Biology Digest

The monkeypox outbreak has been declared a global health emergency by the World Health Organization. The classification is the highest alert that the WHO can issue and follows a worldwide upsurge in cases. It came at the end of the second meeting of the WHO's emergency committee on the virus. More than 16,000 cases have now been reported from 75 countries, said WHO director general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. There had been five deaths so far as a result of the outbreak, he added. There are only two other such health emergencies at present - the coronavirus pandemic and the continuing effort to eradicate polio. Dr Tedros said the emergency committee had been unable to reach a consensus on whether the monkeypox outbreak should be classified as a global health emergency. However, he said the outbreak had spread around the world rapidly and he had decided that it was indeed of international concern. Too little was understood about the new modes of transmission which had allowed it ...

Coming join us in the lab to see how scientists make the proteins that players designed in Foldit. It all begins with an envelope full of custom DNA. 0:00 ​​ – intro 0:29 – in the lab 5:01 – design of the month 9:48 – outro You don't have to be a scientist to do science. Download and play Foldit and you can help researchers discover new drugs for cancer, antivirals, and more. The most promising solutions are being manufactured and tested at the University of Washington Institute for Protein Design in Seattle. Foldit is FREE and not-for-profit: https://fold.it/​​ This video features Foldit scientist Brian Koepnick, PhD. It was produced by Ian Haydon. Note: Foldit is an interactive computer game and not a distributed computing project. If you would like to donate spare CPU cycles to science, please check out the Rosetta@Home project on BOINC at https://boinc.bakerlab.org/  

Note this is not a pandemic for now but its being investigated for verification.  Lets hope we do not have another pandemic but for now take precautions.   

  OLYMPIA, Wash.  -  Washington state   health officials are on heightened alert as tuberculosis (TB) cases are on the rise.  According to the Washington State Department of  Health , widespread disruptions in public health, healthcare services and missed TB diagnoses, because symptoms are similar between COVID-19 and TB, may  have contributed to the rise locally and globally.  In 2020, reported cases were down but officials said efforts to prevent COVID-19 may have reduced the spread or may have decreased due to delayed or missed TB diagnoses. Some people with TB may have also been misdiagnosed as having COVID-19.  In 2021, there were 199 reported cases of TB, which was a 22% increase from 2020. So far in 2022, 70 cases have been reported.  The DOH said 17 new cases all have connections with each other and several state prisons, which makes it the largest outbreak in the last two decades.  "It’s been 20 years since we saw a cluster...

  E leven countries, including the U.S., have reported a total of 169 cases of severe acute hepatitis in healthy children aged 1 month to 16 years old, with the largest outbreak in the U.K. At least 17 children have required liver transplants and one patient has died, according to the WHO. The World Health Organization and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention believe the outbreak might be linked to adenovirus, though investigations are continuing. In the past, adenoviruses have been rarely associated with hepatitis in children with weak immune systems but not in healthy ones. © Provided by CNBC Adenovirus (highly contagious virus). Image made from a transmission electron microscopy view. An outbreak of severe hepatitis in healthy children that has caused liver failure in some kids might be linked to adenovirus infection, though further investigation is needed, World Health Organization officials said on Thursday. Eleven countries, including the U.S., have report...

Collaborators are now testing VHL ligand designs in the lab, and new software features put the focus on rotatable bonds to help us create more effective molecules. 0:00 ​​ – intro 0:20 – Testing small molecule designs 3:24 – Puzzle Updates 4:34 – Design of the Month 8:58 – outro You don't have to be a scientist to do science. Download and play Foldit and you can help researchers discover new drugs for cancer, antivirals, and more. The most promising solutions are being manufactured and tested at the University of Washington Institute for Protein Design in Seattle. Foldit is FREE and not-for-profit: https://fold.it/​​ This video features Foldit scientists Brian Koepnick, PhD. It was produced by Ian Haydon. Note: Foldit is an interactive computer game and not a distributed computing project. If you would like to donate spare CPU cycles to science, please check out the Rosetta@Home project on BOINC at https://boinc.bakerlab.org/  

Scientists can now make proteins that bind a bunch of different targets. How did they do it — and what does this breakthrough mean for Foldit? In this video, we breakdown a recent breakthough in protein design.