StemCell Therapy

Editors Note: The Atlantic is making vital coverage of the coronavirus available to all readers. Find the collection here.

Three months ago, no one knew that SARS-CoV-2 existed. Now the virus has spread to almost every country, infecting at least 446,000 people whom we know about, and many more whom we do not. It has crashed economies and broken health-care systems, filled hospitals and emptied public spaces. It has separated people from their workplaces and their friends. It has disrupted modern society on a scale that most living people have never witnessed. Soon, most everyone in the United States will know someone who has been infected. Like World War II or the 9/11 attacks, this pandemic has already imprinted itself upon the nations psyche.

A global pandemic of this scale was inevitable. In recent years, hundreds of health experts have written books, white papers, and op-eds warning of the possibility. Bill Gates has been telling anyone who would listen, including the 18 million viewers of his TED Talk. In 2018, I wrote a story for The Atlantic arguing that America was not ready for the pandemic that would eventually come. In October, the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security war-gamed what might happen if a new coronavirus swept the globe. And then one did. Hypotheticals became reality. What if? became Now what?

So, now what? In the late hours of last Wednesday, which now feels like the distant past, I was talking about the pandemic with a pregnant friend who was days away from her due date. We realized that her child might be one of the first of a new cohort who are born into a society profoundly altered by COVID-19. We decided to call them Generation C.

As well see, Gen Cs lives will be shaped by the choices made in the coming weeks, and by the losses we suffer as a result. But first, a brief reckoning. On the Global Health Security Index, a report card that grades every country on its pandemic preparedness, the United States has a score of 83.5the worlds highest. Rich, strong, developed, America is supposed to be the readiest of nations. That illusion has been shattered. Despite months of advance warning as the virus spread in other countries, when America was finally tested by COVID-19, it failed.

Anne Applebaum: The coronavirus called Americas bluff

No matter what, a virus [like SARS-CoV-2] was going to test the resilience of even the most well-equipped health systems, says Nahid Bhadelia, an infectious-diseases physician at the Boston University School of Medicine. More transmissible and fatal than seasonal influenza, the new coronavirus is also stealthier, spreading from one host to another for several days before triggering obvious symptoms. To contain such a pathogen, nations must develop a test and use it to identify infected people, isolate them, and trace those theyve had contact with. That is what South Korea, Singapore, and Hong Kong did to tremendous effect. It is what the United States did not.

As my colleagues Alexis Madrigal and Robinson Meyer have reported, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention developed and distributed a faulty test in February. Independent labs created alternatives, but were mired in bureaucracy from the FDA. In a crucial month when the American caseload shot into the tens of thousands, only hundreds of people were tested. That a biomedical powerhouse like the U.S. should so thoroughly fail to create a very simple diagnostic test was, quite literally, unimaginable. Im not aware of any simulations that I or others have run where we [considered] a failure of testing, says Alexandra Phelan of Georgetown University, who works on legal and policy issues related to infectious diseases.

The testing fiasco was the original sin of Americas pandemic failure, the single flaw that undermined every other countermeasure. If the country could have accurately tracked the spread of the virus, hospitals could have executed their pandemic plans, girding themselves by allocating treatment rooms, ordering extra supplies, tagging in personnel, or assigning specific facilities to deal with COVID-19 cases. None of that happened. Instead, a health-care system that already runs close to full capacity, and that was already challenged by a severe flu season, was suddenly faced with a virus that had been left to spread, untracked, through communities around the country. Overstretched hospitals became overwhelmed. Basic protective equipment, such as masks, gowns, and gloves, began to run out. Beds will soon follow, as will the ventilators that provide oxygen to patients whose lungs are besieged by the virus.

Read: The people ignoring social distancing

With little room to surge during a crisis, Americas health-care system operates on the assumption that unaffected states can help beleaguered ones in an emergency. That ethic works for localized disasters such as hurricanes or wildfires, but not for a pandemic that is now in all 50 states. Cooperation has given way to competition; some worried hospitals have bought out large quantities of supplies, in the way that panicked consumers have bought out toilet paper.

Partly, thats because the White House is a ghost town of scientific expertise. A pandemic-preparedness office that was part of the National Security Council was dissolved in 2018. On January 28, Luciana Borio, who was part of that team, urged the government to act now to prevent an American epidemic, and specifically to work with the private sector to develop fast, easy diagnostic tests. But with the office shuttered, those warnings were published in The Wall Street Journal, rather than spoken into the presidents ear. Instead of springing into action, America sat idle.

Derek Thompson: America is acting like a failed state

Rudderless, blindsided, lethargic, and uncoordinated, America has mishandled the COVID-19 crisis to a substantially worse degree than what every health expert Ive spoken with had feared. Much worse, said Ron Klain, who coordinated the U.S. response to the West African Ebola outbreak in 2014. Beyond any expectations we had, said Lauren Sauer, who works on disaster preparedness at Johns Hopkins Medicine. As an American, Im horrified, said Seth Berkley, who heads Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. The U.S. may end up with the worst outbreak in the industrialized world.

Having fallen behind, it will be difficultbut not impossiblefor the United States to catch up. To an extent, the near-term future is set because COVID-19 is a slow and long illness. People who were infected several days ago will only start showing symptoms now, even if they isolated themselves in the meantime. Some of those people will enter intensive-care units in early April. As of last weekend, the nation had 17,000 confirmed cases, but the actual number was probably somewhere between 60,000 and 245,000. Numbers are now starting to rise exponentially: As of Wednesday morning, the official case count was 54,000, and the actual case count is unknown. Health-care workers are already seeing worrying signs: dwindling equipment, growing numbers of patients, and doctors and nurses who are themselves becoming infected.

Italy and Spain offer grim warnings about the future. Hospitals are out of room, supplies, and staff. Unable to treat or save everyone, doctors have been forced into the unthinkable: rationing care to patients who are most likely to survive, while letting others die. The U.S. has fewer hospital beds per capita than Italy. A study released by a team at Imperial College London concluded that if the pandemic is left unchecked, those beds will all be full by late April. By the end of June, for every available critical-care bed, there will be roughly 15 COVID-19 patients in need of one. By the end of the summer, the pandemic will have directly killed 2.2 million Americans, notwithstanding those who will indirectly die as hospitals are unable to care for the usual slew of heart attacks, strokes, and car accidents. This is the worst-case scenario. To avert it, four things need to happenand quickly.

Read: All the presidents lies about the coronavirus

The first and most important is to rapidly produce masks, gloves, and other personal protective equipment. If health-care workers cant stay healthy, the rest of the response will collapse. In some places, stockpiles are already so low that doctors are reusing masks between patients, calling for donations from the public, or sewing their own homemade alternatives. These shortages are happening because medical supplies are made-to-order and depend on byzantine international supply chains that are currently straining and snapping. Hubei province in China, the epicenter of the pandemic, was also a manufacturing center of medical masks.

In the U.S., the Strategic National Stockpilea national larder of medical equipmentis already being deployed, especially to the hardest-hit states. The stockpile is not inexhaustible, but it can buy some time. Donald Trump could use that time to invoke the Defense Production Act, launching a wartime effort in which American manufacturers switch to making medical equipment. But after invoking the act last Wednesday, Trump has failed to actually use it, reportedly due to lobbying from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and heads of major corporations.

Some manufacturers are already rising to the challenge, but their efforts are piecemeal and unevenly distributed. One day, well wake up to a story of doctors in City X who are operating with bandanas, and a closet in City Y with masks piled into it, says Ali Khan, the dean of public health at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. A massive logistics and supply-chain operation [is] now needed across the country, says Thomas Inglesby of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. That cant be managed by small and inexperienced teams scattered throughout the White House. The solution, he says, is to tag in the Defense Logistics Agencya 26,000-person group that prepares the U.S. military for overseas operations and that has assisted in past public-health crises, including the 2014 Ebola outbreak.

This agency can also coordinate the second pressing need: a massive rollout of COVID-19 tests. Those tests have been slow to arrive because of five separate shortages: of masks to protect people administering the tests; of nasopharyngeal swabs for collecting viral samples; of extraction kits for pulling the viruss genetic material out of the samples; of chemical reagents that are part of those kits; and of trained people who can give the tests. Many of these shortages are, again, due to strained supply chains. The U.S. relies on three manufacturers for extraction reagents, providing redundancy in case any of them failsbut all of them failed in the face of unprecedented global demand. Meanwhile, Lombardy, Italy, the hardest-hit place in Europe, houses one of the largest manufacturers of nasopharyngeal swabs.

Read: Why the coronavirus has been so successful

Some shortages are being addressed. The FDA is now moving quickly to approve tests developed by private labs. At least one can deliver results in less than an hour, potentially allowing doctors to know if the patient in front of them has COVID-19. The country is adding capacity on a daily basis, says Kelly Wroblewski of the Association of Public Health Laboratories.

On March 6, Trump said that anyone who wants a test can get a test. That was (and still is) untrue, and his own officials were quick to correct him. Regardless, anxious people still flooded into hospitals, seeking tests that did not exist. People wanted to be tested even if they werent symptomatic, or if they sat next to someone with a cough, says Saskia Popescu of George Mason University, who works to prepare hospitals for pandemics. Others just had colds, but doctors still had to use masks to examine them, burning through their already dwindling supplies. It really stressed the health-care system, Popescu says. Even now, as capacity expands, tests must be used carefully. The first priority, says Marc Lipsitch of Harvard, is to test health-care workers and hospitalized patients, allowing hospitals to quell any ongoing fires. Only later, once the immediate crisis is slowing, should tests be deployed in a more widespread way. This isnt just going to be: Lets get the tests out there! Inglesby says.

These measures will take time, during which the pandemic will either accelerate beyond the capacity of the health system or slow to containable levels. Its courseand the nations fatenow depends on the third need, which is social distancing. Think of it this way: There are now only two groups of Americans. Group A includes everyone involved in the medical response, whether thats treating patients, running tests, or manufacturing supplies. Group B includes everyone else, and their job is to buy Group A more time. Group B must now flatten the curve by physically isolating themselves from other people to cut off chains of transmission. Given the slow fuse of COVID-19, to forestall the future collapse of the health-care system, these seemingly drastic steps must be taken immediately, before they feel proportionate, and they must continue for several weeks.

Juliette Kayyem: The crisis could last 18 months. Be prepared.

Persuading a country to voluntarily stay at home is not easy, and without clear guidelines from the White House, mayors, governors, and business owners have been forced to take their own steps. Some states have banned large gatherings or closed schools and restaurants. At least 21 have now instituted some form of mandatory quarantine, compelling people to stay at home. And yet many citizens continue to crowd into public spaces.

In these moments, when the good of all hinges on the sacrifices of many, clear coordination mattersthe fourth urgent need. The importance of social distancing must be impressed upon a public who must also be reassured and informed. Instead, Trump has repeatedly played down the problem, telling America that we have it very well under control when we do not, and that cases were going to be down to close to zero when they were rising. In some cases, as with his claims about ubiquitous testing, his misleading gaffes have deepened the crisis. He has even touted unproven medications.

Away from the White House press room, Trump has apparently been listening to Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Fauci has advised every president since Ronald Reagan on new epidemics, and now sits on the COVID-19 task force that meets with Trump roughly every other day. Hes got his own style, lets leave it at that, Fauci told me, but any kind of recommendation that I have made thus far, the substance of it, he has listened to everything.

Read: Grocery stores are the coronavirus tipping point

But Trump already seems to be wavering. In recent days, he has signaled that he is prepared to backtrack on social-distancing policies in a bid to protect the economy. Pundits and business leaders have used similar rhetoric, arguing that high-risk people, such as the elderly, could be protected while lower-risk people are allowed to go back to work. Such thinking is seductive, but flawed. It overestimates our ability to assess a persons risk, and to somehow wall off the high-risk people from the rest of society. It underestimates how badly the virus can hit low-risk groups, and how thoroughly hospitals will be overwhelmed if even just younger demographics are falling sick.

A recent analysis from the University of Pennsylvania estimated that even if social-distancing measures can reduce infection rates by 95 percent, 960,000 Americans will still need intensive care. There are only about 180,000 ventilators in the U.S. and, more pertinently, only enough respiratory therapists and critical-care staff to safely look after 100,000 ventilated patients. Abandoning social distancing would be foolish. Abandoning it now, when tests and protective equipment are still scarce, would be catastrophic.

Read: Americas hospitals have never experienced anything like this

If Trump stays the course, if Americans adhere to social distancing, if testing can be rolled out, and if enough masks can be produced, there is a chance that the country can still avert the worst predictions about COVID-19, and at least temporarily bring the pandemic under control. No one knows how long that will take, but it wont be quick. It could be anywhere from four to six weeks to up to three months, Fauci said, but I dont have great confidence in that range.

Even a perfect response wont end the pandemic. As long as the virus persists somewhere, theres a chance that one infected traveler will reignite fresh sparks in countries that have already extinguished their fires. This is already happening in China, Singapore, and other Asian countries that briefly seemed to have the virus under control. Under these conditions, there are three possible endgames: one thats very unlikely, one thats very dangerous, and one thats very long.

The first is that every nation manages to simultaneously bring the virus to heel, as with the original SARS in 2003. Given how widespread the coronavirus pandemic is, and how badly many countries are faring, the odds of worldwide synchronous control seem vanishingly small.

The second is that the virus does what past flu pandemics have done: It burns through the world and leaves behind enough immune survivors that it eventually struggles to find viable hosts. This herd immunity scenario would be quick, and thus tempting. But it would also come at a terrible cost: SARS-CoV-2 is more transmissible and fatal than the flu, and it would likely leave behind many millions of corpses and a trail of devastated health systems. The United Kingdom initially seemed to consider this herd-immunity strategy, before backtracking when models revealed the dire consequences. The U.S. now seems to be considering it too.

Read: What will you do if you start coughing?

The third scenario is that the world plays a protracted game of whack-a-mole with the virus, stamping out outbreaks here and there until a vaccine can be produced. This is the best option, but also the longest and most complicated.

It depends, for a start, on making a vaccine. If this were a flu pandemic, that would be easier. The world is experienced at making flu vaccines and does so every year. But there are no existing vaccines for coronavirusesuntil now, these viruses seemed to cause diseases that were mild or rareso researchers must start from scratch. The first steps have been impressively quick. Last Monday, a possible vaccine created by Moderna and the National Institutes of Health went into early clinical testing. That marks a 63-day gap between scientists sequencing the viruss genes for the first time and doctors injecting a vaccine candidate into a persons arm. Its overwhelmingly the world record, Fauci said.

But its also the fastest step among many subsequent slow ones. The initial trial will simply tell researchers if the vaccine seems safe, and if it can actually mobilize the immune system. Researchers will then need to check that it actually prevents infection from SARS-CoV-2. Theyll need to do animal tests and large-scale trials to ensure that the vaccine doesnt cause severe side effects. Theyll need to work out what dose is required, how many shots people need, if the vaccine works in elderly people, and if it requires other chemicals to boost its effectiveness.

Even if it works, they dont have an easy way to manufacture it at a massive scale, said Seth Berkley of Gavi. Thats because Moderna is using a new approach to vaccination. Existing vaccines work by providing the body with inactivated or fragmented viruses, allowing the immune system to prep its defenses ahead of time. By contrast, Modernas vaccine comprises a sliver of SARS-CoV-2s genetic materialits RNA. The idea is that the body can use this sliver to build its own viral fragments, which would then form the basis of the immune systems preparations. This approach works in animals, but is unproven in humans. By contrast, French scientists are trying to modify the existing measles vaccine using fragments of the new coronavirus. The advantage of that is that if we needed hundreds of doses tomorrow, a lot of plants in the world know how to do it, Berkley said. No matter which strategy is faster, Berkley and others estimate that it will take 12 to 18 months to develop a proven vaccine, and then longer still to make it, ship it, and inject it into peoples arms.

Read: COVID-19 vaccines are coming, but theyre not what you think

Its likely, then, that the new coronavirus will be a lingering part of American life for at least a year, if not much longer. If the current round of social-distancing measures works, the pandemic may ebb enough for things to return to a semblance of normalcy. Offices could fill and bars could bustle. Schools could reopen and friends could reunite. But as the status quo returns, so too will the virus. This doesnt mean that society must be on continuous lockdown until 2022. But we need to be prepared to do multiple periods of social distancing, says Stephen Kissler of Harvard.

Much about the coming years, including the frequency, duration, and timing of social upheavals, depends on two properties of the virus, both of which are currently unknown. First: seasonality. Coronaviruses tend to be winter infections that wane or disappear in the summer. That may also be true for SARS-CoV-2, but seasonal variations might not sufficiently slow the virus when it has so many immunologically naive hosts to infect. Much of the world is waiting anxiously to see whatif anythingthe summer does to transmission in the Northern Hemisphere, says Maia Majumder of Harvard Medical School and Boston Childrens Hospital.

Second: duration of immunity. When people are infected by the milder human coronaviruses that cause cold-like symptoms, they remain immune for less than a year. By contrast, the few who were infected by the original SARS virus, which was far more severe, stayed immune for much longer. Assuming that SARS-CoV-2 lies somewhere in the middle, people who recover from their encounters might be protected for a couple of years. To confirm that, scientists will need to develop accurate serological tests, which look for the antibodies that confer immunity. Theyll also need to confirm that such antibodies actually stop people from catching or spreading the virus. If so, immune citizens can return to work, care for the vulnerable, and anchor the economy during bouts of social distancing.

Scientists can use the periods between those bouts to develop antiviral drugsalthough such drugs are rarely panaceas, and come with possible side effects and the risk of resistance. Hospitals can stockpile the necessary supplies. Testing kits can be widely distributed to catch the viruss return as quickly as possible. Theres no reason that the U.S. should let SARS-CoV-2 catch it unawares again, and thus no reason that social-distancing measures need to be deployed as broadly and heavy-handedly as they now must be. As Aaron E. Carroll and Ashish Jha recently wrote, We can keep schools and businesses open as much as possible, closing them quickly when suppression fails, then opening them back up again once the infected are identified and isolated. Instead of playing defense, we could play more offense.

Whether through accumulating herd immunity or the long-awaited arrival of a vaccine, the virus will find spreading explosively more and more difficult. Its unlikely to disappear entirely. The vaccine may need to be updated as the virus changes, and people may need to get revaccinated on a regular basis, as they currently do for the flu. Models suggest that the virus might simmer around the world, triggering epidemics every few years or so. But my hope and expectation is that the severity would decline, and there would be less societal upheaval, Kissler says. In this future, COVID-19 may become like the flu is todaya recurring scourge of winter. Perhaps it will eventually become so mundane that even though a vaccine exists, large swaths of Gen C wont bother getting it, forgetting how dramatically their world was molded by its absence.

The cost of reaching that point, with as few deaths as possible, will be enormous. As my colleague Annie Lowrey wrote, the economy is experiencing a shock more sudden and severe than anyone alive has ever experienced. About one in five people in the United States have lost working hours or jobs. Hotels are empty. Airlines are grounding flights. Restaurants and other small businesses are closing. Inequalities will widen: People with low incomes will be hardest-hit by social-distancing measures, and most likely to have the chronic health conditions that increase their risk of severe infections. Diseases have destabilized cities and societies many times over, but it hasnt happened in this country in a very long time, or to quite the extent that were seeing now, says Elena Conis, a historian of medicine at UC Berkeley. Were far more urban and metropolitan. We have more people traveling great distances and living far from family and work.

After infections begin ebbing, a secondary pandemic of mental-health problems will follow. At a moment of profound dread and uncertainty, people are being cut off from soothing human contact. Hugs, handshakes, and other social rituals are now tinged with danger. People with anxiety or obsessive-compulsive disorder are struggling. Elderly people, who are already excluded from much of public life, are being asked to distance themselves even further, deepening their loneliness. Asian people are suffering racist insults, fueled by a president who insists on labeling the new coronavirus the Chinese virus. Incidents of domestic violence and child abuse are likely to spike as people are forced to stay in unsafe homes. Children, whose bodies are mostly spared by the virus, may endure mental trauma that stays with them into adulthood.

Read: The kids arent all right

After the pandemic, people who recover from COVID-19 might be shunned and stigmatized, as were survivors of Ebola, SARS, and HIV. Health-care workers will take time to heal: One to two years after SARS hit Toronto, people who dealt with the outbreak were still less productive and more likely to be experiencing burnout and post-traumatic stress. People who went through long bouts of quarantine will carry the scars of their experience. My colleagues in Wuhan note that some people there now refuse to leave their homes and have developed agoraphobia, says Steven Taylor of the University of British Columbia, who wrote The Psychology of Pandemics.

But there is also the potential for a much better world after we get through this trauma, says Richard Danzig of the Center for a New American Security. Already, communities are finding new ways of coming together, even as they must stay apart. Attitudes to health may also change for the better. The rise of HIV and AIDS completely changed sexual behavior among young people who were coming into sexual maturity at the height of the epidemic, Conis says. The use of condoms became normalized. Testing for STDs became mainstream. Similarly, washing your hands for 20 seconds, a habit that has historically been hard to enshrine even in hospitals, may be one of those behaviors that we become so accustomed to in the course of this outbreak that we dont think about them, Conis adds.

Pandemics can also catalyze social change. People, businesses, and institutions have been remarkably quick to adopt or call for practices that they might once have dragged their heels on, including working from home, conference-calling to accommodate people with disabilities, proper sick leave, and flexible child-care arrangements. This is the first time in my lifetime that Ive heard someone say, Oh, if youre sick, stay home, says Adia Benton, an anthropologist at Northwestern University. Perhaps the nation will learn that preparedness isnt just about masks, vaccines, and tests, but also about fair labor policies and a stable and equal health-care system. Perhaps it will appreciate that health-care workers and public-health specialists compose Americas social immune system, and that this system has been suppressed.

Aspects of Americas identity may need rethinking after COVID-19. Many of the countrys values have seemed to work against it during the pandemic. Its individualism, exceptionalism, and tendency to equate doing whatever you want with an act of resistance meant that when it came time to save lives and stay indoors, some people flocked to bars and clubs. Having internalized years of anti-terrorism messaging following 9/11, Americans resolved to not live in fear. But SARS-CoV-2 has no interest in their terror, only their cells.

Years of isolationist rhetoric had consequences too. Citizens who saw China as a distant, different place, where bats are edible and authoritarianism is acceptable, failed to consider that they would be next or that they wouldnt be ready. (Chinas response to this crisis had its own problems, but thats for another time.) People believed the rhetoric that containment would work, says Wendy Parmet, who studies law and public health at Northeastern University. We keep them out, and well be okay. When you have a body politic that buys into these ideas of isolationism and ethnonationalism, youre especially vulnerable when a pandemic hits.

Graeme Wood: The Chinese virus is a test. Dont fail it.

Veterans of past epidemics have long warned that American society is trapped in a cycle of panic and neglect. After every crisisanthrax, SARS, flu, Ebolaattention is paid and investments are made. But after short periods of peacetime, memories fade and budgets dwindle. This trend transcends red and blue administrations. When a new normal sets in, the abnormal once again becomes unimaginable. But there is reason to think that COVID-19 might be a disaster that leads to more radical and lasting change.

The other major epidemics of recent decades either barely affected the U.S. (SARS, MERS, Ebola), were milder than expected (H1N1 flu in 2009), or were mostly limited to specific groups of people (Zika, HIV). The COVID-19 pandemic, by contrast, is affecting everyone directly, changing the nature of their everyday life. That distinguishes it not only from other diseases, but also from the other systemic challenges of our time. When an administration prevaricates on climate change, the effects wont be felt for years, and even then will be hard to parse. Its different when a president says that everyone can get a test, and one day later, everyone cannot. Pandemics are democratizing experiences. People whose privilege and power would normally shield them from a crisis are facing quarantines, testing positive, and losing loved ones. Senators are falling sick. The consequences of defunding public-health agencies, losing expertise, and stretching hospitals are no longer manifesting as angry opinion pieces, but as faltering lungs.

After 9/11, the world focused on counterterrorism. After COVID-19, attention may shift to public health. Expect to see a spike in funding for virology and vaccinology, a surge in students applying to public-health programs, and more domestic production of medical supplies. Expect pandemics to top the agenda at the United Nations General Assembly. Anthony Fauci is now a household name. Regular people who think easily about what a policewoman or firefighter does finally get what an epidemiologist does, says Monica Schoch-Spana, a medical anthropologist at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.

Such changes, in themselves, might protect the world from the next inevitable disease. The countries that had lived through SARS had a public consciousness about this that allowed them to leap into action, said Ron Klain, the former Ebola czar. The most commonly uttered sentence in America at the moment is, Ive never seen something like this before. That wasnt a sentence anyone in Hong Kong uttered. For the U.S., and for the world, its abundantly, viscerally clear what a pandemic can do.

The lessons that America draws from this experience are hard to predict, especially at a time when online algorithms and partisan broadcasters only serve news that aligns with their audiences preconceptions. Such dynamics will be pivotal in the coming months, says Ilan Goldenberg, a foreign-policy expert at the Center for a New American Security. The transitions after World War II or 9/11 were not about a bunch of new ideas, he says. The ideas are out there, but the debates will be more acute over the next few months because of the fluidity of the moment and willingness of the American public to accept big, massive changes.

One could easily conceive of a world in which most of the nation believes that America defeated COVID-19. Despite his many lapses, Trumps approval rating has surged. Imagine that he succeeds in diverting blame for the crisis to China, casting it as the villain and America as the resilient hero. During the second term of his presidency, the U.S. turns further inward and pulls out of NATO and other international alliances, builds actual and figurative walls, and disinvests in other nations. As Gen C grows up, foreign plagues replace communists and terrorists as the new generational threat.

One could also envisage a future in which America learns a different lesson. A communal spirit, ironically born through social distancing, causes people to turn outward, to neighbors both foreign and domestic. The election of November 2020 becomes a repudiation of America first politics. The nation pivots, as it did after World War II, from isolationism to international cooperation. Buoyed by steady investments and an influx of the brightest minds, the health-care workforce surges. Gen C kids write school essays about growing up to be epidemiologists. Public health becomes the centerpiece of foreign policy. The U.S. leads a new global partnership focused on solving challenges like pandemics and climate change.

In 2030, SARS-CoV-3 emerges from nowhere, and is brought to heel within a month.

Read more:
How the Pandemic Will End - The Atlantic

Sean Diehl likens the development of a new vaccine to the construction of a house. Before workers can turn a shovelful of dirt or hammer a nail, an architect must create a blueprint that shows how the building's thousands of components fit together and in what order.

Similarly, vaccine researchers trying to stop the spread of a deadly virus must start by mapping its messenger RNA. Decoding that genetic blueprint allows them to construct a safe and reliable vaccine that, they hope, will provide immunity for decades.

This time, researchers are racing to devise a vaccine that will stop a pandemic that's already upon us, using a never-before-tried method. It's akin to erecting a storm shelter using a new construction technique just as a Category 5 hurricane makes landfall.

Diehl is an assistant professor in the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics at the University of Vermont's Larner College of Medicine. Since 2008, he's collaborated with the college's Vaccine Testing Center on projects involving infectious diseases, autoimmune disorders and vaccine development. In the past few years, Diehl's laboratory has focused on developing new protections against rotavirus, which is one of the most common and deadly causes of childhood diarrhea, and two mosquito-borne viruses dengue and Zika which infect tens of millions of people worldwide each year.

The 44-year-old Shelburne resident agreed to an interview with Seven Days months before the novel coronavirus made headlines. Since then, Diehl has joined the global effort to develop a vaccine against COVID-19.

On that front, researchers are already working at breakneck speed. They began in late December, when health authorities in Wuhan, China, first reported the outbreak of a viral pneumonia of unknown origin. On January 12, Chinese health authorities and the World Health Organization announced that they had mapped the entire sequence of the new coronavirus genome and shared it with researchers around the world.

On March 16, the National Institutes of Health announced the launch of a Phase 1 clinical trial to evaluate an experimental COVID-19 vaccine. In that study, being conducted at the Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute in Seattle, 45 healthy volunteers, ages 18 to 55, were injected with different doses of an experimental vaccine to evaluate its safety and efficacy in inducing immune responses.

Diehl is not involved in the Washington study. But, using the expertise he gained from researching dengue and Zika vaccines, he explained how a COVID-19 vaccine will be developed, how long it could last and how we can create more effective versions in the future.

"This is a brand-new approach," he said of the experimental coronavirus shot. "There is no current vaccine that's ever been developed this way."

How long before the public can be immunized? That's difficult to say. Diehl wouldn't offer a prediction beyond saying that "there are some aggressive timelines being talked about."

Ordinarily, vaccines involve years of research before human trials begin. But advanced genetic technologies and reductions in bureaucratic red tape could significantly shorten that timeline for COVID-19, with some estimates saying a vaccine could be available as early as this fall.

Several methods are used to create a vaccine, Diehl said. Under normal circumstances, the most common is to start with an attenuated, or weakened, version of a virus. Scientists inject this weaker version into laboratory animals, typically mice and nonhuman primates, hoping to trigger an immune response that doesn't make the animal sick. Only after long and rigorous study do vaccine developers request approval from the U.S. Food & Drug Administration to move on to human trials.

Consider the lengthy path that brought researchers to a vaccine for just one of four serotypes, or strains, of dengue (known as "Dengue 1, 2," etc.). Versions of the deadly virus are found in more than 100 countries around the world, posing a risk to about 40 percent of the world's population, or 3 billion people. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as many as 400 million people are infected with dengue each year, of whom 100 million get sick and 22,000 die.

Though dengue's mortality rate is about 0.1 percent, comparable to seasonal flu, Diehl pointed out that its symptoms are much worse. "Dengue" may derive from the Spanish word for fastidious or careful, which describes the gait of a patient suffering from the disease.

The disease causes a very high fever that progresses into terrible joint, muscle and bone aches hence its nickname, "breakbone fever." Patients feel that their eyes are about to pop out of their heads.

Dengue is a particularly complicated disease to combat because of its four serotypes; an immunity to one offers no protection against the other three. If a person contracts Dengue 1 in, say, the Dominican Republic, they may recover without even knowing they were infected. However, if that person later travels to Puerto Rico and contracts Dengue 2, they have a greater chance of getting sick from the second exposure.

"For dengue," Diehl said, "it's taken, so far, 20 years and several billion dollars to get to the point of [having] the one vaccine that's on the market right now, for a very limited use."

What does this mean to researchers racing for a coronavirus vaccine? Speaking in "really broad brushstrokes," Diehl said, the way genetic material is encoded in the coronavirus is "very similar" to the coding of dengue. Both viruses have one long, continuous string of nucleic acid, or mRNA, that is "read" as a series of letters representing its chemical components: adenine (A), guanine (G), cytosine (C) and thymine (T).

In the case of dengue, that string is 10,000 letters long. In COVID-19, Diehl said, it's 25,000.

Working with a much longer string of information naturally presents more challenges. But, Diehl said, COVID-19 researchers don't need a full understanding of how all 25,000 letters of the genome function. The novel approach they're using to develop a vaccine is focused on the 3,000 to 5,000 letters that they believe may induce an early protective immune response. If they can pinpoint those letters, they will, in effect, buy themselves more time.

By now, most people who are following news of the unfolding pandemic have seen images of the COVID-19 virus, which resembles a fuzzy tennis ball riddled with darts or crowns. Those darts, which are called spike proteins, enable the virus to attach itself to a target cell, pass along its genetic material and reproduce.

A vaccine is essentially useless, Diehl said, if it triggers an immune response "post-fusion," or after the virus binds to the cell. The aim of this experimental vaccine is to induce an immune response before fusion happens.

"If we can block that," he said, "the virus has nowhere to go, and it dies."

The good news: Vaccine developers now have machines that can rapidly synthesize and mass produce the crucial 3,000- to 5,000-letter sequences that can be used to induce a pre-fusion immune response.

The bad news: That immune response won't last for long, because the mRNA used to produce it is an unstable molecule that degrades quickly in the body. "A good vaccine will last decades. This is probably single years," Diehl said.

That may be enough, though. Here's where Diehl joins the global effort: He has submitted a protocol seeking permission to collect and study blood samples from patients who have recovered from COVID-19. Once researchers better understand how all 25,000 nucleotides work together, he said, they can move on to developing vaccine "versions 2.0, 3.0 and beyond" that will induce "immune memory."

It's no surprise that Diehl uses construction metaphors to describe the microscopic workings of cells and viruses; his father, who's now retired, worked for years in construction. To his mother, a nurse, Diehl attributes his desire to work in a public health field and help others.

A native of Rome, N.Y., Diehl earned a bachelor's degree in chemistry at the State University of New York Geneseo. There, he developed an interest in immunology, and a professor suggested he pursue a doctoral degree. The first member of his family to attend a four-year college, Diehl hadn't known until then that students could get funding to pursue graduate degrees.

Earning his PhD at UVM, Diehl met his now-wife, Sandra. When he completed the degree, they moved to the Netherlands, where Sandra was born and raised.

After spending 2003 to 2008 at the University of Amsterdam, Diehl returned to Vermont and joined the faculty at UVM, where he's been ever since. Sandra works as a pediatric nurse at the UVM Medical Center. The couple has two daughters, Jill, 11, and Vera, 9.

Diehl admitted that it's frustrating to see vaccines demonized by the public when he knows how much "blood, sweat and tears" go into making them. He sees them as a "miracle product" that saves lives. "And then some people just choose not to believe in them."

What keeps him interested in immunology?

"The fact that we'll never figure it all out," he said. Unlike the study of many processes in the human body, such as the cardiopulmonary system, immunology is constantly evolving and discovering new cell types. And those discoveries almost always have real-world health applications, whether it's combating an autoimmune disorder or working to end a global pandemic. Given its complexity, COVID-19 could keep researchers busy for years to come.

"At the root of it," Diehl said, "I always know that there's so much still to be learned."

Link:
UVM Researcher Offers Insights on Vaccines and COVID-19 - Seven Days

Hurricanes, floods, drought and fire. Extreme weather events are becoming more frequent as the climate changes and can destroy entire landscapes both visible and invisible.

Like humans, microbes need disaster response strategies that facilitate the rescue and recovery of their ecologically crucial communities.

But what do microscopic rescue efforts look like, and can humans help?

In a new study, published in a special issue of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, researchers in the lab of Michigan State University microbial ecologist Ashley Shade put microbes under extreme heat to find out.

We know microbes provide crucial functions for maintaining the health of their ecosystems they cycle nutrients, carbon and have important feedback with climate change processes, said Shade, an assistant professor in MSU College of Natural Sciences Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, whose research is supported by an National Science Foundation Early CAREER Award. We want to get a good handle on how their function might change by exploring how quickly microbes recover after the change takes place, and what we might we be able to do to manage them back to stability.

Between 20% and 80% of all microbes in the environment exist in a dormant state, like microbial sleeping beauties waiting for the right moment to wake up and function. In fact, dormancy is a widespread, bet-hedging strategy against famine and other suboptimal conditions that has evolved separately along every major branch of life. Some microbes can exist in this suspended, but viable, state for thousands of years.

We know that there are ways microbes recover after a disturbance by replenishing their populations through dispersal through air and water, Shade said. What is special about this study is that we looked at the contributions of dormant microbes as well.

Using sterilized canning jars filled with soil and their microbial communities, Shade and graduate student Jackson Sorensen designed three separate treatments.

The control received no treatment, but the second and third treatments were cooked to a sweltering 60 degrees Celsius the temperature of an underground coal fire in Centralia, Pennsylvania that Shade has been studying for six years. After cooling, the second treatment was given dispersed cells from the control jars to boost recovery.

We reproduced what would happen in the environment after a disturbance where dispersal is most likely from the next neighborhood over, Shade said. We used just a tiny bit of it, not comprising a substantial volume, and the microbes grew after the disturbance subsided, showing a little dispersal can go a long way.

The third treatment was denied outside assistance. Instead, Shade and her team watched the jars to see what role dormant microbes played in returning the microbial community to a healthy, stable state.

What we found was that both reactivation and dispersal contributed to how microbes respond to the extreme event, Shade said. This is an important finding because it suggests that it is not just outside cells rescuing the population but also dormant microbes in the disturbed environment that reactivate and support recovery.

The nearly yearlong experiment was not long enough to see the communities of microbes fully recover, even with the combined tools of dormant reactivation and outside dispersal. Still, Shade found value in what she describes as dormancy dynamics.

This experiment gives us another strategy to manage microbial communities, she said. Think about taking antibiotics for an ear infection that, as a side effect, kills beneficial microbes in the gut. Dispersal might be analogous to eating yogurt to recover those beneficial microbial functions, but another strategy could be to encourage the already existing, viable gut microbes to wake up and contribute to healthy functionality.

Rousing dormant microbes and understanding why they go into dormancy is an area of active research.

Controlling dispersal in the environment is hard, Shade said. Microbes can travel through water, the air, on insects and inside insect guts and by hitchhiking on other animals as well. But controlling when microbes wake up and go to sleep could be another interesting strategy for managing them to support a healthy environment as we face a changing climate. One day, we may be able to wake up local microbes to help environments recover even faster after extreme events.

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MSU scientists put the heat on microbes - MSUToday

The BioHealth Capital Region (BHCR) and its life science ecosystem have a rich and deep history of pioneering scientific innovation, research, development, and commercialization. The regions history has been written by life science anchor companies, scientific research universities, government research organizations, rich startup culture, and serial entrepreneurs, all of whom have played critical roles in transforming the BHCR into one of the most innovative and productive biocluster in the world.

Contributions to the BHCRs legacy of life science achievement have emerged from all staffing levels, various labs, countless executive teams, numerous entrepreneurs and biohub support organizations. Contributions have arisen from an intricate tapestry of backgrounds and cultures.

Women, in particular, have had a strong hand in shaping the history of the BHCR. In celebration of Womens History Month, were taking a closer look at the achievements of female life science leaders that have laid the groundwork for the next generation of women trailblazers in the BHCR and made the region what it is today.

Dr. Fraser is one of the most influential figures in BHCR history. In 1995, she was the first to map the complete genetic code of a free-living organism while at the Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR) in Rockville, Maryland. It was there that the automation of the DNA sequencing process made the idea of large-scale sequencing efforts tangible. As President and Director of TIGR, Fraser and her team gained worldwide public notoriety for its involvement in the Human Genome Project, which was completed in 2000 with the presentation of a working draft of the fully sequenced human genome.

As a leader, Fraser provided her researchers with the infrastructure to collaborate and apply multi-disciplinary team science and empowered them to think big. She is also most importantly known for how she challenged her team to ask the right questions, which is the root of scientific progress and success.

Her work at TIGR and as part of the Human Genome Project are foundational events in the regions history, as it marked the BHCR as the epicenter of genomic research and helped spark the regions biotech boom. In fact, it was a controversial partnership with TIGR that gave Human Genome Sciences(HGSi) the first opportunity to utilize any sequences emerging from TIGR labs. The mass of genetic information and sequences, especially that associated with diseases, that HGSi acquired catapulted them into biotech history and an important anchor company within the region.

Dr. Fraser is widely viewed as a pioneer and global leader in genomic medicine; she has published approximately 320 scientific publications and edited three books; she is also one of the most widely cited microbiology experts in the world. She founded the Institute for Genome Sciences at the University of Maryland in 1997. The institute currently holds 25 percent of the funding thats been awarded by the Human Microbiome Project and has been referred to as The Big House in genetics.

Dr. Judy Britz is yet another female life science pioneer that put the BHCR on the map. While working as a research scientist at Electro-Nucleonics Inc., Dr. Britz developed one of the first licensed blood screening tests for HIV, and launching a storied career that has spanned approximately 25 years. She is also a serial entrepreneur that has successfully raised $50M in capital and served as the top executive for two highly successful Maryland-located companies.

Dr. Britz was the first woman to lead the states biotech initiative as the first announced Executive Director of the Maryland Biotech Center. The center was launched under the Maryland Department of Commerce to deploy a strategic life science economic development plan under Governor Martin OMalleys $1.3B, 2020 Vision and to be a one-stop-shop and information center to promote and support biotechnology innovation and entrepreneurship in Maryland.

Judy was the first woman to lead Marylands life sciences initiative, bringing industry experience and perspective to the states economic development activities, a focus still maintained under Governor Hogans leadership today, shared Judy Costello, Managing Director, Economic Development BioHealth Innovation, Inc., who served as Deputy Director under Dr. Britz.

Much of the work done by Dr. Britz and her team laid the foundation and seeded the commercialization efforts that have blossomed into the thriving #4 Biotech Hub that we have today.

GeneDx was founded by Dr. Bale and Dr. John Compton in 2000. The company recently celebrated its 20th anniversary. Since its founding, GeneDx has become a global leader in genomics and patient testing. Under her leadership, the Gaithersburg, Maryland company has played an important role in the history of genetic sequencing and the rise of the BHCR as a global biohealth cluster.

GeneDx was the very first company to commercially offer NGS (Next Generation Sequencing) testing in a CLIA (Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments) lab and has been at the leading edge of genetic sequencing and testing for two decades. The companys whole exome sequencing program and comprehensive testing capabilities are world-renowned.

Prior to launching GeneDx, Dr. Bale spent 16 years at NIH, the last nine as Head of the Genetic Studies Section in the Laboratory of Skin Biology. She has been a pioneer during her storied career, publishing over 140 papers, chapters and books in the field. Her 35-year career includes deep experience in clinical, cytogenetic, and molecular genetics research.

Prior to being named CEO and Chair of the Board of Sequella in 1999, Dr. Nacy was the Chief Science Officer and an Executive VP at EntreMed, Inc. EntreMed was one of the most influential BHCR companies in the 1990s. EntreMed, MedImmune, Human Genome Sciences and Celera Genomics all played critical roles in creating the globally recognized, top biocluster that the BHCR has become.

After earning her Ph.D. in biology/microbiology from Catholic University, Nacy did her postdoc work at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in the Department of Rickettsial Diseases; her postdoc performance earned a full-time position at Walter Reed that started a 17-year career at the institute. After a highly successful run, Nacy left Walter Reed to join EntreMed.

Today, Dr. Nacy leads Rockville, Marylands Sequella, a clinical-stage pharmaceutical company focused on developing better antibiotics to fight drug-resistant bacterial, fungal and parasitic infections. Sequellas pipeline of small molecule infectious disease treatments have the potential to improve the treatment and outcomes for the over 3 billion people worldwide that are impacted by increasingly drug-resistant infectious diseases.

Emmes Corporation is the largest woman-led organization in the BHCR and is headed by Dr. Lindblad, who started her career at Emmes in 1982 as a biostatistician. She has been with Emmes for nearly 40 years, ascending to become VP in 1992, Executive VP in 2006 and ultimately the companys CEO in late summer of 2013.

Dr. Lindblad has published more than 100 publications and presentations has served as a reviewer of grant and contract applications for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and has chaired or served on Safety and Data Monitoring Committees across multiple disease areas. Emmes is a life science anchor company for the BHCR, employing more than 600 staff globally with its headquarters in Rockville, Maryland.

Under Kings leadership, GlycoMimetics (GMI), an oncology-focused biotech, went public, secured an exclusive global licensing agreement with Pfizer and was instrumental in raising significant amounts of capital for the company. She was also the first woman Chair of Biotechnology Innovation Associations (BIO, 2013-14), where she still plays an active role on BIOs Executive Committee.

A graduate of Dartmouth College and Harvard Business School, King has had a celebrated career in both biopharma and finance. Prior to becoming CEO of GMI, King served as an Executive in Residence for New Enterprise Associates (NEA), one of the leading venture capital firms in the U.S. She has also held the position of Senior Vice President of Novartis-Corporation. King joined Novartis after a remarkable ten year run with Genetic Therapy, Inc. where she was named CEO after helping Genetic Therapy navigate the organization through various growth stages, including the companys sale to Novartis. King was named the Maryland Tech Councils Executive of the Year in 2013, the Top 10 Women in Biotech by FierceBio and has served on multiple boards across her career.

Dr. Connolly has had a pioneering career in the life sciences. She was the very first woman to graduate from Johns Hopkins Universitys Biomedical Engineering Doctoral Program in 1980. She was also a member of the first female undergraduate class entering Stevens Institute of Technology in 1971.

For decades, Dr. Connolly tirelessly worked to build up what is now known as the BHCR. In 1997, shortly before the region gained wider recognition as a biotech hub, she was the first person to be designated the state of Marylands biotechnology representative. Dr. Connollys career has spanned academia, government, and industry, including co-founding a startup and working as the Business Development Director for EntreMed, Inc., an original BHCR anchor company. She is the former Director of Maryland Industrial Partnerships Program (MIPS) and was inducted into the College of Fellows by the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) in 2013.

Dr. Kirschstein played an enormous role in shaping the BHCR as NIH Deputy Director from 1993 to 1999 during the regions early formative years. She also served as Acting Director of NIH in 1993 and from 2000 to 2002. A pathologist by training, she received her medical degree from Tulane University in 1951 and went on to a long, successful career at the Division of Biologics Standards that lasted from 1957 to 1972.

While at the Division of Biologics Standards, Dr. Kirschstein played an important role in testing the safety of viral vaccines and helped select the Sabin polio vaccine for public use. She eventually ascended to Deputy Director of the group in 1972 and was later appointed the Deputy Associate Commissioner for Science at the FDA. In 1974 she became the Director of the National Institute of Medical Sciences at NIH and served in that role for 19 years.

Her awards and accolades are too numerous to list, but one notable honor came in 2000 when she received the Albert B. Sabin Heroes of Science Award from the Americans for Medical Progress Education Foundation.

Lastly, we want to recognize four additional women for their contributions to launching an organization that has impacted thousands of women by promoting careers, leadership, and entrepreneurship for women in the life sciences Women In Bio.

Women In Bio (WIB), one of the most important and influential support organizations for women in the life sciences, was founded in 2002 to help women entrepreneurs and executives in the Baltimore-Washington-Northern Virginia area build successful bioscience-related businesses. WIB started as a BHCR organization but has expanded its footprint to 13 chapters across the U.S. with 225 volunteer leaders and 2,600 members. The non-profit group has created a forum for female life science entrepreneurs and executives based on its core philosophy of women helping women.

WIB founders are Anne Mathias, a local venture capitalist and current Senior Strategist with Vanguard;

Elizabeth Gray, co-founder of Gabriel Pharma and current Partner at Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP;

Robbie Melton, former Director of Entrepreneurial Innovation at TEDCO and current Director of Kauai County, Hawaiis Office of Economic Development;

and Cynthia W. Hu, COO, and General Counsel at CASI Pharmaceuticals.

In conclusion, we can not fairly capture the true history of life science and the BioHealth Capital Region without giving special recognition to Henrietta Lacks. In 1951 a Johns Hopkins researcher created the first immortal human cell line from cervical cancer cells taken from Lacks. That cell line, known as HeLa, is the oldest and most commonly used human cell line which was essential in developing the polio vaccine and has been used in scientific landmarks such as cloning, gene mapping and in vitro fertilization.

Though she was a black tobacco farmer from southern Virginia, her impact on science and medicine is unquestionable. She never knew that the Doctor took a piece of her tumor that would be used by scientists who had been trying to grow tissues in culture for decades without success. For some reason, that is still unknown, but her cells never died and the first immortal human cell line was born.

Thank you to all of the women who have been so influential in shaping the field of science, the industry of biotechnology and the BioHealth Capital Region.

Steve has over 20 years experience in copywriting, developing brand messaging and creating marketing strategies across a wide range of industries, including the biopharmaceutical, senior living, commercial real estate, IT and renewable energy sectors, among others. He is currently the Principal/Owner of StoryCore, a Frederick, Maryland-based content creation and execution consultancy focused on telling the unique stories of Maryland organizations.

Originally posted here:
Twelve Women Who Have Shaped The History of the BioHealth Capital Region - BioBuzz

When Mariana Wolfner, a Cornell geneticist and molecular biologist,learned March 15she needed to suspend all noncritical research as part of the universitys effort to stem thecoronavirus outbreak, she had two main concerns.

The first was how best to help her students.

Everyone is just stunned ..., obviously because of the coronavirus, but also because of their research suddenly stopping or slowing down, said Wolfner,the Goldwin Smith Professor of Molecular Biology and Genetics in the College of Arts and Sciences (A&S). She has emphasized staying in contact with her lab virtually, to create a sense of community and support.

Ciro Cordeiro, a postdoc in Scott Emrs lab in Weill Hall, organizes frozen cell samples.

The other thing thats been hard has been trying to figure out what to shut down without forgetting something critical to maintain, said Wolfner, a Stephen H. Weiss Presidential Fellow.

She and other researchers on campus have found that people are making extra efforts to help each other.

Everyone is working together, pitching in to find solutions to problems as they arise, saidScott Emr,the Frank Rhodes Professor of Molecular Biology and Genetics in A&S and director of the Weill Institute for Cell and Molecular Biology. The atmosphere in the lab is very collegial and supportive.

With universities across the country also suspending research, scientists have offered transition strategies on social media. Students in Wolfners lab also consulted friends at other institutions.

Using that, weve come up with a plan, Wolfner said. Her students canvassed lab members to determine what experiments were absolutely critical. A postdoctoral researcher made a shift schedule for the lab.

Laura Harrington, a professor of entomology whose research seeks to understand mosquito biology and use that knowledge to prevent them from spreading disease, has noticed small but meaningful acts of kindness. Students have made their own hand sanitizer and made it available. Entomology graduate students circulated a list of people willing to provide a room in their homes for students who had no place to go.

I was really touched by people reaching out, she said.

Another major consideration for researchers has been what to do with stocks of animals or cultures that are invaluable for their research.

Avery August, professor of immunology and vice provost for academic affairs, said maintaining animal models used in his lab will be essential for when lab members return to work.

We work a lot with animals, he said, adding that animals used in research can take months and even years to develop. Along with maintenance, research animals must continue to be bred. A lab member will come in regularly to make sure the animals are cared for, so that we dont lose six to nine months if we just stopped everything, August said.

Harrington and her lab colleagues are in a race to complete an essential research project theyve been working on for the last two years, on the acoustic behavior of disease-carrying Anopheles mosquitoes, a key for understanding how males hone in on females for mating. Weve got a whole bunch of really valuable mosquito strains that we need to maintain, she said.

Wolfners lab does pioneering work with fruit flies, which must be maintained and bred. One students entire doctoral thesis is based on a strain of flies the student created. To keep all the flies alive, a team is working at the lab in shifts, so theres only one person in the lab at a time.

Perhaps the biggest task for faculty has been supporting and guiding students during this transition.

A lot of people are upset, said Colin Parrish, the John M. Olin Professor of Virology at the Baker Institute for Animal Health. The students are trying to figure out what theyre going to do to finish their research projects, finish their theses.

Postdocs in Scott Emr's lab in Weill Hall work to freeze down cell samples to preserve the labs research.

Parrish has been helping his students come up with solutions ways they can be productive remotely, read papers and write. One of his students who was scheduled to travel for a job interview will now be interviewing online.

Its been especially hard for senior undergraduate students, because they are graduating, Harrington said.

One of her seniors was upset she was not able to finish her honors project research. I just told her, Youve done the best you can with the lab work, but it really is the experience that is the educational component rather than the end product, Harrington said.

Emrs group held a pre-graduation ceremony and celebration March 17, complete with a decorated sheet cake with an inscription, for two graduating seniors who feared they wouldnt have a graduation ceremony.

A one-hour pause in our day that made us all feel good, Emr said, especially the two seniors in my lab who are likely saying a final goodbye to Cornell when they leave Ithaca in the next three days.

As people leave campus, most lab groups have plans to stay in touch via regular Zoom meetings. Wolfners group has already held a Zoom lab meeting where they discussed a journal article just to do something normal, and it made us relax, she said. They plan to meet virtually three times a week.

Harringtons lab had its first virtual meeting on March 16. We tried to laugh about things, you know, talk to each other and share ideas, support each other, she said.

As a community, everyones done a great job, Parrish said. People are doing what they can to make it a smooth transition, and hopefully, in a month or two, when things settle down, well be able to start moving things in the other direction.

Research and lab work are being scaled down across Cornell Universitys campus to stem the spread of COVID-19. In Scott Emrs molecular biology and genetics lab, postdoctoral associates are putting most research on ice.

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Research interrupted: Lab groups find their way together - Cornell Chronicle

NEW YORK, March 25, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Kallyope Inc., a leading biotechnology company focused on identifying and pursuing therapeutic opportunities involving the gut-brain axis, today announced a $112 million Series C financing. This financing will be used to advance its portfolio of programs and the company's first clinical trials, further establishing its leadership in the gut-brain axis field.

All investors from the Series B financing participated in the Series C round, including The Column Group, Lux Capital, Polaris Partners, Euclidean Capital, Two Sigma Ventures, Illumina Ventures, Alexandria Venture Investments, and Bill Gates. New investors include Casdin Capital, Greenspring Associates, and two unnamed leading institutional investors.

"Four years ago, we started our journey to build a preeminent biotech based in New York City as a first-mover in the gut-brain axis space. Now, this Series C financing will enable us to advance multiple programs to clinical development," said Kallyope CEO Nancy Thornberry.

The Series C financing comes after four highly productive years in which Kallyope has built a portfolio of programs directed to novel targets in a wide array of diseases. In support of these programs, the company has established industry-leading capabilities in designing oral small-molecule drugs that selectively target the gut but not the rest of the body.

The company today also announced its lead program targeting satiety circuits for weight loss, with clinical testing expected to begin later this year. A second program targeting gut barrier function with potential relevance for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and several other diseases is anticipated to enter the clinic soon after. In addition, the company continues to advance a broad portfolio of programs for gastrointestinal, CNS, and inflammatory disorders.

"Kallyope pursues programs where the company's platform provides an edge over other approaches and where we have an opportunity to deliver major clinical benefits rather than incremental improvements over current treatments. We are targeting neural and hormonal circuits, including novel vagal circuits, involved in a broad array of physiology and disease," said Thornberry.

"Kallyope has made significant progress since the company's inception in late 2015. Its platform is enabling a mechanistic understanding of the gut-brain axis, which in turn has revealed new, actionable biology that the company is now exploring in several promising programs. I believe that Kallyope's platform and rigorous approach to identifying, characterizing, and targeting gut-brain circuits with gut-restricted small molecules has greatly increased its odds of success in clinical studies," said Kallyope co-founder and board member Tom Maniatis, Ph.D.

About Kallyope Inc.

Kallyope, headquartered at the Alexandria Centerfor Life Science in New York City, is a biotechnology company dedicated to unlocking the therapeutic potential of the gut-brain axis. The company's cross-disciplinary team integrates advanced technologies in sequencing, bioinformatics, neural imaging, cellular and molecular biology, and human genetics to provide an understanding of gut-brain biology that leads to transformational therapeutics to improve human health. The company's founders are Charles Zuker, Ph.D., Lasker Award winner Tom Maniatis, Ph.D., and Nobel laureate Richard Axel, M.D. For more information visitwww.kallyope.com.

Contact

Morgan Warners (202) 337-0808mwarners@gpg.com

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Kallyope Inc. Announces $112M Series C Financing to Support First Clinical Trials and Advance Portfolio of Programs Targeting the Gut-Brain Axis - P&T...

Essentially all medical treatment centers impacted by SARS-CoV2 (CoV2), the SARS-family virus that causes COVID-19, are overstrained or unable to confront the virus, starting from their ability to diagnose the virus' presence in the human body, treat all infected individuals, or prevent its spread among those that have not been infected yet. Therefore, finding better solutions to diagnose, treat, and prevent the disease, is key to combating this menace and bringing this pandemic under control. Equally concerning, there are worldwide shortages on the front lines in hospitals in our region and around the world, including rapidly depleting supplies of personal protective equipment, such as N95 face masks, and nasopharyngeal swabs needed for COVID-19 diagnostic testing. Solving these challenges requires rapid responses and creative solutions.

"With our highly multi-disciplinary and translation-focused organization, we [the Wyss Institute] were able to quickly pivot, and refocus our unique engineering capabilities on much needed diagnostic, therapeutic, and vaccine solutions, and we hope to be part of the solution for many of the innumerable problems the present pandemic poses," said Wyss Institute Founding Director Donald Ingber,M.D., Ph.D., who also is theJudah Folkman Professor of Vascular Biologyat Harvard Medical School and Boston Children's Hospital, and Professor of Bioengineering at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS). "We strive to make a major contribution to bringing this crisis under control, and are confident that what we accomplish under duress now will help prevent future epidemics."

Meeting challenges on the front lines of patient care

Many of the Institute's hospital partner institutions and government agencies have reached out to Institute leadership to assist in this rapidly escalating battle against COVID-19. Ingber's team is working closely with collaborators at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center(BIDMC), other Harvard-affiliated hospitals, and generous corporate partners to develop potential solutions to the increasing shortage of nasopharyngeal swabs and N95 face masks. Senior Staff Engineers Richard Novak, Ph.D., and Adama Sesay, Ph.D., and Senior Research Scientist Pawan Jolly, Ph.D., are working diligently with our clinical partners to help devise a solution as quickly as possible.

Diagnosing COVID-19 more quickly, easily, and broadly

With COVID-19 rapidly spreading around the planet, the efficient detection of the CoV2 virus is pivotal to isolate infected individuals as early as possible, support them in whatever way possible, and thus prevent the further uncontrolled spread of the disease. Currently, the most-performed tests are detecting snippets of the virus' genetic material, its RNA, by amplifying them with a technique known as "polymerase chain reaction" (PCR) from nasopharyngeal swabs taken from individuals' noses and throats.

The tests, however, have severe limitations that stand in the way of effectively deciding whether people in the wider communities are infected or not. Although PCR-based tests can detect the virus's RNA early on in the disease, test kits are only available for a fraction of people that need to be tested, and they require trained health care workers, specialized laboratory equipment, and significant time to be performed. In addition, health care workers that are carrying out testing are especially prone to being infected by CoV2. To shorten patient-specific and community-wide response times, Wyss Institute researchers are taking different parallel approaches:

Advancing antiviral therapeutics on the fast track

To date there is no antiviral drug that has been proven to reduce the intensity and duration of the infection in more seriously affected patients, or protect vulnerable patients from CoV2 infection. Doctors can merely provide supportive care to their COVID-19 patients by making sure they receive enough oxygen, managing their fever, and generally supporting their immune systems to buy them time to fight the infection themselves. Research groups in academia and industry working at breakneck pace by now have compiled a list of candidate therapeutics and vaccines to could offer some help. However, given the high failure rates of candidate drugs in clinical trials, more efforts are needed to develop effective medicines for a world population that likely will vary with regards to their susceptibility and access to new therapeutic technologies.

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic requires rapid action, and the fastest way to combat this challenge is by repurposing existing drugs that are already FDA approved for other medical applications as COVID-19 therapeutics. While clinicians around the world are attempting to do this, the approaches have been haphazard, and there is a great need to attack this problem in a systematic way.

In search of ultimate protection a vaccine

With no vaccine currently available, but several vaccine candidates being explored around the world, Wyss Institute researchers led by Wyss Core Faculty member David Mooney,Ph.D., are developing a material that could make vaccinations more effective. Previously, Mooney's team has developed implantable and injectable cancer vaccinesthat can induce the immune system to attack and destroy cancer cells.

Understanding how COVID-19 develops and how to control it

COVID-19 does not strike equally strong in every individual that it infects. Independent of age, some are prone to become seriously ill, while others show an astonishing level of resilience against the disease. Figuring out the biological basis for these differences could lead to new protective strategies.

On the national level, Walt is a member of a COVID-19 discussion started at the National Academies' newly formed "Standing Committee on Emerging Infectious Diseases and 21st Century Health Threats." The committee is strongly focusing now on the present coronavirus pandemic to find ways to help the federal government consolidate and streamline efforts across the nation but will also work long-term to develop strategies and make recommendations for future health threats.

At the international level, the Wyss Institute functions as a Center of Excellence of the Global Virus Network(GVN), with Ingber as leader and the other Wyss Faculty as key participating members. The GVN is designed to integrate surveillance and response efforts for biothreats, epidemics, and pandemics by integrating efforts of top virus research institutions from around the world.Ingber is also currently working closely with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency(DARPA) and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, as well as in active discussions with the NIH's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases(NIAID), Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority(BARDA), and Public Health England, as they all try to align and coordinate efforts to meet this monumental health challenge.

"The Wyss Institute and its collaborators are taking exactly the type of comprehensive, integrated approach to addressing this pandemic that is required at local, national, and international levels," said Walt.

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Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard UniversityBenjamin Boettner,[emailprotected], +1917-913-8051

The Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University(http://wyss.harvard.edu) uses Nature's design principles to develop bioinspired materials and devices that will transform medicine and create a more sustainable world. Wyss researchers are developing innovative new engineering solutions for healthcare, energy, architecture, robotics, and manufacturing that are translated into commercial products and therapies through collaborations with clinical investigators, corporate alliances, and formation of new startups. The Wyss Institute creates transformative technological breakthroughs by engaging in high risk research, and crosses disciplinary and institutional barriers, working as an alliance that includes Harvard's Schools of Medicine, Engineering, Arts & Sciences and Design, and in partnership with Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston Children's Hospital, DanaFarber Cancer Institute, Massachusetts General Hospital, the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, Boston University, Tufts University, Charit Universittsmedizin Berlin, University of Zurich and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

SOURCE Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University

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This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Article content first published on DrGregoryBurzynski.com

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In my recent blog post "Understanding Approaches for Pain Management and Patient Care" I speak on the lasting effects of holistic health care and the benefits that it has in terms of managing pain and taking care of the "whole" patient.Before I get started, it is important to mention that the holistic approach to health does not reject conventional medicine, but is a sensible, complete form of healing that considers your child's entire picture of health and uses the best and most appropriate options for healing. It is a process of strengthening every system of the mind-body and allowing your child's natural healing potential to flourish.Many of the chronic health problems that affect children will respond best when addressed from a holistic point of view.

Conventional v.s Alternative Medicine

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch? Register for a user account.

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Understanding Holistic Care in Relation to Chronic Illness - Patch.com

Is Now the Time to Try Meditation?

As many of us hunker down in our homes at this frightening and stressful time, there are all kinds of things we are doing to fill the time. Some things we havent done in a while, like the 1000 piece puzzle that is near completion. Other things are brand new, like using Duolingo to learn a foreign language. How about trying out meditation? The science is clear, meditation is a quick way to reduce stress, something we could all use. For those who havent tried before, it can take a little time to get started, so how about now?

When my husband, Nez, was being treated at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) a few years ago, our stress and anxiety was at an all-time high. This is when we both began a meditation practice. We used a free 21-day series by Oprah Winfrey and Deepak Chopra to get started. A new series was just released yesterday #HopeGoesGlobal. You register online and can access the free meditations on your computer, or you can download the app on your phone or iPad. Oprah and Deepak give inspirational thoughts and then there is roughly 15 minutesof meditation.

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There are other choices of course. If you Google free meditation you will get over 400,000 results. MSKCC has a series online as part of their Integrative Medicine. The App Stores have all kinds of offerings, such as Headspace or Calm. You can find meditation on many fitness apps like Peloton, and YouTube is a treasure trove. Find something that speaks to you, find a quiet corner, get comfortable, and get started. Help clear and calm your mind; even if only for a few minutes.

Emily & Nez Nikoo

After meeting at Purdue University, Emily & Nez Nikoo (both Electrical Engineers), married and began their professional journey working together first for the space program and then in media & entertainment. After tackling lifes challenges, Emily gravitated to healthcare innovation and Nez to STEM advocacy and education.

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Finding a Peaceful Place: Is Now the Time to Try Meditation? - TAPinto.net

The biggest question Im getting asked is around how CBD and medical cannabis may affect contracting or recovering from coronavirus, and about what else we can do to stay well.

People are asking if cannabis and CBD can help buffer the immune system against getting COVID-19 in the first place, and if you do get it, can CBD and cannabis help treat it? What about the possibility that NSAID anti-inflammatory drugs may have a negative effect on the virus once you are infected and wait a minute CBD is an anti-inflammatory too, so what does that mean for CBD?

These are all valid questions and so far, even in terms of the anti-inflammatory drugs and the effect on corona, it is still unclear what the relationship is, if there is one. Many doctors are still recommending sticking to Acetaminophen for the fever for now and avoiding NSAID over the counter drugs until we know more.

As for CBD and cannabis, we dont have any studies showing it has any effect on the coronavirus, although there are some interesting studies on medical cannabis and smoked cannabis use and HIV progression.

On Facebook and social media, many CBD and cannabis advocates are claiming that they boosted their immunity successfully against all viruses using the plant, and recommending others do the same.

As both a cannabis specialist and doctor trained in natural medicine and western medicine, it is important to let people know the facts and be totally honest about what we dont know. Its also critical not to make false claims when we are all understandably a bit scared, and of course want to do everything we can to protect ourselves and our loved ones.

The miracle cure claims that some members of the natural wellness community can sometimes make, even when well-intentioned, can have harmful effects on peoples behaviour and also tarnish the industry as promoting snake oils.

This effect can distance our more conventional medicine and research colleagues who are not well versed in botanical medicine, and hurt the progress plant medicine has made in recent years in gaining support and credibility through academic research and inquiry, partnering with the research and those physicians open-minded enough to consider them.

Plant medicines like CBD and medical cannabis do so many amazing things that there is no need to stretch the truth or make claims that cannot be backed up, at least not currently.

Probably the best way we can support our immunity is avoiding alcohol, staying active while we stay home (dance parties in the living room anyone?) and taking up a simple relaxation or meditation practice to decrease stress hormones.

If you are into supplementing, you could consider adding some adaptogen mushrooms, along with liposomal glutathione (not a direct immune boost but may help support the liver).

Eating a diet rich in micronutrients, zinc, vitamin C, flavonoids like quercetin (in both cannabis and apples) and getting good sleep are all good things to start now if you havent already.

Melatonin, our sleep hormone made while we sleep can help healthy immune function too. Deep breathing practices and laughter may also have a positive effect on our immune systems too. So, you can feel like you have done something by putting on a funny film and having a good deep belly laugh to get those lungs working while you self-isolate.

Even if you do everything right you may still end up getting coronavirus, but the good news is that most people not in high risk groups will have a mild illness course and recoup at home. Some carriers may not even have any symptoms at all or even know they had it, which is why social distancing is so important, since asymptomatic transmission rates are thought to be quite high with coronavirus.

Dr Dani Gordon MD, CCFP, ABOIM, ABIHMGuest AuthorUK Cannabis Medicine Specialist US Integrative Medicine Consulting & Training for Physicians

Do you want the latest news and updates from Medical Cannabis Network? Click here for your free subscription, and stay connected with us here.

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Expert answers: can cannabis and CBD affect coronavirus? - Health Europa

Shahin Salarvand,1 Simin Hemati,2 Payman Adibi,3 Fariba Taleghani,4 Mohammad Saleki5

1Hepatitis Research Center, Community Health Nursing Department, Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery, Lorestan University of Medical Sciences, Khorramabad, Iran; 2Radiotherapy and Oncology Department, Faculty of Medicine, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran; 3Gastroenterology and Hepatology Department of Internal Medicine, School of Medicine, Integrative Functional Gastroenterology Research Al-Zahra Hospital, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran; 4Nursing and Midwifery Care Research Center, Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran; 5Department of Sport Medicine, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran

Correspondence: Shahin SalarvandHepatitis Research Center, Community Health Nursing Department, Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery, Lorestan University of Medical Sciences, Khorramabad, IranTel +989161590560Fax +986633120140Email shsalarvand@lums.ac.ir

Introduction: Healthcare professionals should seek the necessary resources to improve the quality of care. Given the cultural, social, and economic differences, in every health care system, there are increasing needs for the adapted versions of clinical practice guidelines (CPGs). This study aimed to introduce an innovative CPG adaptation approach for nurses working in a developing country.Methods: This study is comprised of three sections: a. An extensive systematic search of the literature, b. The adaptation process, c. Interviews, which were held with stakeholders, users and/or the target population. We applied all of the stages of guideline adaptation process according to Adaptation Resource Toolkit, with the integration of the findings of a systematic literature search and a qualitative content analysis in an adolopted new CPG.Results: In this study, we applied a mix of three methods namely adoption, adaptation and development (adolopment) of recommendations to save time, cost, and manpower efficiently. Moreover, we integrated the utilized qualitative research method and literature review with the adolopment approach to develop the recommendations.Conclusion: Given there is a paucity of nursing clinical practice guidelines (NCPGs) in the nursing management of cancer therapy-induced mucositis and to save time and costs, the findings emerging from the adoption, adaptation, and de novo guideline development by a panel of experts and qualitative content analysis (QCA) method were integrated to achieve a more comprehensive nursing practice guideline.

Keywords: guideline adaptation, developing country, nursing

This work is published and licensed by Dove Medical Press Limited. The full terms of this license are available at https://www.dovepress.com/terms.php and incorporate the Creative Commons Attribution - Non Commercial (unported, v3.0) License.By accessing the work you hereby accept the Terms. Non-commercial uses of the work are permitted without any further permission from Dove Medical Press Limited, provided the work is properly attributed. For permission for commercial use of this work, please see paragraphs 4.2 and 5 of our Terms.

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An Innovative Approach to Clinical Practice Guideline Adaptation in th | CMAR - Dove Medical Press

Doctors and scientists still have many unanswered questions about the new coronavirus and how it affects our bodies once we are exposed. Washing hands frequently and social distancing are recommended to stop the spread of the virus. But many are asking, is there anything we can do to bolster our immune systems defense to fight off the virus if we come in contact? Are there supplements that might help?

Again, when it comes to the new coronavirus, theres no data right now to answer definitely how one supplement might help the immune system fight off the virus or not. But what microbiologists who do study the immune system know about our bodys defense is that ramping up our immune system to be on high alert or globally boosting it to fight off every and any germ that might be out there is actually a flawed concept, explains Michael N. Starnbach, PhD, a professor of microbiology at Harvard Medical School in Boston.

Our immune system is designed to recognize things that are foreign in our body and clear those foreign things out of our body, but those cells and responses are finely tuned, says Dr. Starnbach. If the immune system were too active, it would attack our own tissues, which can happen in some autoimmune diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis and Crohns disease, he says.

Theres really only evidence that supplements improve immune function in populations that are truly malnourished, which is rarely the case in the United States, according to Starnbach. People can be more susceptible to diseases when they are severely malnourished, but it doesnt mean that replenishing higher-than-necessary amounts of vitamins and nutrients in someone is going to make their immune system work that much better," he says.

Evidence suggests some vitamins and supplements may reduce the likelihood of a respiratory virus or reduce the amount of time a person is sick with a virus, especially if a person is deficient in some way, according to Tod Cooperman, MD, the president and founder of Consumer.Lab.com, a provider of independent test results and information designed to help consumers and healthcare professionals identify the best-quality health and nutrition products. Again, we dont know whether the vitamins and supplements we have evidence for would yield the same effects against the novel coronavirus.

Right now, if youre concerned about catching the coronavirus or any other virus, taking a basic multivitamin every day is a safe way to ensure youre not deficient in any area, says Dr. Cooperman. Eating well, getting good sleep, and exercising will also help keep you as healthy as possible and keep your immune system strong, he says.

RELATED: Coronavirus Shopping List: What to Buy and Skip

Based on research on the effects of zinc against other viruses, theres some suggestion it may help lessen severity of symptoms, so if you start to experience symptoms of a virus, including the new coronavirus, Cooperman suggests sucking on zinc lozenges to coat your throat. But right now, theres no evidence to back that up.

Heres more about what is known about specific vitamins and supplements that may affect viral infections.

RELATED: Coronavirus and Prescription Medications: Should You Stock Up?

Again the available evidence suggests certain supplements may help when it comes to reducing infection or the duration of illness, says Yufang Lin, MD, an integrative medicine doctor at Cleveland Clinic in Ohio. But little evidence suggests supplements actually help protect you against catching a pathogen in the first place. And there's no evidence that any supplement is a silver bullet thats going to globally boost your immune response to any and all threats.

RELATED: What You Need to Know About Living With a Compromised Immune System During the COVID-19 Outbreak

And remember, the novel coronavirus is an entirely new threat. There isnt any specific data yet on how particular vitamins or supplements may or may not thwart it, says Dr. Lin. (All the studies referenced below investigate how supplements work against other types of viruses.) We really dont know if they would provide support in fighting off COVID-19 [the disease spread by the novel coronavirus], she says.

Heres what we do know.

Elderberry Theres data that suggests elderberry (taken in teas, lozenges, gummies, or pills with the herb) can reduce flu virus production and help people recover from flu faster, Lin says. A study published in March 2019 in the Journal of Functional Foods found that compounds from elderberries can inhibit the viruss entry and replication in human cells and help strengthen a persons immune response to the virus. There is no really good data for the common cold and elderberry, Lin adds.

RELATED: Cold and Flu: Everything You Need to Know

Zinc does have some data suggesting it can provide support for your immune system and may help you fight off infection in common colds faster, Lin says. A meta-analysis published in the journal JRSM Open in May 2017 found evidence that zinc lozenges can shorten the common cold's duration by over 30 percent. The findings recommended that the lozenges not contain citric acid or salt citrate. [Its an approach] that you can think about taking within the first few days of infection, she adds.

Remember, zinc has not been tested specifically with the new coronavirus, but it has been tested with other viruses, he says. When it comes to other viruses, zinc lozenges work by inhibiting the viruses' activity in the throat, when the infection is just starting to spread, lessening those symptoms. So taking those lozenges soon after you begin experiencing symptoms may help, Cooperman explains. Its fairly safe for a week or two. You want to suck on the lozenges, but not chew, so your throat is continually coated with zinc, he says.

Make sure you follow the instructions on the package and that youre not taking more than the recommended dose, Cooperman adds.

Vitamin C is associated with some benefits for colds, Lin notes. (The common cold is a type of coronavirus.) A meta-analysis of 29 trials including 11,306 people looked at how taking at least 200 milligrams (mg) per day of vitamin C affected risk and management of colds. The study, published in Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, found that vitamin C didnt reduce the incidence of colds in adults, but it did shorten the duration of colds, by 8 percent. A subgroup of studies in the Cochrane analysis looked at marathon runners, skiers and Army troops doing heavy exercise in very cold conditions and found that supplements of at least 200 mg of vitamin C every day appeared to cut the risk of getting a cold by 50 percent.

Lin recommends aiming to get the vitamin C you do need daily and focus on getting it from food sources, rather than supplements. I would encourage eating vitamin Crich vegetables to boost your levels of vitamin C, she says. The recommended daily amount of vitamin C for adults is 75 to 90 milligrams (mg) a day, according to the National Institutes of Health. One orange contains about 75 mg, a green pepper contains about 60 mg, and a half cup of Brussels sprouts has almost 50 mg.

Taking very large doses of vitamin C isnt recommended; once doses go above 400 mg, vitamin C is just excreted in the urine, according to the Harvard Health Letter.

Vitamin D is important for maintaining a strong immune system, according to Cooperman. And low levels of vitamin D are associated with frequent colds and influenza, according to the National Institutes of Health. Because we get a lot of the vitamin D we need from sunshine, many people see their levels drop off during the winter months, says Cooperman. Its not necessary to have your levels checked to safely take vitamin D; Cooperman recommends 600 to 800 IU or 15 to 20 micrograms if you decide to take supplements.

A meta-analysis of prospective trials published in the journal BMJ in 2017 found that vitamin D reduced the odds of developing a respiratory infection by 42 percent in people who were vitamin D deficient. Note: Dosage matters. Taking a daily dose of D3 between 300 IU and 4,000 IU was more effective than taking a large monthly dose, according to the BMJ report.

In a randomized, double-blind placebo trial of 5,110 older adults who were vitamin D deficient (published in August 2019 in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases), the data again showed that large doses may not be beneficial in preventing respiratory infection. Participants were given 200,000 IU at the start of the study followed by 100,000 IU monthly, with a mean follow-up of 1.6 years. Investigators found no reduction in the number of acute respiratory infections compared with placebo.

If youre not deficient, vitamin D wont really provide a lot of additional benefit, but if you are deficient, taking the supplement can strengthen immunity, says Cooperman.

Apple cider vinegar Though apple cider vinegar (ACV) does boast some other health benefits, there isnt evidence to show that ACV affects immune function or that taking it regularly improves your chances of fighting off viruses, Lin says.

Turmeric While there is some evidence turmeric may yield some health benefits, including helping manage high cholesterol, glucose control, and digestive issues, there isnt specific evidence that it can help fight off a virus, says Lin. There is, however, evidence suggesting one of the active compounds in turmeric (curcumin) does act on immune function in some way, though how those effects may or may not benefit health is still unclear, according to a review published in the Journal of Clinical Immunology.

As always, let your doctor know about all supplements you are taking or plan to take, as they can pose unintended health risks for certain groups or interact with other medications you're taking.

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Can Supplements Protect Me Against the New Coronavirus? - Everyday Health

In light of COVID-19, blood service providers around the country are asking for donations. But is this an area in which Lyme disease patients can help? The risk of whether tick-borne diseases infect American blood banks is hotly debated. While some studies and documented cases have traced transfusion-transmitted tick-borne infections back to donors, Lyme disease is not on the list of threats at this time. However, Lyme has secured itself as the most common and fastest-growing vector-borne illness in the United States, and with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) projecting above 300,000 new infections annually, the matter begs for more research. By comparison, each year there are six times more new cases of Lyme than HIV and AIDS, with Lyme disease receiving less than 1% of HIV funding.

Are climbing infection rates, unreliable diagnostic tests, insufficient treatments, and lax donor eligibility guidelines creating the perfect storm for unrecognized transfusion-transmitted Lyme disease? With continued nationwide blood shortages, the urgent need for donations remains high. While donor eligibility guidelines seem to be a straight line for acute, early-onset Lyme disease, that line blurs when we consider the intricacies of Lyme, especially of patients with Post Treatment Lyme Disease Syndrome (PTLDS), more colloquially known among the patient population as chronic Lyme disease.

What is the current standard of eligibility? If youve ever been diagnosed with Lyme disease, here is what you need to know about this ongoing discussion to best determine whether it is safe for you to donate blood.

1. Has your Lyme disease been resolved? The main requirement to determine if you are eligible to donate blood after testing positive for Lyme disease is that you have resolved or cured the infection. Individuals being treated for Lyme disease with an antibiotic should not donate blood. Individuals who have completed antibiotic treatment for Lyme disease may be considered as potential blood donors, states the CDC.

Donor eligibility varies slightly amongst states and collection sites, but most sites carry similar guidelines. For example, the blood service provider Vitalant requires a 30-day wait after a Lyme diagnosis, completion of a standard 21-day antibiotic treatment, and being free of symptoms at the time of donation in order to be eligible to donate. On the other hand, the American Red Cross, which accounts for 45% of the transfused blood in the U.S., requires no wait time following standard Lyme treatment.

If Lyme were defined only as an early, localized illness, meaning it is diagnosed and treated within 1-4 weeks of exposure, it might easily be resolved by CDC-approved standard treatment. However, resolution can be difficult to achieve due to the timing of diagnosis and the current treatment standards set by the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA).

There are three stages of Lyme disease:

Lyme disease specialist Dr. Tania Dempsey, founder of Armonk Integrative Medicine in New York, explains the differences among the three stages of illness:

Early localized Lyme disease is the stage when a bulls-eye rash can appear, or patients can develop flu-like symptoms. Some patients dont have any symptoms at this stage. If appropriate antibiotic treatment is started as soon as possible and treated for at least 28 days, although longer courses are sometimes necessary. Resolution of Lyme disease is definitely possible, says Dempsey.

Once early disseminated Lyme sets in, around one to four months, the symptoms can be more severe, indicating the infection has likely infiltrated the joints, nervous system, and other parts of the body. It is critical that the infection be treated no later than this point, as this increases the likelihood of the development of chronic Lyme disease. Prolonged, multi-drug antibiotic courses may be needed at this stage. she adds.

Once Lyme reaches the late disseminated stage, aggressive multi-antibiotic treatments are often called for by Lyme-literate doctors to reverse damage to the heart, joints, and other body systems, but sometimes damage is irreversible.

Persistent infection, despite antibiotic treatment, is real and has been shown repeatedly in the lab, says Dempsey. In fact, a 2018 study confirmed what is still being questioned today by mainstream doctors as a controversial theory. A slow-growing form of Borrelia burgdorferi resisted the standard single-antibiotic treatment in test tubes and within a murine model. Where administering one and two-antibiotic treatments failed to resolve resistant Borrelia, a three-antibiotic cocktail which includes daptomycin, doxycycline and ceftriaxone was administered to infected mice and proved to fully eradicate the bacteria. This widely opens the door to doubt as to whether the standard Lyme treatment is adequate in resolving infection, especially in later stages of illness where early diagnosis was missed.

2. Do you have active symptoms? With resolution of infection comes the assumption that symptoms of the illness are gone. When asked about chronic Lyme patients that display symptoms such as arthritis and ongoing fatigue after the standard 21-day treatment, American Red Cross only considers ineligibility if the symptoms include a fever or a rash. We dont have a set list of symptoms we look at. As long as you dont have a fever or feel unwell at the time of donation, lingering symptoms like joint pain or fatigue wouldnt cause you to be ineligible to donate, a Red Cross eligibility specialist told ProHealth.

When asked what would constitute active symptoms, Vitalant representatives also provided a nonspecific answer: If you feel generally good and dont have a fever, you would be eligible to donate, provided youve completed standard antibiotic therapy, and its been 30 days after your diagnosis.

Due to its similarity to syphilis, Lyme was quickly placed into the medical category of The Great Imitator as early as the 1980s when it was shown to mimic over 100 different diseases. Due to flawed diagnostic abilities and a symptom list extending much further beyond a fever and bulls-eye rash, an untold number of diagnoses are suspected to be missed or delayed. It is no surprise, then, that most of Dempseys patients come to her after years of chronic illness and lack of relief. While some know that Lyme disease is at the root of their symptoms, some dont. Whether the infection can be fully cleared at this stage is unclear. Dempsey says. Patients know their bodies well, and I rely on them to tell me if their symptoms persist or have resolved. However, it is important to note that patients without persistent symptoms could still have hidden Borrelia in their cells. They just may not be active or causing any issues.

We can see how two simple questions can snowball into a complex knot of uncertainty. When it comes to determining whether Lyme patients can transmit Borrelia through blood transfusions, the available science has only solidly concluded the following:

THERE HAVE BEEN NO REPORTS OF TRANSFUSION-TRANSMITTED LYME IN HUMANS

This sounds comforting. Unfortunately, the absence of reports may be due to an absence of monitoring. Regulations and requirements to test blood donors for Lyme disease dont exist, even in high-risk, endemic states like New York. Whats more concerning is that even if testing was required, Lyme disease testing has been proven to show low sensitivity and low specificity. This means the testing available isnt adequate to provide consistently accurate results, which could confirm a donor is truly resolved of the pathogen that causes Lyme disease. A 2018 article in Frontiers of Microbiology points out, No serologic testing or molecular analyses are routinely done which would be needed in order to fully ensure that potential asymptomatic, Borrelia-infected donors are excluded from the donor pool.

LYME BACTERIA HAS BEEN TRANSMITTED TO MICE THROUGH BLOOD TRANSFUSIONA 2006 study demonstrated that Borrelia burgdorferi was transmitted from infected to naive mice by blood transfusion. Due to the obvious ethical reasons, a similar study has not been reproduced with humans. However, this study supports the notion that untreated Lyme disease may be transmittable through blood. The World Health Organization (WHO) states Lyme disease can survive blood storage temperatures, and that transfusion-transmission in humans is possible but has not been reported.

SIMILAR INFECTIONS LIKE SYPHILIS REQUIRE A ONE YEAR DEFERRAL Syphilis is caused by Treponema pallidum, a spirochete not so dissimilar to the spirochetal bacterium Borrelia. The WHO writes in their guidelines on assessing donor suitability for blood donation, Endogenous bacteria that are transfusion-transmissible include Treponema pallidum, Borrelia burgdorferi, Brucella melitensis and Yersinia enterocolitica, but blood donations are routinely screened only for T. pallidum. With syphilis requiring a 12-month post-treatment deferral, it seems plausible to at least consider Lyme disease as worthy of a longer deferral period following treatment and symptom resolution. Currently, the WHO recommends deferring Lyme patients only 28 days following treatment, or a full recovery whichever is longer.

Anyone with experience with Lyme knows the diagnosis is shrouded in a controversial haze of conflicting and missing information. This makes for a foggy understanding when it comes to not only accurately diagnosing, but also obtaining appropriate treatment to resolve the varying range of symptoms this tick-borne disease inflicts. Lyme grays a variety of life areas for patients that would otherwise be straightforward, including whether or not one is truly eligible to donate blood without putting recipients at risk for exposure to Lyme disease.

As a specialist in treating complex, chronic cases of Lyme, Dr. Dempsey tends to mostly see very ill patients who are often not well enough to consider the possibility of donating. However, when the topic does present itself, she offers her professional opinion:

Any patient who has suffered from PTLDS/chronic Lyme or co-infections, including Bartonella and Babesia, should not donate blood. It is clear from recent research that persistent infection is a real possibility, particularly in patients with continued symptoms. Unfortunately, donor recipients are not given any information about who their donor is or what their medical history is so there is no way for them to have any input about whether the blood has come from someone with chronic Lyme or other tick-borne infection.

Are you considering donating? Keep the following in mind:

Ultimately, if you have any doubt about whether or not youre in the clear, the best option would be not to donate until there are better diagnostic capabilities and ways to ensure the blood supply can be kept safe from Lyme disease.

Jenny Menzel is a Certified Health Coach and branding specialist for various alternative healthcare practices, and volunteers her design skills to the annual grassroots campaign, the Lyme Disease Challenge. Jenny was diagnosed with Lyme in 2010 after 8 years of undiagnosed chronic pain and fatigue, and continues to improve by employing multiple alternative therapies, including yurveda, Chinese Medicine and Bee Venom Therapy.

References:

Blood Donor Selection: Guidelines on Assessing Donor Suitability for Blood Donation. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2012. 7, TTI and donor risk assessment. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK138223/

Feng, J., Li, T., Yuan, Y., Yee, R., & Zhang, Y. (2018). Biofilm/Persister/Stationary Phase Bacteria Cause More Severe Disease Than Log Phase Bacteria I Biofilm Borrelia burgdorferi Not Only Display More Tolerance to Lyme Antibiotics But Also Cause More Severe Pathology In a Mouse Arthritis Model: Implications for Understanding Persistence, PTLDS and Treatment Failure. doi: 10.1101/440461

Gabitzsch ES, Piesman J, Dolan MC, Sykes CM, Zeidner NS. Transfer of Borrelia burgdorferi s.s. infection via blood transfusion in a murine model. J Parasitol. 2006;92(4):869870. doi: 10.1645/GE-833R.1

Lyme Disease Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ). Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website.. https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/faq/index.html

Pavia CS, Plummer MM. Transfusion-Associated Lyme Disease Although Unlikely, It Is Still a Concern Worth Considering. Front Microbiol. 2018;9:2070. doi:10.3389/fmicb.2018.02070

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Is it Safe to Donate Blood if You've Been Diagnosed with Lyme Disease? - ProHealth

Though now the leading man in the hit CBS series, Bull, many Michael Weatherly fans will always remember the actor for his career-catalyzing role as Agent Tony DiNozzo in NCIS. Boasting a successful TV career, the actor has grown quite a bit since his early Hollywood days in Foxs Dark Angel which starred one of Weatherlys famous loves, Jessica Alba.

Weatherly dated Alba who was then 18 after they met on the Fox show. While the actor proposed, the relationship didnt work out, and Weatherly went on to date and marry Amelia Heinle (American actress known for starring in the soap opera The Young and the Restless).

Amelie Heinle and Michael Weatherly were married from 1995 until 1997. Michael Weatherly is now married to Bojana Jankovic; the two wed in 2009. So, how did they meet? Who is Jankovic, and what does she do for a living? And, just how much older is Weatherly than the latest love of his life?

Bojana Jankovic is a writer and an assistant director known for TVWWW and Do Not Leave Me with Strangers. Jankovic has also appeared on Entertainment Tonight and Extra with Billy Bush.She is also an award-winning physician who is double board-certified in internal and integrative medicine. She founded the Eleven Eleven Wellness Center.

Jankovic and Weatherly reportedly met in a bar in Vancouver in 2007 (at least thats one of the most commonly reported stories). At the time, Weatherly was allegedly enjoying the single life, according to Heavy.com. The couple has explained that their relationship beginnings involved several continents and was quite complicated. In the end, it was clearly meant to be.

In 2009, the couple tied the knot, and they bought a home in Hollywood Hills in 2012. However, when they tied the knot, Jankovic was still quite young, as there is a sizable age difference between Weatherly and his now-wife.

Michael Weatherly was born in 1968, making him 51 years old. On the other hand, Jankovic was born on May 7 in 1983. Jankovic is 36 today, yet she was still in her 20s when she married Weatherly back in 2009.

Maybe, theres something to true to the old saying that women mature faster than men. There is a 15 year age gap between the happy couple; however, it seems to work, as they have been together for over a decade and now have children together.

As for Liam Weatherly and Olivia Weatherly, the former is Weatherly and Jankovics 6-year-old son who was born in 2013, and the latter is their 7-year-old daughter born in 2012. Michael Weatherly also has one son from his previous marriage to Heinle, August Manning Weatherly, who is 24 years old.

So, Michael Weatherly has three kids. His eldest happens to be closer in age to his current wife than he is; however, anything goes in Hollywood! Its hard enough to find love in Tinseltown, and accounting for age differences minimizes the pool of potential candidates to too great an extent.So, heres to wishing the couple many more years together.

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Inside the Large Age Gap Between Former 'NCIS' Star Michael Weatherly and Wife Bojana Jankovic - Showbiz Cheat Sheet

Last week, Gwyneth Paltrows modern lifestyle brand Goop announced it was closing stores in the U.S. and U.K. to help curb the spread of the novel coronavirus currently sweeping the globe. Meanwhile, Paltrows psychiatrist-pal Kelly Brogan, a high-profile Goop contributor, has racked up tens of thousands of views on social media spreading discredited pseudoscientific claims that the coronavirus might not even exist, and that symptoms attributed to the virus are likely being caused by widespread fear.

The claims were made in a widely shared video posted on Facebook, Instagram (which is owned by Facebook), and Vimeo last week by Brogan, a New York State-licensed psychiatrist, New York Times bestselling author, AIDS denialist, anti-vaxxer, and, according to Goop, a trusted expert and recent contributor to its site and live events.

Its just the latest stain on Paltrows already controversial brand, which in recent years has become synonymous with such questionable products as the Jade Egg, an egg-shaped gemstone that purportedly harness[es] the power of energy work, crystal healing, and a Kegel-like physical practice when inserted in the vagina.

In the video, which was originally shared with paid subscribers of Brogans health reclamation program, Vital Life Project, and has since been viewed over 75,000 times online, Brogan claimed that there is potentially no such thing as the coronavirus because its not possible to prove that any given pathogen has induced death, and that the rising death toll caused by the virus is likely being accelerated by the fear [of the virus] itself.

She also professed that she doesnt believe the widely accepted germ theory of disease, encouraged viewers to seek alternative theories, suggested that the news media is being controlled by an unnamed pro-vaccination group, and speculated that the U.S. government is planning to link our passports with our vaccination records and gain totalitarian governmental control not unlike the divide-and-conquer dehumanization agendas that preceded the Holocaust.

Facebook quickly removed the video after inquiries from The Daily Beast. These videos violate our policies and have been removed from both Facebook and Instagram, a spokesperson said.

Goop declined to comment, stating: We would suggest reaching out to Dr. Brogan directly as she didnt make those comments on goops platform. (Vimeowhich is owned by The Daily Beasts parent companyand Brogan did not return requests for comment.)

Brogan attributed her claims about the coronavirus to the pseudoscientific theories of the late Ryke Geerd Hamer, a ghoulish German doctor who in 1986 had his medical license permanently revoked in Germany after a number of patients in his care died. Hamers more recent victims include Susanne Rehklau, a 12-year-old girl who suffered a painful death after Hamer gave her the all-clear.

According to Hamers German New Medicine, all illness and disease, including pathogenic infections, are caused by psychological trauma, with specific traumatic experiences said to correlate with specific physical symptoms. For example, a child who is forced to live under the conservativeor inflexiblerule of an overbearing parent might develop rigid joints. To cure themselves, Hamer claimed, patients must disavow conventional Western medicine (which he claimed was a conspiracy orchestrated by the Jewish chemo mafia) and overcome their unresolved trauma using non-pharmacological, or natural, treatment methods, including talk therapy.

Medical authorities, including the German Cancer Society and the Swiss Cancer League, have widely denounced Hamer's theories as dangerous and lacking any scientific or empirical justification.

Experts who spoke to The Daily Beast agreed there is no scientific basis for Brogans analogous claims about the coronavirus.

David Colquhoun, a British pharmacologist and noted scourge of scientific quackery, called Brogans claims utter nonsense, and said he had never before heard such an explicit denial of germ theory.

Shes a very, very dangerous fantasist, Colquhoun said. I wonder whether she takes antibiotics if she gets a bacterial infection?

Shes a very, very dangerous fantasist. I wonder whether she takes antibiotics if she gets a bacterial infection?

Benjamin Radford, deputy editor of Skeptical Inquirer, which publishes investigations debunking paranormal phenomena and fringe science, said Brogans video should be viewed in the context of other populist pseudoscientific claimssuch as miasma theory and the law of attractionand questioned whether she was a real doctor.

Theres always been this sort of populist appeal by people who reject science, and thats exactly whats going on here, Radford said. Unfortunately, outbreaks like this are exactly the wrong time to bring these things up because [...] they divert people from legitimate evidence-based treatments.

Brogans credentials were also called into question by Peter M. Heimlich, a medical fraud researcher and the son of Dr. Henry Heimlich (of the famous maneuver). [Disclosure: the younger Heimlich is a friend of the author.]

In a March 22 letter shared with The Daily Beast, Heimlich asked the Office of Professional Medical Conduct, which is a branch of the New York State Department of Health, to determine whether Brogan misrepresented her board certifications online.

The letter highlights potentially misleading claims on Brogans site that she is currently board-certified in the areas of psychiatry and psychosomatic medicine/consultation psychiatry through the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology (ABPN), and that according to ABPNs online database, she is no longer certified in either specialty.

A spokesperson for ABPN said they could not speak directly about Brogan, and that the certification status of its diplomates is clearly stated on its site.

Per Heimlichs letter, Brogan also claims board certification through the American Board of Integrative Holistic Medicine (ABIHM), but ABIHM stopped issuing certificates in 2014 and now operates under a different name. (ABIHMs former executive director did not return a request for comment.)

A note on Brogans site says she is not currently accepting applications for one-on-one consultations and only holds group healing weekends once yearly in her home state of Florida.

Despite the criticism, she continues to peddle her discredited theories, posting a second video to her social media channels on Friday in which she again appeared to deny the existence of the coronavirus and invited viewers to join her paid subscription program.

Read more:
The Gwyneth Paltrow-Approved Goop Doctor Pushing Wacky Coronavirus Conspiracies - The Daily Beast

First up: Any IV treatment also carries a small risk of bleeding and infection at the site where the needle is placed in the skin or getting too much fluid infused. IV infusions may be a common medical procedure, but they are still a medical procedure.

The second safety concern is where you are getting it, notes functional and integrative medicine practitioner Roxanna Namavar, M.D., board-certified psychiatrist and fellow in the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine, who uses it at her own practice."No matter what IV therapy you are getting, you want to make sure your practitioner knows where the ingredient is sourced, and how it is compounded. They should also tailor your infusion treatments to you: It shouldn't feel like you're picking things off a menu. Your practitioner should look at your lab work, symptoms, and goals and create a protocol that is specific to your needs."

This concern comes to light most notably with the large amounts of IV bars that have popped up lately, most without much regulation. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission recently took action against an IV drip bar for making unsupported health claims about their ability to treat serious illnesses such as cancer, multiple sclerosis, or congestive heart failure.

If done under the supervision of a responsible health care practitioner, however, Namavar says there are no significant safety concerns. She notes that some patients may be sensitive to IV NAD+ therapy, specifically, and experience discomfort such as warming of the chest and nausea. Wally Taylor, M.D., a functional medicine physician with Texas Integrative Medicine in Austin, Texas, notes similarly, "One of the things about NAD+ is that you can't infuse it too quickly without it being pretty uncomfortable." He says some of his patients, "say they feel like they're having symptoms of a heart attack, but when we look at their heart monitor, we don't see any evidence of that." He has found that breathing high-concentration oxygen during the infusion can reduce some of these side effects.

"Any time you're giving treatments intravenously, there could be problems of one sort or another," says Taylor. "So it's useful to have the direct oversight of a health care provider who has experience with NAD+." He says complications are more likely to arise in people with a chronic illness, but it's not impossible for healthy people to have a bad reaction.

Cost is another issue. A single IV NAD+ therapy ranges from several hundred dollars to $1,000 or more. You also have to factor in travel time to the clinic and the wait timeinfusions generally take two or more hours, and some people may need infusions several days in a row.

Originally posted here:
NAD IV Therapy: What Is This Trendy New Treatment & Is It Safe? - mindbodygreen.com

As society is forced into isolation, people are finding themselves craving connection more than ever. According to a study the online dating service OkCupid released on Mar. 10 of this year, 88 percent of users globally and 92 percent of U.S. users were continuing to date during the coronavirus outbreak. (At least at the time they were surveyed.) But while many Americans have found themselves with additional time on their hands, mitigation efforts enacted by several states and cities discourage doing a lot of the activities you might usually choose for a date. California, Ohio, Illinois, and Washington are among the states that have closed all bars and restaurants to slow the spread of COVID-19. In some areaslike New York City and Los Angelesmovie theaters, shopping centers, and other gathering places have also temporarily ceased operations. Even if you live in an area where those businesses remain open, experts still recommend social distancingi.e. staying home as much as possible and limiting contact with other people as much as you can.

Where does all of this leave those who are still looking to make a match? We asked doctors to tell us how to safely date during the pandemic. Before you open your favorite app, keep reading to find out what these experts have to say.

Most experts we talked with suggested not canceling romance altogether, but approaching it from a different angle. David B. Samadi, MD, urologic oncology expert and Director of Men's Health at St. Francis Hospital in New York, cautions against meeting up with a blind date or someone you don't know very well, "because you don't know the status of their health, and even if they say they're healthy, they could still have the virus and just not be symptomatic yet." But that doesn't mean that you still can't get to know someone outside of texting and sharing your profiles. Family and integrative medicine specialist Bindiya Gandhi, MD suggests that daters "talk on the phone" and "get a feel for the person, like we used to before dating apps." Once you feel more comfortable with them, you can decide whether to actually meet up. "Better to be 100 percent cautious," she adds.

If you decide you want to physically get together with your date, there's really only one safe way to do so. "People can self-isolate and then get together outside at a park and keep a big distance between [themselves]," says integrative gynecologist Felice Gersh, MD. (The broadly accepted safe distance for droplet-transmitted diseases like coronavirus is six feet, per Johns Hopkins.) However, Gersh stipulates, "If one of the two people is not practicing social distancing, then it is probably best to just talk through telecommunications." To sum up: you want to be sure that your date has been following the recommended precautions; otherwise your chances of being infected go up.

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) official guidelines for protecting yourself from coronavirus include avoiding close contact and touching your/another person's face. Unfortunately, that means intimate experiences with new partners are off the table.

"I would hold off [kissing] unless you're married or in a committed relationship, because the virus can be passed through mucus membranes and saliva is pretty close," says Gandhi. Kissing may seem harmless, but Gersh warns, "It's not really safe. There are extremely high viral titers in saliva." These viral proteins allow the virus to be transferred quite easily from person to person through that kind of contact.

The reality is that many crises in historyfrom the 1965 blackoutto more recentnatural disastersresulted in a spike in birthrates. With so much time at home, "couples are having more sex," says women's urologist and sexual health expert Jennifer Berman, MS, MD. It's likely that social distancing will have the same effect, but, as COVID-19 is a new challenge, there's little research on how it impacts pregnancy. However, we know fevers can be harmful to embryo development, and a fever is a core symptom of this disease. "Data so far shows that the virus is not transmitted to the baby while in utero and breast milk also does not have the virus in it," Gersh says. "If the mom gets the virus and recovers, her antibodies may offer protection to her baby." (Either way, the mother should practice self-isolation.)

Another issue for expectant mothers is receiving adequate care. With hospitals and healthcare workers scrambling to manage coronavirus patients, now isn't the best time to intentionally conceive and put additional strain on the system.

With the pandemic still playing out, the future is still in flux. "This will not go on forever," Gersh says. "[But] some believe we may be dealing with the coronavirus for the next18 to 24 months." Bermansuggests keeping an eye on the loosening of other restrictions, such as school closures, as "a good litmus test for what is appropriate." We are in uncharted territory and advice may change based on what medical professionals learn about the virus, so check for recommendations from the CDC, World Health Organization (WHO), and your local government. If restaurants and bars are still closed in your area, you should not be heading out on a regular date.

What about partners who live together?

As people are asked to curtail their public lives, couples who live together will be in constant contact in their homes. "If one person has it, the other will get it," Berman says.

"With your intimate, exclusive partner you live with, it's okay to touch, as long as neither is having symptoms," Gersh advises. "However, if one or both of the partners fall into a high-risk group, you might reconsider all close physical contact. These are personal decisions the two of you must make together." She also notes that in couples where one or more individuals is in a job that puts them at a higher risk of contracting coronavirussuch as healthcare or law enforcementcontact should also be limited or suspended.

How did Jane Austen's characters maintain such fulfilling romantic lives without bar hopping or sleeping together? Berman advocates for the art of the letter to make a comeback. "One way you can remain intimate and connected is to write to another person from your heart," she says. If that practice feels too antiquated for you, you could always give your date a ring on the phone or talk through video chat.

Berman is concerned about the long-term effects of this necessary self-isolation. Being with other people "is necessary for health, wellness, sexuality, and longevity," she says. "We need to be able to connect with other people. It's hardwired in our DNA, so things like this that separate us are not consistent with the survival of our species." However, she predicts that humans will bounce back from this crisis and settle into normalcy againand yes, that includes lots of first dates, both good and bad.

"The pendulum has swung so far into fear and separation, but the pendulum will swing back it always does," Berman says. "The goal will be to swing back into balance and be able to feel comfortable being intimate with people [again]."

More:
Is It Safe to Date During the Coronavirus Pandemic? Experts Explain - Best Life

When you're under the weather, your body needs immune-supportive nutrients to fight off a cold or virus. While foods can't prevent, treat or magically cure your illness, what you eat can soothe your symptoms and potentially help you bounce back quicker.

Mushrooms are packed with vitamins and minerals that help your immune system function at its peak.

Credit: from_my_point_of_view/iStock/GettyImages

Here, nine foods that'll help and three that can hinder your recovery.

Especially when you're fighting an infection, you need to stay hydrated. Drinking fluids helps every system in your body function at its best, carries much-needed nutrients to your cells and aids in flushing bacteria, according to Harvard Health Publishing.

Next to water, there's nothing better than a warm, comforting cup of tea. "Drinking tea can help restore hydration, which is important for recovery, as well as soothe digestion and a sore throat," Lisa Moskovitz, RDN, founder and CEO of The NY Nutrition Group, tells LIVESTRONG.com.

And, depending on what ails you, sipping specific kinds of teas may mitigate your symptoms. For example, peppermint tea, which contains menthol, can ease an upset stomach, while black tea, rich in flavonoids, combats inflammation and supports healthy immune function, according to Penn Medicine.

For an extra dose of immune-boosting power, squeeze some honey into your teacup. "Not only does it make tea taste a whole lot better, but it also contains natural antiviral and antibacterial properties that could help you fight off sickness a little faster," Moskovitz says.

Indeed, a review in the April-June 2017 issue of Pharmacognosy Research found that honey has antimicrobial as well as antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties.

And honey can calm your cough, too. Case in point: A half teaspoon of honey before bedtime worked as well as a cough suppressant for children (over 1 year old), per research published in the December 2014 issue of Canadian Family Physician.

That said, adults may need to up their dose to get the same soothing, throat-coating effect. Just don't overdo it on the drizzle honey comes with a heap of sugar and calories.

The health benefits of garlic make it worth the bad breath.

Credit: Robert Daly/OJO Images/GettyImages

Not only does garlic enhance your food's flavor, it could also improve your immune system too. Yup, this pantry staple boasts natural antibacterial properties and can protect you from pathogens like bacteria that can cause infections, Moskovitz says.

If you're not a fan of raw garlic, there are alternatives: Research published in the June 2012 issue of Clinical Nutrition found that aged garlic extract may boost your immune cell function and, subsequently, reduce the severity of a cold.

When you're feeling foul, a few fungi might help you feel better. "Mushrooms, particularly shirataki mushrooms, have an array of important vitamins, minerals and enzymes that help your body function at its peak," Moskovitz says. "Additionally, research shows they can enhance the immune system for natural protection against different types of infections."

She's right. An April 2015 study published in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition found that consuming shiitake mushrooms could improve immunity, as evidenced by an increase in the production of antibodies as well as cell proliferation and activation.

"Packed with immune-boosting vitamin C, citrus fruits can help your body defend itself against certain infections," Moskovitz says.

In fact, taking daily vitamin C supplements, which have an anti-histamine effect, can ease the severity of a cold and shorten its duration by about 8 percent, per the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

That said, "mega-doses of vitamin C won't cure any viruses or infections you are already suffering from," Moskovitz explains. In other words, if you're already under the weather, overindulging in oranges won't be much help. Better to consume vitamin C regularly as a preventive measure.

Try adding sliced fresh ginger to tea, soup or a stir-fry.

Credit: 4nadia/iStock/GettyImages

"Ginger has been linked to a stronger antibody response, meaning that it can help defend the body against potential viruses," Moskovitz says.

The pungent root can destroy common bacteria and pathogens, according to a June 2017 article in the International Journal of Molecular Science.

And if you're dealing with nausea and/or vomiting, a study published March 2016 in Integrative Medicine Insights found that ginger can be an effective and safe treatment, especially for individuals whose symptoms are related to pregnancy or chemotherapy.

Fermented foods like yogurt, kefir and kombucha contain gut-healthy probiotics, which can help keep your immune system strong, Moskovitz says. But how? ICYMI, your gut plays a major role in your immune system, and probiotics which are rich in good bacteria strengthen your gut flora.

A 2011 review published in Current Opinion in Gastroenterology found that consuming probiotics could lower a healthy individual's risk of acquiring common cold infections and reduce the duration of a cold.

If you can stomach it, shellfish should be at the top of your shopping list when you're sick. That's because they're one of the best sources of zinc, an essential immune-boosting nutrient, Moskovitz says. Your body needs zinc to produce T-lymphocytes (the white blood cells that fight infection), according to the NIH.

Hard to find in natural food sources, the healthy mineral is abundant in shellfish like oysters, which boast more zinc per serving than any other food, per the NIH.

Rich in the antioxidant carnosine and its derivative anserine, chicken soup and chicken breast extracts could aid in "thinning out and clearing mucus in the nasal passages," says Pauline Jose, MD, a clinical instructor at UCLA and family medicine specialist at pH Labs, a national nonprofit health information organization.

What's more, "the protein in chicken helps provide the body with energy to recover" and "the fluids in the soup aid in the body's hydration, which can help in its recuperation from illness, including the flu," says Denise Pate, MD, a board-certified internal medicine physician with Medical Offices of Manhattan.

You may want to lay off the caffeine as well as common coffee fixings when you're not feeling well.

Credit: MariuszBlach/iStock/GettyImages

The following everyday foods may do you more harm than good when you're fighting off an infection.

"While they may help you keep sugar and calorie intake low, if you're feeling under the weather, you might want to steer clear of artificial sweeteners," Moskowitz says.

Why? "Artificial sweeteners can cause additional gastric distress and potentially contribute to pounding headaches," she explains.

A cold scoop of ice cream may sound like the perfect solution to soothe a sore throat, but milk-based foods might make your symptoms worse, especially if you're congested.

Though "studies show dairy doesn't necessarily increase mucus production, it can thicken it," Moskovitz says. So, "If you're already dealing with a stuffy nose or sinus pressure, it might help to switch to dairy-free alternatives for the time being."

"While you might be grasping at caffeine to get you through the day when you're sick, keep in mind that excessive amounts can cause potential upset stomach and mild dehydration," Moskovitz says.

Since staying hydrated is essential to recovery, consuming caffeine is a major no-no. That means giving up or limiting coffee, chocolate, soda and other caffeinated drinks during the duration of your cold.

Not to mention, "caffeine can also suppress appetite, and if you're sick, you don't want to miss out on key immune-boosting nutrients like C, zinc and antioxidants" that your body gets through healthy foods, Moskovitz says.

Read more stories to help you navigate the novel coronavirus pandemic:

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9 Foods to Eat When You're Sick and 3 to Avoid - LIVESTRONG.COM

SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., March 23, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Alector, Inc. (ALEC) today announced the addition of Paula Hammond, Ph.D., to the Companys Board of Directors. Dr. Hammond is the David H. Koch Chair Professor of Engineering and Department Head, Chemical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a member of MITs Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research and a founding member of the MIT Institute for Soldier Nanotechnology.

At Alector, we are building a leading biotechnology company, and as part of those efforts, we are partnering with top scientists, drug developers and business leaders to advise us and support our ambitious goal of curing neurodegeneration, said Arnon Rosenthal, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer of Alector. Paula brings more than 25 years of scientific excellence to our Board. Her expertise in applying scientific innovation to advances in drug delivery will be an asset to our team as we continue to develop first-in-class medicines for these unmet medical needs. We are very pleased to welcome her to Alectors Board of Directors, and we look forward to leveraging her expertise as we advance our programs through clinical development.

Dr. Hammond is one of only 25 distinguished scientists elected to all three national academies, the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Medicine. Dr. Hammond is also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, has published over 300 papers and holds more than 20 patents based on her research at MIT. Dr. Hammond holds a Ph.D. and an S.B. in chemical engineering from MIT, and an M.S. in chemical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Her laboratory at MIT designs polymers and nanoparticles for targeted drug delivery to address cancer, wound healing and regenerative medicine.

Alectors mission of discovering and developing treatments for patients suffering from neurodegenerative diseases is not a small feat. After meeting Arnon, other members of the Alector team and the rest of the Board, I am confident in their commitment to change the life of these patients, said Dr. Hammond. I am looking forward to partnering with the Board and the management team as Alector advances its research and development programs.

Alector's current Board members include: Arnon Rosenthal, Co-Founder and CEO of Alector; Tillman Gerngross, Co-Founder of Alector and CEO of Adimab; Lou J. Lavigne Jr., former CFO of Genentech; Terry McGuire, Partner, Polaris Venture Partners, Richard Scheller, former EVP of Research at Genentech and former CSO of 23andMe; David Wehner, CFO of Facebook; and Kristine Yaffe, Professor, UCSF.

About AlectorAlector is a clinical stage biotechnology company pioneering immuno-neurology, a novel therapeutic approach for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases. Immuno-neurology targets immune dysfunction as a root cause of multiple pathologies that are drivers of degenerative brain disorders. Alector is developing a broad portfolio of programs designed to functionally repair genetic mutations that cause dysfunction of the brains immune system and enable the rejuvenated immune cells to counteract emerging brain pathologies. The Companys product candidates are supported by biomarkers and target genetically defined patient populations in frontotemporal dementia and Alzheimers disease. Alector is headquartered in South San Francisco, California. For additional information, please visit http://www.alector.com.

ContactsMedia:1ABDan Budwick, 973-271-6085dan@1abmedia.comorInvestors:Alector, Inc.ir@alector.com

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Alector Announces the Appointment of Paula Hammond, Ph.D., to the Board of Directors - Yahoo Finance

There are few people in this world who inspire change like Michelle Obama. Whether shes dishing out relationship advice or weighing in on climate change (your move, Melania,) every time she opens her mouth, magic slips out. Case in point: her latest Insta post, which is all about how to show up for your community and yourself - amid the current COVID-19 crisis.

WATCH:5 reasons we love Michelle Obama...

These past few weeks have been scary and difficult for many of us, she writes. We just dont have a roadmap for what were currently experiencingthat in and of itself can bring up feelings of anxiety, loneliness, and fear. Not to mention the worry we feel about the health and safety of our parents, children, and loved ones and the financial security of so many families.

She continues: Whatever youre going through right now, I want you to know you arent alone.

RELATED:How To Manage Anxiety Around Coronavirus

Even through the logistics of social distancing (1.5m at all times, folks), Michelle stresses this new normal is something were all navigating together.

As for me, I know when Im feeling overwhelmed that picking up the phone and calling one of my girlfriends can work wonders, she says. I also know staying close to my community helps me to feel connected and strong. If youre not sure what that looks like these days, Ive offered a few suggestions to get you started. But this is by no means an exhaustive list!

Her parting words of wisdom? Dont forget: Its okay to take a breath.

Be gentle with yourself. Log off when you need to, take a break if you can, and let others know when youd like a little help.

Without further ado, here are FLOTUS top tips for supporting local in this time of need:

RELATED:Michelle Obama Just Shared The Most Profound Relationship Advice

More here:
Michelle Obama Has The BEST Advice For Coping With Coronavirus Anxiety - Women's Health