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IMAGE: Sumit Chanda, co-senior study author and director of the Immunity and Pathogenesis Program at Sanford Burnham Prebys. view more
Credit: Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute
LA JOLLA, CALIF. - March 16, 2021 - A
Nature study authored by scientists at Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute and the University of Hong Kong shows that the leprosy drug clofazimine, which is FDA approved and on the World Health Organization s List of Essential Medicines, exhibits potent antiviral activities against SARS-CoV-2 and prevents the exaggerated inflammatory response associated with severe COVID-19. Based on these findings, a Phase 2 study evaluating clofazimine as an at-home treatment for COVID-19 could begin immediately.
Wearable devices and biosensors are prone to heating up, especially under sunlight. However, conventional radiative coolers contain metallic materials, which limits wireless communications. Now scientists from Korea and the USA have developed a new type of radiative cooler using perforated polymers that keep the gadgets cool and fully functional under heat, paving the way for thermally protected wearable devices for health monitoring.
Credit: Oliver Dietze
In their study, which is now published in the journal
Nature Aging, they show that the level of non-coding RNAs in the blood of a Parkinson s patient can be used to track the course of the disease. For their study, the team led by bioinformatics professor Andreas Keller and his doctoral student Fabian Kern created and analyzed the molecular profiles of more than 5,000 blood samples from over 1,600 Parkinson s patients. This resulted in around 320 billion data points, which the researchers analyzed for biomarkers of Parkinson s disease using artificial intelligence methods. Our project is among the largest RNA biomarker studies in the world, says Andreas Keller, head of the research group for clinical bioinformatics at Saarland University and spokesperson for the Center for Bioinformatics at the Saarland Informatics Campus.
Robotics researchers are developing exoskeletons and prosthetic legs capable of thinking and moving on their own using sophisticated artificial intelligence (AI) technology.