4 SILVER SPRINGS, Md. – The Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Equal Opportunity Team held a Facebook video premiere event May 20, 2021, in observance of Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month.
Given the challenges created by the COVID-19 pandemic, units have had to consider the safest way to organize and virtually honor the people and the culture that is the fabric of our democracy. The pre-recorded video opened with remarks from U.S. Army Medical Research and Development Command and Fort Detrick Commanding General, Maj. Gen. Michael J. Talley. He emphasized the importance of finding creative ways to continue with observance month activities, especially in the current social environment.
COVID-19 Vaccine IP Waiver Will Benefit Foreign Rivals Like China, Critics Warn
WASHINGTON The debate is growing over whether developed countries including the United States should temporarily waive intellectual property (IP) and patent rights on COVID-19 vaccines to expedite global vaccination efforts.
The Biden administration on May 5 announced that it would support the waiver of those protections for vaccines “to expand vaccine manufacturing and distribution” around the world to end the pandemic.
Experts, however, believe waiving patents wouldn’t resolve the vaccine shortage problem, due to the complexity of producing the mRNA-based vaccines. They also argue that the move would allow countries such as China to exploit American innovation and technology to their advantage.
A TRIPs waiver will not only impede vaccine production at this moment, it will also cause long-term harm. There are two principal concerns in this regard. First, a waiver for COVID-19 vaccines will obviously decrease the incentive for companies to make vaccines for the next disease. The recent rhetoric will not discourage us from continuing investing in science, wrote Bourla, the Pfizer chief. But I am not sure if the same is true for the thousands of small biotech innovators that are totally dependent on accessing capital from investors who invest only on the premise that their intellectual property will be protected.
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PLYMOUTH MEETING, Pa., May 17, 2021 /PRNewswire/ INOVIO (NASDAQ:INO), a biotechnology company focused on bringing to market precisely designed DNA medicines to treat and protect people from infectious diseases, cancer, and HPV-associated diseases, today announced the appointment of Roger D. Dansey, M.D. to its Board of Directors. The appointment adds extensive expertise in drug development to the INOVIO Board as the company strengthens its focus on its late stage product development programs. Currently the Chief Medical Officer at Seagen (formerly Seattle Genetics), Dr. Dansey has played a central role in Seagen s efforts to become a globally recognized, multi product oncology company.
New model for infectious disease could better predict future pandemics New model for infectious disease could better predict future pandemics
Share Increased human-animal interactions lead to the emergence and spread of zoonotic pathogens, which cause about 75% of infectious diseases affecting human health. In this photograph, wild zebras graze alongside a pastoralist and cows in Kenya. Credit: James Hassell/Smithsonian
In the midst of a devastating global pandemic of wildlife origin and with future spillovers imminent as humans continue to come into closer contact with wildlife, infectious-disease models that consider the full ecological and anthropological contexts of disease transmission are critical to the health of all life. Existing models are limited in their ability to predict disease emergence, since they rarely consider the dynamics of the hosts and ecosystems from which pandemics emerge.