researcher with expertise in public health, substance use, harm reduction and health equity. She is a researcher with the Canadian Homelessness Researcher Network and was involved in pandemic planning for homeless populations during H1N1. Currently, she leads the Canadian Managed Alcohol Program (MAP) study and is an expert resource on MAPs during COVID 19. (Email at bpauly@uvic.ca)

Junling Ma (Mathematics and Statistics) is an expert in the mathematical and statistical modelling of the spread of infectious diseases, optimal control strategies and the spread of specific diseases such as influenza, HIV, Ebola and cholera. (Email at junlingm@uvic.ca)

Cheryl Mitchell (Gustavson School of Business) is the incoming academic director for the Sustainable Innovation MBA program. She can speak about organizational culture, team dynamics, leading in times of crisis, health systems, public service, stakeholder engagement, avoiding blame in crisis, decision-making and critical thinking, remote working and being creative online. (Email at clmitch@uvic.ca)

Jillian Roberts(Educational Psychology) is an expert in child psychology. She can discuss how parents and other adults can support children and their worries during times of uncertainty.She is available from 9 to 10 a.m. daily.(Email at jjrobert@uvic.ca)

Oliver Schmidtke (Centre for Global Studies/History/Political Science) is a political scientist and expert in European politics and history. He is able to speak about the evolving situation around COVID-19 in Europe, including the non-coordinated national attempts to contain the virus, border policies and the role of the European Union in managing the crisis. (Email at ofs@uvic.ca)

Chris Upton (Biochemistry and Microbiology/Science) is a microbiologist and virologist who can speak about using highly interactive software and other bioinformatics tools to enable users to view and analyze viral genomes. Upton, who was involved in sequencing of the first SARS genome, can also speak to how scientists with this area expertise can use databases and other sequencing technologies in their research. (Email at cupton@uvic.ca)

Note: Please use email as first point of contact for all experts. During this time, not all experts will be able to respond immediately to your request. Please cc Stephanie Harrington and/or Suzanne Ahearne so we can provide additional support as needed. Broadcasters: Experts' access/availability via Skype/Facetime varies. Please ask individually.

Stephanie Harrington (University Communications + Marketing ) at 250-721-6248 or smharrin@uvic.ca

Suzanne Ahearne (University Communications + Marketing) at 250-721-6139 or sahearne@uvic.ca

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Experts on COVID-19 - University of Victoria News

Biochemistry

Research in Hibernation | Notre Dame Magazine | University of Notre Dame – ND Newswire

Research labs at Notre Dame have been shut down during the coronavirus crisis. Photo by Matt Cashore 94

Patricia Clark walked out of her laboratory in Stepan Chemistry Hall earlier this week and doesnt know when shell be back.

Were fully hibernated as of Tuesday, said Clark, the Rev. John Cardinal OHara CSC professor of biochemistry, who studies protein biophysics in living cells. Im transitioning to working at home as much as possible.

In an unprecedented move prompted by the coronavirus pandemic, Notre Dame has suspended laboratory research operations across campus. Most of the shutdowns happened earlier this week, with the final closings expected Friday.

The only exception is for coronavirus-related research. The move is intended to protect faculty and staff. For safety, we want to have as few people here as possible, said Robert Bernhard, vice president for research.

Its disruptive, but its completely the right move to make, Clark said. We all knew it was coming. Her lab includes two permanent staff members and four graduate students. Four undergraduates also worked there part-time until in-person classes were suspended and most students went home.

Before locking the lab door, Clark and her staff moved their research samples into a special freezer that keeps them safe at minus-80 degrees Celsius. The shutdown is an inconvenience, but wont destroy the research. Theres nothing were going to lose permanently, Clark said.

Campus laboratories are being placed in a hibernation state, with instruments and machines shut down or placed in standby mode. Only a small number of approved essential workers have access to maintain equipment and specimens, and to care for lab animals during the shutdown. During the process, Notre Dame is collecting available Personal Protective Equipment, such as laboratory masks and gloves to donatefor distribution to health care providers.

Notre Dame joins many major research universities that have announced shutdowns or significant reductions in campus laboratory research because of the pandemic, including Harvard, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Duke, Stanford, Rice and others.

Notre Dames hibernation involves more than 300 laboratories across campus, most in science and engineering. The University has instituted a staff hiring freeze but announced that it will continue to provide pay and benefits to all full-time and benefits-eligible part-time regular employees.

Notre Dames Innovation Park, including the shared wet and dry labs, is accessible only to building tenants during the hibernation. Starting at 5 p.m. Friday, the Hesburgh Libraries and Kresge Law Library also will be closed, although online service will continue.

SCALING DOWN

Its been a bit hectic, said Donny Hanjaya-Putra 07, an assistant professor of aerospace and mechanical engineering. His research focuses on stem cells and molecular therapies. His lab, which includes one graduate student and two postdoctoral researchers, has been scaling down all week.

He understands the need for the hibernation, but worries about how it will impact the careers of those in his lab. The most precious resource we have is time. For grad students and postdocs, time is critical for them, Hanjaya-Putra said. For some students, the shutdown may mean a delay in their course work and postponement of graduation.

Once the lab is allowed to reopen, it likely will take weeks to ready samples to resume the research, Hanjaya-Putra said. A study his team planned in collaboration with researchers at Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis probably wont happen now, he said.

IMPACT ON STUDENTS

When Matt Sis walked out of the biomaterials laboratory in McCourtney Hall on Tuesday, he took a box of items from his desk. Walking out of the building, it was a little surreal, said Sis, a third-year Ph.D. student in chemical and biomolecular engineering. His work involves synthesizing chemical compounds to create new materials to solve problems in health care.

The uncertainty has been the hardest thing to deal with how this will impact my career and will it delay my graduation. Im trying to take it one day at a time, he said. Without access to the labs, I cant do the core aspects of my work."

During the lab hibernation, professors, postdoctoral researchers and students are being encouraged to find ways to be productive remotely with activities such as computational and simulation work, data analysis, and paper and proposal writing.

The suspension of research laboratory operations will impact the career and professional development of many faculty, post docs and graduate students very directly and disproportionately, Bernhard wrote in a letter to the campus community.

A task force representing the Provosts Office, Notre Dame Research, associate deans and faculty is meeting to discuss the impact and propose responses to help ease the effects of the lab hibernation.

Samantha Golomb, a Ph.D. student in biological sciences, was still working on Wednesday in her Harper Cancer Research Institute lab, where she studies how the gut microbiome influences cancer metastases in the brain. There are still a few people here who are finishing up stuff, she said. After Friday, only the labs principal faculty investigator and a designated staff person will be permitted to enter.

I wont be in the lab for the foreseeable future, Golomb said.

The lab shutdown will delay my progress by a few months, Golomb said. Were just putting things on pause. Shes not panicking about the shutdown, noting that other graduate students and labs around the globe also will have to suspend work because of the coronavirus crisis. She plans to focus on writing grant proposals and manuscripts. Ill still be able to progress in my research, just not in my benchwork.

Karla Gonzalez Serrano is a sixth-year Ph.D. student in electrical engineering. Her daily work usually takes place in the Notre Dame Nanofabrication Facility the cleanroom and other now-closed labs on campus. Shes back at her familys home in Monterrey, Mexico.

I can pick up where I left off, she said this week. Im at the stage of processing and analyzing data I already acquired. Shell be working on papers and manuscripts in the coming weeks. For me, its OK. Its part of the process to do some work from home.

Matthew Hanson is a third-year Ph.D. student in computational and theoretical chemistry. For my work, I only require an internet connection, he said. He stopped by Nieuwland Science Hall briefly this week to pick up his books and laboratory notes, and is now working from his South Bend home.

Meetings with his academic advisor and lab colleagues are limited to online video conferencing. I think the biggest worry for (grad students), he said of the hibernation, is whether its going to delay their graduations.

Hanson also is a teaching assistant. He team-teaches an undergraduate chemistry lab course. With the shutdown of in-person classes, that course has switched to online video lectures. We had to make the online lectures more theoretical, he said, because the students cant do the lab experiments at home. Hes never previously taught an online course.

While the hibernation will cause delays for some research, the coronavirus crisis likely will point to future expanded research paths for academics, Bernhard said. There will be infectious disease research opportunities, he said.

Some research insights may come from the hibernation experience, said Clark, the biochemistry professor and researcher. Theres an opportunity to step away from the bench and experiments, and really think deeply about what were doing and why. And maybe come up with some new ideas.

Margaret Fosmoe is an associate editor of this magazine.

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Research in Hibernation | Notre Dame Magazine | University of Notre Dame - ND Newswire

Biochemistry

Instructor encourages creative virtual teaching techniques – University of Miami

Richard Myers, a senior lecturer in the Miller School of Medicine, offers tips and best practices on shifting to remote instruction for the duration of the semester.

When Hurricane Irma threatened the fall 2017 semester, Richard Myers, a senior lecturer of biochemistry and molecular biology in the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, knew it was time to prioritize the development of effective distance-learning strategies in case a disruption of that magnitude ever happened again.

Fortunately, I had the means to engage students in some of my classes during Hurricane Irma, but it put me on notice that I needed to expand these efforts to all my courses, he said.

This week, in the face of an unprecedented global pandemic that has forced faculty members and students to finish the semester remotely, Myers is on the frontlines of this institutional shift and offers his expertise on how to successfully adapt to the new reality.

The forced adoption of remote learning strategies provides an excellent platform to help students and faculty adapt to new approaches to education and to help our students become better self-directed learners, he said.

His experience with hybrid teaching and blending in-person with remote instruction makes Myers a vital member of the Academic Computing Advisory Committee (ACAC), the group in charge of developing and implementing the campus-wide academic continuity contingency plan.

The senior lecturer is turning to tools like Blackboard, Zoom, Swivl, and Google Docs to keep students engaged in discussions, organized with document submission, and actively collaborating with each other.

My courses will now be supplemented through Zoom conferencing in real time and the discussion board in Blackboard out of real time. I intend to record Zoom conferences and invite students to participate out of real time on the discussion board to accommodate students in vastly different time zones, he explained.

He has even found a way to digitally replicate the classroom setting.

I have set up break out rooms in Zoom to allow students in each group to interact as they collectively solve problems, he said. Im migrating between rooms, the way I normally walk around the classroom, so I can eavesdrop on the students, ask them questions and make suggestions as they research their topic and write about their findings.

Myers is impressed by how supportive and appreciative the student reaction has been so far, and he will continue to offer students one-on-one mentorships during this transitional period.

In live settings, I typically meet with students who wish to discuss the material provided or just want mentoring and professional development advice. I will reconstitute this by having virtual caf meetings via Zoom, he acknowledged.

Although laboratory research has come to a screeching halt, resulting in the loss of hands-on experiences that are important for budding experimentalists, Myers said he sees a silver lining in this experience and believes that remote learning offers greater opportunities for reflection, analysis, associative learning, and integration.

Students will get important practice with self-directed learning, which will support lifelong learning. This is an essential skill in the rapidly evolving labor market and in adult life in general, he remarked.

Myers encourages other faculty members to take advantage of the resources provided by the ACAC. They should also reach out to other instructors who already employ remote learning platforms and continuously seek feedback from students throughout the process.

Were all going to get through this together, Myers said. This is the time to reimagine the syllabus and think creatively about how to achieve the main objectives. Consider increasing formative assessment via papers, quizzes, presentations, and projects in place of summative assessments via exams.

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Instructor encourages creative virtual teaching techniques - University of Miami

Biochemistry

Podcast: Supercomputing the Coronavirus on Frontera – insideHPC

Scientists are preparing a massive computer model of the coronavirus that they expect will give insight into how it infects in the body. Theyve taken the first steps, testing the first parts of the model and optimizing code on the Frontera supercomputer at the Texas Advanced Computing Center of UT Austin. The knowledge gained from the full model can help researchers design new drugs and vaccines to combat the coronavirus.

Rommie Amaro is leading efforts to build the first complete all-atom model of the SARS-COV-2 coronavirus envelope, its exterior component. If we have a good model for what the outside of the particle looks like and how it behaves, were going to get a good view of the different components that are involved in molecular recognition. Molecular recognition involves how the virus interacts with the angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptors and possibly other targets within the host cell membrane. Amaro is a professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of California, San Diego.

The coronavirus model is anticipated by Amaro to contain roughly 200 million atoms, a daunting undertaking, as the interaction of each atom with one another has to be computed. Her teams workflow takes a hybrid, or integrative modeling approach.

Were trying to combine data at different resolutions into one cohesive model that can be simulated on leadership-class facilities like Frontera. How we do this is that we basically start with the individual components, where their structures have been resolved at atomic or near atomic resolution, and we have to basically carefully get each of these components up and running and into a state where they are stable. Then we can introduce them into the bigger envelope simulations with neighboring molecules, Amaro said.

The Frontera supercomputer aided efforts of the Amaro Lab on March 12-13, 2020, by running NAMD molecular dynamics simulations on up to 4,000 nodes, or about 250,000 of its processing cores. This is a remarkably large-scale simulation run in itself on Frontera, the #5 top supercomputer in the world and #1 academic supercomputer according to November 2019 rankings of the Top500 organization. Frontera is the leadership-class system in the cyberinfrastructure ecosystem of the National Science Foundation.

Rommie Amaro, Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California, San Diego.

Simulations of that size are only possible to run on a machine like Frontera or on a machine possibly at the Department of Energy, Amaro said. We straightaway contacted the Frontera team, and theyve been very gracious in giving us priority status for benchmarking and trying to optimize the code so that these simulations can run as efficiently as possible, once the system is actually up and running.

Its exciting to work on one of these brand new machines, for sure. Our experience so far has been very good. The initial benchmarks have been really impressive for this system. Were going to continue to optimize the codes for these ultra large systems so that we can ultimately get even better performance. I would say that working with the team at Frontera has also been fantastic. Theyre at the ready to help and have been extremely responsive during this critical time window. Its been a very positive experience, Amaro said.

TACC is proud to support this critical and groundbreaking research, said Dan Stanzione, Executive Director of TACC and Principal Investigator of the Frontera supercomputer project. We will continue to support Amaros simulations and other important work related to understanding and finding a way to defeat this new threat.

Amaros work with the coronavirus comes on the coattails of her success with recently published work in ACS Central Science, February of 2020, on an all-atom simulation of the influenza virus envelope. She said that the influenza work will have a remarkable number of similarities to what theyre now pursuing with the coronavirus.

The NSF-funded Frontera supercomputer at TACC is ranked #5 fastest in the world and #1 for academic systems, according to the November 2019 Top500 rankings. (Credit: TACC)

Its a brilliant test of our methods and our abilities to adapt to new data and to get this up and running right off the fly, Amaro said. It took us a year or more to build the influenza viral envelope and get it up and running on the national supercomputers. For influenza, we used the Blue Waters supercomputer, which was in some ways the predecessor to Frontera. The work, however, with the coronavirus obviously is proceeding at a much, much faster pace. This is enabled, in part because of the work that we did on Blue Waters earlier.

Said Amaro: These simulations will give us new insights into the different parts of the coronavirus that are required for infectivity. And why we care about that is because if we can understand these different features, scientists have a better chance to design new drugs; to understand how current drugs work and potential drug combinations work. The information that we get from these simulations is multifaceted and multidimensional and will be of use for scientists on the front lines immediately and also in the longer term. Hopefully the public will understand that theres many different components and facets of science to push forward to understand this virus. These simulations on Frontera are just one of those components, but hopefully an important and a gainful one.

Source: Jorge Salazar at TACC

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John Paul II’s ‘Evangelium Vitae’ Gave a Voice to Those Promoting Respect for Life – National Catholic Register

John Paul IIs Evangelium Vitae Gave a Voice to Those Promoting Respect for Life

COMMENTARY: Four reasons why, 25 years later, the documents value has not diminished but increased.

Twenty-five years after it was issued, Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life) still matters to everyone struggling to increase respect for human life.

First, it explained what we knew deep down: that the legal and cultural struggles over abortion and euthanasia were always about much more. They were about whether or not truth existed, whether God was the Lord of Life, and whether we were first self-maximizing individuals or rather interdependent members of a community with special responsibility for the weakest. It always seemed to members of the communities fighting for respect for life that we were fighting for this and more.

John Paul II gave this voice. He pointed to elements of the spirit of the age, which he described as: skeptical or even in denial about the existence of truth; wedded to individual autonomy; categorically opposed to suffering and dependency; and convinced of individualistic, material and man-made notions of progress and freedom.

His words were oddly reassuring to those concerned about promoting respect for life. In the course of a typical argument, our opponents seemed to deny everything written in embryology textbooks, the fact of radical human weakness and interdependence, and God. Evangelium Vitae confirmed that this was probably true in many cases, meaning that a full-blown pro-life argument always also needed to engage these points, as well. This predisposition of the spirit of the age also helped to explain why its so darn hard to change another persons mind. Respect for human life is always also about all these other things, not just about whether or not its okay to end another human life.

Second and closely related, Evangelium Vitae brought us to the full realization of how impoverished our understanding of family had become. Instead of thinking about our family as the human beings hand-picked for us to specially care for, the movements for abortion and euthanasia suggested that we had a special right to terminate the lives of family members. As John Paul II wrote:

Even more serious is the fact that, most often, those attacks are carried out in the very heart of and with the complicity of the family the family which by its nature is called to be the sanctuary of life (11).

The work of respect for life at every stage would have to pay attention to strengthening a sense of obligation and service to family, especially the weakest members.

Third, Evangelium Vitae explained that, no, we werent crazy to wonder how abortion rights or the right to die got so popular precisely at the same time as a noticeable intensifying of movements on behalf of human rights. John Paul II wondered aloud, too, asking how [t]he process which once led to discovering the idea of human rights rights inherent in every person and before any constitution and state legislation is today marked by a surprising contradiction. Precisely in an age when the inviolable rights of the person are solemnly proclaimed the very right to life is being denied. He added further that the state is allowing attacks [against] human life at the time of its greatest frailty, when it lacks any means of self-defense.

In other words, the pro-life movements are also charged with convincing our hard-charging, self-maximizing, autonomy-craving friends and neighbors that a truly human life and a valid set of human rights pays extraordinary attention to the weakest, including the unborn, the disabled and the elderly in particular.

And fourth, Evangelium Vitae reminded even the cynics among us of the gorgeous case for the value and beauty of every human life. Its sweeping review of both the Old and the New Testament evidence makes the case that against all the odds, it seems God finds us worthy of love and wants us to make this visible to all those given to us in the Good Samaritan way. This usually begins with family but extends to all who are strewn across our path.

So did Evangelium Vitaes insights make everything all right? Of course not, but it put all the movements for life on a superior footing and revealed the full extent of their vocation. The movements could better understand what is really ailing contemporary society and the breadth of the work before them. They are ever more aware that no one wants to have a baby without a loving community to welcome them and that no one wants to live at all without the hope of deep, abiding relationships.

John Paul IIs call in Evangelium Vitae for a new feminism for women to take leadership roles so as to transform culture so that it supports life has also been a galloping success. It is stunning to see the number of women today running not only centers for pregnant women, but a wide array of the leading pro-life efforts.

At the same time, it must be said that some of the trends John Paul II highlighted have stayed the same or worsened. The notion of the self-made man or woman has reached new heights/depths with the movement for transgenderism. Demands for human rights still and regularly fail to mention the unborn, the elderly and the disabled; and they more often prescribe death as the compassionate solution to their problems.

Still, Evangelium Vitae reminds all of us in the trenches that we are in excellent company and executing worthy work work that accomplishes far more than meets the eye, even as it clashes with powerful and entrenched worldviews. And it reminds us that we have the constant companionship in our labors of one of the great intellects, hearts and souls of the 20th and 21st centuries: Pope St. John Paul II.

Helen Alvar is a professor

of law at Antonin

Scalia Law School at

George Mason University.

Link:
John Paul II's 'Evangelium Vitae' Gave a Voice to Those Promoting Respect for Life - National Catholic Register

Cell Biology

Uni kit to help with virus tests – Kent Online

With stricter measures now enforced upon the country, staff and students at the University of Kent are doing their bit to try and help with the coronavirus outbreak.

As the bioscience laboratories at the university are now closed, they're lending specialist equipment to hospitals in Kent to help increase the number of coronavirus tests that can be taken, while more than 30 members of staff, academics and PHD students from the biosciences school have also volunteered to help.

KMTV's Kristina Curtis reports on how students and staff at the University of Kent are doing to help tackle the coronavirus outbreak

Prof. Dan Mulvihill, Head of the School of Biosciences at the university said: "Staff, PHD students, researchers and academics have volunteered to give up their time to help in the labs in NHS hospitals.

"We have a variety of people with molecular biology skills, what we're trained to do here, and theyre able to use these skills working alongside NHS workers so we can expand the number of tests that can be done in any one day.

"Weve all been trained in this particular skill set, theres a need for it now and this is the time for us to step up. Were in the privileged position of being able to help and therefore we are."

Dr. Jill Shepherd, a lecturer in stem cell biology at the university, added: "The first thing I think most people in bio-sciences wanted to do is come forward and see what we can do. Its a great opportunity to be able to use the skills that our workforce have, the molecular biology skills that we use to produce great research science every day, to come into the labs to do something to help with something thats happening at the moment.

"Its an interesting time for us, were feeling very privileged to be a part of this and to be able to help with the effort.

"Its one of the positive things that can come out of something like this, people can work together more closely and relationships can be developed further."

The machines that have been lent to the hospitals are Quantitative PCR machines which allow tests to be undertaken to detect if the patients have coronavirus or not. Although hospitals in the county already have access to the machines, having additional ones is hoped to significantly increase the amount of tests that can be carried out each day.

Prof Mulvihill said: "These machines, which we use in our research labs on a daily basis, theyre extremely sensitive so they allow you to detect within samples a trace, or not, of nucleic acid from the virus itself. So we can identify whether or not theyve been infected with a high degree of certainty.

"Our machines will be able to increase the hospitals capacity to fulfil demand in the coming months."All five of the machines are set to be delivered to the hospitals in Kent this week, with the volunteers ready to put their hard-earned skills and research to practice.

The University of Kent is also set to begin working with Imperial College London on a research project to develop antibodies that target the novel coronavirus with the aim of developing a new therapy for COVID-19.

The research project will look to develop a potential antibody therapy, with the aim of progressing the therapy to be ready to for clinical trials. These trials will determine if the developed therapies can treat coronavirus infections including the COVID-19.

For this project, Kent will be working alongside Hong Kong University and the National Institute for Biological Standards and Control, as well as Imperial College.

Positive results from this research could include vital breakthroughs in actions against the virus, putting the NHS in a stronger position and providing hope for the pandemics eventual close.

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Cell Biology

Berkeley Lights Announces the Global Emerging Pathogen Antibody Discovery Consortium (GEPAD) to Attack COVID-19 and Other Viruses – Associated Press

EMERYVILLE, Calif., March 25, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Today Berkeley Lights, Inc., announced the Global Emerging Pathogen Antibody Discovery Consortium (GEPAD) with founding members Dr. James Crowe and Dr. Robert Carnahan at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Dr. Erica Ollman Saphire at La Jolla Institute for Immunology and Dr. Frances Eun-Hyung Lee at Emory University with the aim to accelerate the discovery of neutralizing antibodies from patient blood samples. Processing precious blood samples and fragile cells can be challenging with traditional technologies. The consortium will leverage Berkeley Lights Beacon platform for antibody discovery using the blood of recovering patients as the foundation for therapeutics, with COVID-19 as a first target.

While researchers around the world are quickly characterizing the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the ability to screen single B cells expressing a SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibody remains a significant and time-consuming challenge. The body has billions of B cells. After a patient recovers from SAR-CoV-2, they generate many B cells specific for the virus; however, some B cells will make antibodies that just bind to the virus but are not protective. Hence, finding the special B cells that eliminate or neutralize the virus is exceedingly rare. It is like finding a needle in a haystack. The existing technologies can only search for binders, not neutralizers so researchers are forced to sequence and re-express the antibody from non-specific B cells wasting significant time and resources. The Beacon system and the viral neutralization assay is designed to address this problem by directly screening single cells for neutralizing function in a single day.

The primary goal of the GEPAD Consortium is to enable the quickest therapeutic response to emerging pathogens. The GEPAD Consortium is requesting that anyone interested in this viral neutralization workflow and advancing the state of the art reach out and join them in forming a defensive barrier worldwide against diseases caused by emerging pathogens. Members will be enabled to rapidly discover potential treatments using small volume blood samples from recovering patientsboth acute and convalescent. The consortium is rapidly iterating and improving the viral neutralization workflow executing on the Berkeley Lights platform and hopes that more collaborators will come forward to participate in fighting this epidemic and be better prepared for the next one.

We have long sought to study the antiviral capacity of antibodies secreted by single human B cells, but the instruments and protocols for doing those studies didnt exist. Partnering with Berkeley Lights on developing innovative approaches to this single-cell biology task is now becoming a reality, said Dr. James Crowe, MD, Director of the Vanderbilt Vaccine Center.

We have developed a specialized survival media for plasma cells and envision the use of it for rapid upfront selection of a rare target monoclonal antibody, said Dr. Lee. Berkeley Lights together with this consortium will make this method a reality for COVID-19 neutralizing antibodies. We hope this helps in this pandemic to save lives.

Theres an opportunity here to quickly mobilize something that could protect frontline workers or treat those who have been infected, explained Dr. Saphire. Vaccines arent available yet. Providing some immediate immunity using antibodies could be lifesaving for those who havent been vaccinated or cant be vaccinated, or if the eventual vaccines arent completely protective.

COVID-19 is a serious threat to our health, our way of life, and the world economy, said Dr. Eric Hobbs, CEO of Berkeley Lights. We are committed to doing our part by developing assays and workflows that researchers and therapeutic developers can use to rapidly discover antibodies that are key to treatments.

About Vanderbilt University Medical Center Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) is one of the nations largest academic medical centers. As part of its research enterprise, in partnership with the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, the Vanderbilt Vaccine Center is participating in the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agencys (DARPAs) Pandemic Protection Platform (P3) program, a five-year cooperative agreement to develop protective antibody treatments that can be rushed to health care providers within 60 days after the outbreak of viral diseases anywhere in the world.

About La Jolla Institute for Immunology La Jolla Institute for Immunology is dedicated to understanding the intricacies and power of the immune system so that we may apply that knowledge to promote human health and prevent a wide range of diseases. Since its founding in 1988 as an independent, nonprofit research organization, the Institute has made numerous advances leading towards its goal: life without disease.

About Emory University Emory University is one of the worlds leading research universities. Its mission is to create, preserve, teach and apply knowledge in the service of humanity. The Emory effort is led by Dr. Lee of the Pulmonary, Allergy, Critical Care & Sleep Division, The Lowance Center for Human Immunology and the Emory Vaccine Center. She contributes culture methods developed in her lab that greatly improve the survival of B cells and plasma cells thereby facilitating the isolation of extremely rare cells producing the antibodies of interest. Dr. Lees work is supported by NIH, the Lowance Center, Gates Foundation, and the Georgia Research Alliance.

About Berkeley Lights Here at Berkeley Lights, we think cells are awesome! Cells are capable of manufacturing cures for diseases, fibers for clothing, energy in the form of biofuels, and food proteins for nutrition. So the question is, if nature is capable of manufacturing the products we need in a scalable way, why arent we doing more of this? Well, the answer is that with the solutions available today, it is hard. It takes a long time to find the right cell for a specific job, costs lots of money, and if you have picked a suboptimal cell line, has a very low process yield. Berkeley Lights has the complete solution to find the best cells by functionally screening and recovering individual cells for antibody discovery, cell line development, T cell analysis, and synthetic biology. Our proprietary technology, including the Beacon and Lightning platforms accelerate the rate you can discover and develop cell-based products in a fraction of the time and at a fraction of the cost of conventional, legacy research methods. Using our tools and solutions, scientists can find the best cells, the first time they look. For more information, visit http://www.berkeleylights.com.

Berkeley Lights Beacon and Lightning systems and Culture Station instrument are:

For Research Use Only. Not for use in diagnostic procedures.

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Berkeley Lights Announces the Global Emerging Pathogen Antibody Discovery Consortium (GEPAD) to Attack COVID-19 and Other Viruses - Associated Press

Cell Biology

Bruker Announces Launch of CE-IVD Marked genesig Assay Kit for the Detection of the SARS-CoV-2 Virus – BioSpace

The genesig real-time PCR Coronavirus (COVID-2019) CE-IVD assay is validated for use on Bruker-Hain Diagnostics GenoXtract (GXT) automated nucleic acid extraction devices with associated extraction kits. Shipments to Spain, France, Germany and the UK have already started.

The genesig assay has been validated for respiratory samples (nasopharyngeal swabs, oropharyngeal swabs, sputum) on commonly available laboratory thermocyclers. The kit includes all necessary reagents to produce up to 96 results in under two hours. The genesig assay is designed for very high specificity for the 2019-nCoV virus strain that is implicated in COVID-19. The genesig test is CE-IVD marked and intended for in vitro diagnostic use in Europe.

Graham Mullis, CEO of Novacyt SA, stated: With Bruker we have found a strong distribution partner with a Microbiology & Diagnostics business that has significant reach into a large number of European infectious disease laboratories. This will help to bring our genesig test into laboratories quickly, where its diagnostic results can help to prevent the further spreading of COVID-19.

Dr. Wolfgang Pusch, Executive Vice President Microbiology & Diagnostics at Bruker Daltonics, commented: Bruker is joining the fight against COVID-19. In combination with our validated GenoXtract (GXT) products for nucleic acid extraction, we now offer a solution for preparation and detection of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. We have also seen accelerated orders of our MALDI Biotyper systems from Chinese CDC laboratories, e.g. to rule in or out bacterial infections in severe respiratory disease.

About Bruker-Hain Diagnostics

Bruker-Hain Diagnostics is focused on Molecular Diagnostics (MDx) products within Brukers Microbiology & Diagnostics business. Hain Lifescience GmbH is the legal manufacturer of the Fluorocycler XT, MTBDR 2.0 assay and of GXT nucleic acid preparation kits. For more information, please visit, http://www.hain-lifescience.de.

About Bruker Corporation (Nasdaq: BRKR)

Bruker is enabling scientists to make breakthrough discoveries and develop new applications that improve the quality of human life. Brukers high-performance scientific instruments and high-value analytical and diagnostic solutions enable scientists to explore life and materials at molecular, cellular and microscopic levels. In close cooperation with our customers, Bruker is enabling innovation, improved productivity and customer success in life science molecular research, in applied and pharma applications, in microscopy and nanoanalysis, and in industrial applications, as well as in cell biology, preclinical imaging, clinical phenomics and proteomics research and clinical microbiology. For more information, please visit: http://www.bruker.com.

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Bruker Announces Launch of CE-IVD Marked genesig Assay Kit for the Detection of the SARS-CoV-2 Virus - BioSpace

Cell Biology

How the discovery of HIV led to a transatlantic research war – PBS NewsHour

As the world struggles to constrain the new coronavirus, COVID-19, its worth remembering the discovery of another deadly, global virus HIV (or Human Immunodeficiency Virus) and a controversy that played out among the researchers who brought it to light.

Since the start of the AIDS epidemic, 32 million people have died from related illnesses and 74.9 million have become infected with HIV. Though the number of deaths has been greatly reduced over the decades, AIDS killed more than 770,000 people and infected 1.7 million people in 2018 alone.

In the 1980s, a virologist named Dr. Robert Gallo was the head of the Laboratory of Tumor Cell Biology at the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health. He was a pioneer in the detection of infectious forms of cancer, once called human RNA tumor viruses and now known as retroviruses. Gallo and his team discovered interleukin-2 (IL-2) and the human T-cell leukemia virus (HTLV), which is associated with specific leukemias and lymphomas.

Gallo published a set of four papers in the journal Science in May 1984 that identified a retrovirus they called HTLV-III, a name he initially chose because he considered it to be a relative of the leukemia viruses his lab was studying. HTLV-III is better known today as HIV-I and Gallos papers correctly identified it as the cause of the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. In the papers, Gallo claimed to have grown the virus in large quantities in their laboratory. Only a year earlier, however, on May 20, 1983, the French virologist Luc Montagnier and his team at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, had published a paper in Science identifying a retrovirus they called Lymphadenopathy Associated Virus (LAV), which they isolated from a patient with AIDS.

Soon after the Gallo papers were published, DNA analyses demonstrated that the American HIV virus and the French LAV virus were the same. What followed was a loud whisper campaign suggesting that Gallo somehow acquired the Montagnier virus by nefarious means, and used it as his own.

Matters came to a head after the development of an HIV-antibody test a huge advance in an era where we hardly understood AIDS and doctors were not yet able to precisely identify who was at risk and who was infected. The test was created at the NIH and there were great financial rewards in the offing. But who was entitled to the patent? The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (Gallo) or Frances Pasteur Institute (Montagnier), or both?

To challenge the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services patent on the clinical HIV lab test, the Pasteur Institute filed a lawsuit in December 1985. The volume on this ugly war was finally dialed down in 1987 by the President Ronald Reagan and French President Franois Mitterrand, with a formal agreement to divide the scientific credit and patent royalties from all HIV work and the blood test that detected it.

The National Institutes of Health conducted an investigation and exonerated Gallo of any charges of wrongdoing, as well as proving that Gallo and his colleagues had many isolates of HIV from their own work. Yet there was a huge but to the official report: One of the samples found in the Gallo labs viral archives for 1983-1985 did originate from the Montagnier lab, which was requested by the Gallo lab and sent to them from Paris. The sample contained two viruses (it was a virus from one patient who had somehow contaminated a virus sample from another patient). Hence the sample the Montangier lab sent and that the Gallo lab was studied was actually a pooled culture. The Gallo lab admitted to inadvertently using the Montagnier sample in their pathbreaking work.

Both Gallo and Montagnier later agreed to share the title of co-discovers of the virus and they wrote several papers together describing their work in Science (Dec. 29, 2002) and the New England Journal of Medicine (Dec. 11, 2003).

For his share of the work, Gallo won the prestigious Lasker Award in 1986 (his second, having won it in 1982 for his work on retroviruses). Thereafter, the murmurings in hospitals and laboratories across the United States was that it would not be long before Stockholm called with the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine.

But when the call came in the fall of 2008, it was only for Luc Montagnier. He shared the 2008 Prize for Physiology or Medicine with Franoise Barr-Sinoussi, who worked with him at the Pasteur Institute on HIV and with Harald zur Hausen, the discoverer of the human papillomavirus (HPV).

The scientific world was shocked to learn that the Nobel Committee snubbed Gallos work, but because those archival records are locked up until 2058, we will not know the precise argument behind this decision until most of us have shuffled off this mortal coil. Some have speculated it may have been the controversy over how Gallo obtained his viral samples that repelled the prize committee; others, more cynically, have described it as a popularity contest and that Gallo was disliked by those who had the power to grant the prize.

The old sports television series Wide World of Sports used to begin with its catch phrase: the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. Those nine pithy words may describe the career of Gallo, whose birthday we celebrate this week. As Montagnier said when he won his Nobel Prize, It was very important to prove that HIV was the cause of AIDS, and Gallo had a very important role in that. Im very sorry for Robert Gallo.

In the broader scope of history, however, Gallos great contribution to science and society overshadows any scandal.

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How the discovery of HIV led to a transatlantic research war - PBS NewsHour