Category Archives: Biochemistry

CommentaryNewsday24 Hrs Ago

DR VISHNU BISRAM

CONVERSATIONS with Trinis suggest that last rites of covid19 deceased are not treated with respect and dignity. Families dont get to properly bid farewell because of rules. Public safety should never be compromised.

But common sensical applications should also not be ignored when treating the deceased who died of covid19. The deceased does not pose as much threat to public safety as the living. The probability of covid19 infection from the dead is minimal millions of times lower than getting covid19 from the living.

Families and communities can have proper and dignified burial or cremation rites for the covid19 deceased. The risks of attending a funeral for a covid19 victim is not any higher than that of attending a rite for someone who died from other causes or attending a religious institution for regular worshipping.

TT has countless biologists and biochemists who would have studied virology or virus contamination. I have not seen anyone address this issue of covid19 infection from a deceased.

I may be known as a pollster and social commentator, but I am also a degree holder in biochemistry and taught said subject as well as worked in biology labs for several years before making the transition to social science almost four decades ago.

My recollection from biology studies is a virus dies with its host, and thus the chance of the covid19 virus moving from the dead to the living, while possible, is very remote.

Tens of millions of people are hosts to covid19. The virus cannot reproduce without a living host. In theory, once the host dies, so does the virus. The covid19 virus survives for only a few hours (at most) without a host.

Of the millions of funerals of victims of covid19, only one person is known to have contracted the virus from the dead. Contrast this figure with the hundreds of millions who got infected by coming in contact with the living.

As long as proper safety measures are in place (safe distancing and wearing of PPE), normal funeral rites are safe (safer than going to a market or riding a maxi). In fact, in the US and other developed countries, almost normal funeral rites are being allowed.

When the virus broke out in January 2020 in the West, it was not clear how the virus spread. It was a mystery; scientists took a long time to understand its behaviour. In fact, it is still a mystery how it is mutating and combating the several vaccines.

Thus, the deceased was disposed of in closed bags, closed caskets (families could not see the face of loved ones), and closed rites from a far distance. But as scientists got an understanding of the viruss behaviour, coffins have been open over the last year.

Also, the dead is now ritually washed in America and properly dressed and displayed in full view. I attended funerals of several victims in New York; many Trinis and Guyanese who I knew died of covid19 in the US. I presided over the Hindu funeral rites of my mother who was a covid19 victim, including repeatedly touching her body as required by Hindu scriptures. Knowing the science, I had no reservations about touching her body.

I know of others who performed similar rituals for family members who died of covid19. None of them (or myself) contracted the virus from the deceased (and I did not even wear PPE when touching my moms body). Several individuals contracted covid19 from living family members who were covid19 positive (a few of who later died from the virus).

It is natural for people to be fearful of contracting the virus from the deceased covid19 victim. I too was very fearful and avoided funerals of covid19 deceased in the first several months of the pandemic. But it is now reassuring that the virus will not jump from dead to living.

No funeral worker (at a funeral home, crematorium, or graveyard) has been infected with the virus from handling the deceased. A lone case was that of an exposed pathologist (who did not wear PPP) who performed an autopsy of a covid19 victim some 15 months ago.

Once you wear PPE and maintain physical distancing, you will be safe. People should be more concerned about contracting covid19 from the living rather than the dead.

Thus, the Government should consider allowing normal funerals open coffins and cremations and attendance in public places. Families should be allowed to perform burials and cremations according to prescribed cultural and religious practices as the dead do not pose covid19 risk.

Attendees should take the necessary precautions to limit covid19 exposure from the living.

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The living pose greater covid19 risks than the dead - TT Newsday

The Epsilon variant is the name given to the B.1.427/B.1.429 lineages of the virus | Representative image

Seattle: Scientists have found that a variant of the coronavirus, dubbed the Epsilon strain, has more resistance to vaccines, thereby somewhat neutralising their effectiveness.

The mutations give this coronavirus variant of concern a means to totally evade specific monoclonal antibodies used in clinics and reduces the effectiveness of antibodies from the plasma of vaccinated people, said the University of Washingtons School of Medicine, one of the institutions involved in research into the Epsilon strain.

The project was led by David Veesler of UWs Department of Biochemistry, and Luca Piccoli and Davide Corti of Vir Biotechnology.

The Epsilon variant is the name given to the B.1.427/B.1.429 lineages of the virus, which was first discovered in the US in the summer of 2020.

Studies found that the ability of plasma to fight the virus from patients who had previously been infected with COVID-19 was reduced by about two to three and a half times when exposed to the Epsilon variant.

Epsilon mutations were responsible for rearrangements in critical areas of the spike glycoprotein, added the release from UW. Electron cryo-microscopy studies showed structural changes in these areas. Visualising these mutations help explain why antibodies had difficulty binding to the spike glycoprotein.

One of the three mutations in the Epsilon variant affected the receptor binding domain on the spike glycoprotein, added the university. This mutation reduced the neutralising activity of 14 out of 34 neutralising antibodies specific to that domain, including clinical stage antibodies.

The findings of the scientists have been published in the journal Science, where their research is explained in-depth.

The fast rise in the number of cases associated with the B.1.427/B.1.429 lineages led to their classification as a variant of concern by the US Centre for Disease Control, they added in their research paper.

Excerpt from:
Vaccines found to be less effective against Epsilon strain of COVID-19 | Times of Oman - Times of Oman

By Brian Grimmett| Kansas News Service

MANHATTAN Climate change conjures notions of rising water levels along the coasts, severe drought in the Intermountain West and the record temperatures baking the Pacific Northwest this week.

Add to that toasty Kansas evenings.

New research from Kansas State University shows that rising overnight temperatures hurt wheat harvests. Rice, corn and barley all face similar problems.

While researchers also look into finding more resilient varieties of those crops to account for the change, the immediate climate trends could have a dramatic impact.

In trials of some of the most popular varieties of wheat grown in Kansas, K-State and North Carolina State University researchers found that an increase of only 1.8 degrees Fahrenheitin overnight temperatures caused a 5% reduction in wheat yield.

Most people think plants arent dynamic, but they are, said Colleen Doherty, an associate professor of biochemistry at North Carolina State University. Plants are constantly regulating their biological processes gearing up for photosynthesis just before dawn, winding that down in the late afternoon, determining precisely how and where to burn their energy resources.

She said their experiments showed that hotter overnight temperatures confuse the plants internal clock. With a screwed-up clock, the plant has a harder time turning the sugars produced during photosynthesis in the day into plant growth.

The amount of wheat that youll get will go down, but also the quality of wheat will go down, said K-State crop physiologist Krishna Jagadish. So your bread probably may start to taste a little bit different in the future.

Average summer nighttime temperatures have been increasing across the state. Since 1970, the average low in the Wichita area has increased 2.7 degrees. In Topeka, it increased 3.5 degrees.

At the same time, the average summer high temperature only increased 1.4 degrees in Wichita and 2.8 degrees in Topeka.

Jagadish said its harder for people to notice these changes when the average temperature is increasing more during the night than it is in the day. But researchers, like him, are beginning to look more into the issue and to provide information that reveals the true extent of the dangers.

Rising overnight temperatures arent the only negative impacts from climate change that Kansans can expect to experience. Assistant state climatologist Mary Knapp says were already seeing changes in precipitation patterns.

Were getting more rain, but it may not be distributed as evenly as needed, she said.

That means some places are going from very dry to getting the expected monthly rain total in a single day. That wont show up in long-term averages, but has real consequences.

Youve got more of it running off, she said. Youve got more erosion issues and youve got more flooding issues.

Knapp also said Kansas winters are getting milder. She said the state will still experience its typical spring freezes in March and April, but milder Decembers and Januarys will confuse trees and plants, making them less resilient to those freezes.

Its not all doom and gloom from the wheat research. Theres already evidence that some varieties of wheat are more resilient to temperature increases in both the day and the night. Jagadish said once those traits have been genetically identified, scientists can begin breeding new varieties that combine that trait with other proven varieties.

It is going to take time, he said. But I think thats the way to do it and we are making progress.

The researchers suspect the sensitivity to rising nighttime temperatures can be found in all starchy grains. Theyve now turned their attention to corn, to prove their hypothesis.

(Our study) is not just an interesting scientific question, Doherty said. Its a global food security issue.

Brian Grimmett reports on the environment, energy and natural resources for KMUW in Wichita and the Kansas News Service.

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Climate change means Kansas farmers are dealing with hotter nights and change in rainfall and freezing patterns - The Topeka Capital-Journal

A collaborative effort between Washington University in St. Louis, Agilent Technologies and the biopharmaceutical company Merck aims to expand research in the field of metabolomics, the comprehensive study of small molecules within a biological system.

Using top-of-the-line research instrumentation from Agilent, scientists in the Department of Chemistry in Arts & Sciences will develop new metabolomics workflows of interest to many members of the drug-development community. The partnership also includes salary support for postdoctoral research fellows for the next two years.

Metabolomics provides a direct readout of biochemical activity. It is ideally suited to study the effect that drugs have on cells and tissues, said Gary Patti, the Michael and Tana Powell Professor of Chemistry in Arts & Sciences and professor of medicine at the School of Medicine, who leads the universitys portion of the collaboration.

With these instruments from Agilent, we are delighted to establish a dedicated training laboratory outfitted with cutting-edge mass spectrometry equipment for metabolomics, said Feng Sheng Hu, the Lucille P. Markey Distinguished Professor and dean of the faculty of Arts & Sciences.

Trainees will be exposed to computational approaches in metabolomics, mass spectrometry, cell work and animal work, as well as many other biochemical techniques making them exceptional candidates to pursue careers within the biopharmaceutical industry, Hu said. We are grateful to Agilent and Merck for their support in helping Washington University to develop the pipeline of research experts skilled in scientific discovery within the fields of pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, drug metabolism and metabolomics.

We are excited to participate in this collaborative effort. The combination of metabolomics with drug metabolism and pharmacokinetics (DMPK) offers significant potential to accelerate drug development, said Sudharshana Seshadri, vice president of Agilents Mass Spectrometry Division. We are confident that the Agilent LC/TQ and LC/Q-TOF workflow solutions will deliver deep insights with great accuracy and enable rapid progress for our collaborators.

This collaboration will fast-track the training of next-generation bioanalytical scientists at Washington University, incorporating new workflows combining metabolomics with DMPK analysis to define mode of action, off-target effects and stratification of results with metabolic biomarkers, said Darlene Solomon, senior vice president and chief technology officer at Agilent.

We are excited to embark on this timely collaboration, said Dan Rock, associate vice president of pharmacokinetics and drug metabolism at Merck Research Laboratories. Mass spectrometry and computational advancements have opened the scope of metabolomics to more global exposure-response modeling techniques, which present a truly unique path to accelerating drug discovery.

Researchers in the Patti laboratory use metabolomics to elucidate novel biochemical mechanisms of disease. Patti himself has made major contributions in the development and application of new metabolomics technologies. He is a previous recipient of an Agilent Early Career Professor Award.

Metabolomics is transforming the ways in which drugs are discovered and developed. For example, researchers can now use metabolomics to create a full tally of drug metabolites the individual byproducts created when the body breaks down a drug into different substances as well as the precursors and products of the reactions that these substances affect. Such work enhances the understanding of how drugs circulate around the body and the chemical mechanisms behind their actions. This knowledge is critical to identifying which drugs can be used to treat which diseases and at what doses to administer them.

The new partnership builds upon Pattis previous work to establish an experimental strategy to find off-target effects by metabolomics.

Off-target effects occur when you develop a drug to do one thing, but then it also does something else unexpectedly, Patti said. Off-target effects can lead to toxicity and are one of the biggest reasons that drugs fail during development. The earlier that off-target effects can be identified, the better. Metabolomics has a lot of potential to help here.

The three-way collaboration offers an opportunity to integrate the unique expertise and perspectives of academic researchers, instrument manufacturers and scientists from the pharmaceutical industry.

This will position us to tackle the toughest challenges in drug development by applying the newest metabolomics technologies to a wide range of biological systems that span from cells and animals to human patients, Patti said.

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Washington University collaborates with Agilent, Merck to expand metabolomics research - Washington University in St. Louis Newsroom

Valent BioSciences LLC announces EPA registration of a new plant growth regulator (PGR), which will be marketed under the brand name Accede, utilizing the active ingredient 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylic acid (ACC).

Accede is the first PGR based on a naturally occurring compound developed specifically for thinning of stone fruit, including peaches and nectarines. It also gives apple growers an effective tool to thin apples in the late thinning window when fruit are 15 mm to 20 mm in diameter. According to Valent BioSciences, until now, no fruit thinner has provided reliable thinning at this stage of development. Use of Accede will reduce the need for costly hand thinning to adjust the crop load and generate higher fruit quality and grower returns.

ACC occurs naturally in plants. Once applied to the crop, the active ingredient in Accede is quickly converted to ethylene using the plants natural biochemical pathways. The ethylene generated after application of Accede stimulates and accelerates flower and fruit drop in apples and stone fruit.

Accede does not leave ACC residues at harvest, as it is rapidly broken down in plants. The product was classified as a biochemical by the EPA in 2015. The technology in Accede is covered by numerous patents.

This game-changing plant growth regulator will revolutionize the way tree fruit growers manage their crop loads, Dr. Warren Shafer, Vice President of Global Research and Development and Regulatory Affairs at Valent BioSciences, says. Its registration in the U.S. is the culmination of more than a decade of research and development collaboration between Valent BioSciences, Valent U.S.A. LLC, and our parent company, Sumitomo Chemical Co., Ltd. We are proud to bring this unique, effective biorational product to market and help growers realize its tremendous benefits.

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New Plant Growth Regulator Thins Stone Fruit and Apples - Growing Produce

TheNational Institutes of Health(NIH) has awarded nearly $3 million to a University ofHawaiiat Mnoa-led project expanding COVID-19 testing in schools statewide. The funding supports thePacific Alliance Against COVID-19(PAAC) pilot project, which establishes a novel protocol for rapid testing at schools, collecting behavioral data, and disseminating information on mitigation procedures and vaccination.

The consortium effort is led byUHMnoasJohn A. Burns School of Medicine(JABSOM),College of Social Sciencesand the Accountable Healthcare Alliance of RuralOahu(AHARO).

PAACs goal is to empower educators, students and the community-at-large with education tools and connections with public health services, including those provided by theAHAROCommunity Health Centers, said Associate Professor in Pediatrics and co-investigatorMay Okihiro. The plan is for free antigen testing of school teachers and staff to be expanded to schools inWaianaeand Waimnalo onOahu, Hmkua-Kohala and Hilo onHawaiiIsland, and onMolokai.

PAACs novel protocol wassuccessfully tested this springin partnership with Kamaile Academy (K-12) inWaianae. The project offered free weekly SARS-CoV-2 antigen testing of teachers and staff.

About 87% of participants reported their participation led to a better understanding of the need for antigen testing, and 52% were more likely to be vaccinated as a result of the pilot testing and education program, said project co-investigatorRuben Juarez, a professor of economics and research fellow in theUHEconomic Research Organizationin the College of Social Sciences.

The project reaffirms that schools are an asset in preventing the spread of COVID-19 into our communities, added project co-investigatorAlika Maunakea, an associate professor inJABSOMs Department of Anatomy, Biochemistry & Physiology and the Institute for Biogenesis Research.

UHMnoa is one of 15 institutions to receive aNIHaward through theRADx-Underserved Populations(RADx-UP) Safe Return to School Diagnostic Testing initiative, a part of theRapid Acceleration of Diagnostics(RADx) initiative.

The new awards reaffirmNIHs commitment to use evidence-based research to inform policy makers of the safest ways to return to schools in vulnerable and underserved communities, said Eliseo J. Prez-Stable, director ofNIHs National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities and co-chair of theRADx-UPprogram.

The initiative will specifically focus on schools with racially and ethnically diverse populations, including African-Americans, Latinos/Latinas, Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders and Asian Americans. It will also impact socio-economically disadvantaged populations and school districts where many students are receiving free or reduced price lunch; and students with medical complexities and developmental disabilities.

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UH Mnoa Gets $3M Boost to Expand - Big Island Now