Early Days on a Newly-Identified Coronavirus Variant, C.1.2., South Africa

"[The mutations on the virus] are associated with increased transmissibility [and an increased ability to evade antibodies]."

"It is important to highlight this lineage given its concerning constellation of mutations."

"We are currently assessing the impact of this variant on antibody neutralization [in both vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals]."

Research study: KwaZulu-Natal Research Innovation and Sequencing Platform, National Institute for Communicable Diseases, South Africa

 

"It has only been detected in around 100 genomes, a very low number."

"It's still a very small percentage, but again we are really keeping a good eye on that. It has all the signatures of immune escape."

Tulio de Oliveira, director, Krisp (KwaZulu-Natal Research Innovation and Sequencing Platform)

Prof de Oliveira, from KRISP, says his team has seen multiple samples of viral re-infection

The newly-identified COVID-19 mutation named C.1.2. variant was identified in the provinces of Mpumalanga and Gauteng, South Africa in May. The new mutation, by mid-August was found in six or the nine South African provinces. But it is not at this point restrained to South Africa, having appeared as well in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mauritius, Portugal, New Zealand and Switzerland. At this early stage it has become a world traveller soon perhaps to present as a seasoned world traveller.

SARS-CoV-2 has long since demonstrated its penchant for swift re-location and the world's geography is its oyster. All viruses undergo mutations over time, and COVID-19 has proven itself to be particularly skilled in creating mutations which the world medical community consider to be of 'concern', quite apart from hundreds of others that are of little concern. It's when the virus moves efficiently into the territory of greater communicability that alarm is raised, and this one has those characteristics.

For the present, in South Africa -- and around the world -- it is an earlier variant that now has created new waves of transmission globally with new wave spasms; the worrying Delta strain first identified in India -- and in South Africa, Delta represents over 80 percent of new cases in a country where only a 14 percent immunization rate has as yet been achieved. 

 

Once the World Health Organization classifies a variant of interest with properties of more severe transmissibility, they become a variant of concern.

In the mid-2020s during the first wave of the virus in South Africa, COVID-19 mutated into the C.1. and soon dominated as a more contagious virus from its original  lineage; C.1. mutated further to become C.l.2., evolving to its present form, passing through between 44 and 59 mutations from the Wuhan original virus.

Back in May the new variant was recognized as accounting for 0.2 percent of the genomes sequenced in South Africa, which rose to 1.5 percent in June, and a month later rose to 2 percent. The current research undertaken to assess the variant's impact on antibody effectiveness is expected in a week, according to Dr. de Oliveira. 

Still, the scientists have no wish for South Africa to be credited as the crucible where these variants originated; having stressed that despite the country's advanced ability to sequence the genomes of the virus to enable identifying new strains, they might conceivably have arisen elsewhere in the world and migrated to South Africa. 

Detection and frequency of the c.1.2 mutated sars-cov-2 lineage in South Africa

"Based on our understanding of the mutations in this lineage partial immune escape may be possible, but despite this, vaccines will still offer high levels of protection against hospitalization and death."

"We expect new variants to continue to emerge wherever the virus is spreading. Vaccination remains critical to protect those in our communities at high risk of hospitalization and death, to reduce strain on the health system, and to help slow transmission. This has to be combined with all the other public health and social measures, so we advise the public to remain vigilant and continue to follow COVID-19 protocol by: ensuring good ventilation in all shared spaces, wearing masks (which cover your nose, mouth and chin), washing or sanitizing your hands and surfaces regularly, and keeping 1.5m distance from others as much as possible. These non-pharmaceutical interventions are still proven to prevent the spread of all SARS-CoV-2 viruses."

 

Yahoo, New York Daily News

The COVID State of the Union

"There are continued increases, but not to the level that we've seen in previous surges here in the North-east."

"I'm seeing some modelling to suggest that peak won't occur until late September, early October -- but of course we don't know for sure."

"Multiple factors challenge our ability to predict what's going to happen next."

"Certainly opening school without having vaccinations available for kids under 12 also potentially will influence the course."

Dr.Roy Gulick, chief of infectious diseases, Weill Cornell Medicine and New York-Presbyterian hospital

 

"I believe that mandating vaccines for children to appear in school is a good idea."

"We've done this for decades and decades, requiring polio, measles, mumps, rubella, hepatitis [vaccinations]."

"I think there's a reasonable chance that the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines could get FDA clearance for kids under 12 before the upcoming holiday season."

Dr.Anthony Fauci, U.S. infectious disease expert

An empty ICU bed SSM Health St. Joseph Hospital in Lake Saint Louis. (photo by Armond Feffer).

Amidst key areas of concern in the United States over the bedeviling Delta wave, parts of the American Northeast, according to experts, may be closing in on the peak of the latest COVID wave. It is anticipated that in weeks to come hospitalizations and deaths will continue to mount. In Connecticut and Massachusetts cases appear to have topped out, reflecting a consensus of forecsts published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In New York and New Jersey however, infection rates are expected to increase. The Northeast has been ground down since mid-July by the effects of the COVID-19 wave that was first seen in Arkansas and Missouri and which went on to fuel record hospitalizations in Florida. In every state in the Northeast, daily hospital admissions are rising, according to the Department of Health and Human Services data. 

Leading indicators -- given that the rates of infection remain distinctly lower than those seen in early Delta-variant hot spots -- appear to suggest the region may crest before attaining Florida-like levels of viral prevalence. Nationwide however, cases remain projected to continue rising for several weeks. The original epicentre of the U.S. pandemic, New York city, has its effective reproduction number (Rt -- an estimate of how many new infections arise out of a single COVID carrier) indicating sustainable declines in case numbers may be approachable soon.

The Rt in Manhattan is estimated to have decreased to 1.0; and at such time that it falls below that level the expectation is that cases will decrease in the near future. The Bronx, Queens and Brooklyn have somewhat steeper Rt rates, revealed by covidestim, a project including representatives from Yale School of Public Health, Harvard's T.H.Chan School of Public Health and Stanford Medicine.

A record 5,048 new infections was reported two days earlier in Mississippi, signalling that the worst per capita outbreak in the country shows no signs of abating in a state with the nation's lowest vaccination rate. Mississip0i reported a record for deaths earlier in the week, with health officials reporting 20,000 students quarantined with the virus, or for exposure.

 

Francisco Rosales, 9, in the intensive care unit at Children’s Medical Center in Dallas, Texas. The day before he was supposed to start fourth grade, Francisco was admitted to the hospital due to severe COVID  AP

 

Florida is preparing to withhold funding from two school districts that have mandated mask-wearing for students, in defiance of an executive order signed by Florida Governor DeSantis barring facial coverings to be required.

"It is important to remember that this issue is about ensuring local school board members, elected politicians, follow the law."

"We cannot have government officials pick and choose what laws they want to follow."

Richard Corcoran, Commissioner of Education, Florida Department of Education

Breakthrough COVID Infections in Vaccinated

"Vaccines may slow spread -- yes. But many policies across [the] U.S. and elsewhere assume vaccines totally prevent spread."

"This leads to outbreaks among vax'd -- which ultimately erodes trust in the whole vaccine effort unless the expectations are set properly."

Michael Mina, epidemiologist, Harvard University

"In a lot of cases there may be a vast, historical context behind all these feelings and reasoning."

"When we look at the risks that come with being infected, all the data say getting vaccinated is your safest way to combating the virus. I think it's tough to argue right now at all against vaccination."

"We can't think of all of these people [the vaccine hesitant or reluctant] as being people who just read something on the Internet and they haven't decided the virus isn't real."

"We don't have that one specific marker that says, 'OK, you have X amount of this antibody so that gives you Y amount of years or months of protection'."

Jason Kindrachuk, virologist, University of Manitoba

What we don't want people to say is: 'All right, I should go out and get infected, I should have an infection party'."

"Because somebody could die."

Michael Nussenzweig, immunologist, Rockefeller University 

A Jerusalem health care worker prepares a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine designed to prevent COVID-19.  AHMAD GHARABLI/AFP via Getty Images

The most recent issue of the New England Journal of Medicine published a large new study out of Israel with the finding that while the Pfizer vaccine increases heart inflammation risk [three events per 100,000 vaccinated population], among people infected with the SARS-C0V-2 virus the risk becomes several-fold higher [11 cases per 100,000]. COVID infection as well was associated with a substantially increased risk of acquiring conditions or experiencing serious health impacts such as heart attack, blood clots and bleeding within the skull or brain.

Immunity, including protection against a breakthrough infection with Delta lasts longer following a natural infection as compared to immunity conferred by two doses of Pfizer, according to a preprint paper recently published, though no one is prepared to recommend COVID parties where groups of people gathering for the specific purpose of inviting infection to acquire a more robust immunity could conceivably lead to serious consequences, including death for some among the ill-informed and impetuous.

The coronavirus has had ample time to move within the global population where it continues to mutate and produce variants of concern, some acquiring increased transmission properties. Meanwhile, a study published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control this week, established that the effectivenss of mRNA vaccines such as Pfizer and Moderna decreased from 91 prcent to 66 percent in front line workers, once the Delta strain became dominant. Leading the CDC to advise that the trend should be interpreted with caution.

 

People line up outside Canada Place for their COVID-19 vaccination in Vancouver in late June. Data shows 'breakthrough infections' after full vaccination aren't common, and experts say that means vaccines are doing their job. (Ben Nelms/CBC)

 

"As time since vaccination increases", says the CDC, protection too might be declining. Vaccines on the other hand, remain effective controls against serious health outcomes such as hospitalization and death. At the same time, ongoing reports of diminished immunity and breakthrough infections are hugely worrying, becoming the driver for debate over enhancing protection against the virus through the expedient of a third, booster dose of vaccine.

Of 680 people in Israel, hospitalized as a result of COVID-19, 331 of the total had been fully vaccinated. People over 60 with heart disease, lung problems or other underlying health issues are primarily represented among cases of severe breakthroughs, according to a Reuters report. And then there is the issue of context, lost in the reportage on social media of highly vaccinated populations seeing rising breakthrough cases.

The proportion of vaccinated among the infected increases resulting from the vaccines' inability to provide full protection against contracting the virus simply because the number of vaccinated in the population is steadily increasing. Even so, severe cases of COVID are rare among the vaccinated. That breakthroughs occur results from the fact that no vaccine can completely inure against infection; they can, however, be relied upon to protect from more serious conditions resulting.

The lesson is that the level of immunity should be tracked. Although inoculation can't entirely prevent acquiring COVID, those who are vaccinated will be less infectious and able to clear themselves of COVID more expeditiously than can those who remain unvaccinated; they also acquire milder infections.

"The only people that are really at risk are the unvaccinated. And, in certain provinces, we're taking very serious steps to protect the unvaccinated by preventing their exposure to the virus and the vaccinated population."

"It's sad that we have to go to the extent to do that, to protect the unvaccinated. But that is what is necessary in this situation, until we get them vaccinated."

Eric Arts, professor of microbiology and immunology, Western University

MedPage Today

"Our Brothers, The Taliban"

Liberal MP Monsef briefing call.  Screenshot

"I want to take this opportunity to speak to our brothers, the Taliban."

"We call on you to ensure the safe and secure passage of any individual in Afghanistan out of the country."

"The Taliban are a terrorist group and yet they've claimed to be Muslims. We are calling on them, to immediately cease the violence, the femicide, the genocide, the rapes, the lootings and to return immediately to the peace negotiation table in an inclusive and meaningful way."

Liberal Member of Parliament, Maryam Monsef, Minister of Women and Gender Equality

This Minister in the Liberal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, speaks of 'we', the government of Canada's expectations of the Taliban to comport themselves in a civilized manner. While speaking of their exploits in the Islamist terrorism cycle of conquest, defeat and return ... while excelling in the sport of genocide, rape, looting, an fundamentalist group of Islamist diehards who have their place on many countries' list of terrorists, including Canada's ... as a 'brother'.

 

When Hamid Karzai was in power at the political helm in Afghanistan, he was often infuriated at U.S. bombing raids against the Taliban, deploring the killing of the terrorists who thought nothing of killing other Afghans, yet speaking of them as 'brothers'. A mere cultural courtesy, responded Maryam Monsef, when she was queried about her choice of words and her seeming sympathies. Canadian soldiers, a diplomat and a journalist were killed by the Taliban during their assignment in Afghanistan. None among them thought of the Taliban as 'brothers'.

 

Hamid Karzai, however, a member of the ethnic Pashtun tribe like most Taliban, is now in negotiation with the Taliban, his 'brothers'. Making an effort, he feels, to bring them to reason. That in their second time around as the newly re-installed Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, they might consider being less harsh in their administration of the country; as in no public floggings for offences such as men being clean-shaven, or women unescorted and not wearing burqas in public.

 

No impulsive beheadings, either. To consider, on the other hand, inclusiveness of the people of Afghanistan, treating all equally, the many different tribes and ethnicities. To achieve international recognition in moderation. To be vigilant that no other Islamist fundamentalist groups bitterly offended at the very existence of Western cultures and politics, seek to use Afghan soil as nurturing and launch-off spots for their terrorism-abroad plans to appease their rage and deliver more martyrs to the cause.

 

The Prime Minister of Canada saw fit to appoint a woman to ministerial posts whose cultural heritage was that of Afghanistan, a woman whose ethnic/cultural heritage has far more in common with her past, born in Iran of Afghan refugees who later returned with her to Afghanistan before finally leaving for the West -- to the ministry of Democratic Institutions. When she failed in that portfolio, she was shunted to the ministry of Women and Gender Equality.

 

Both choices incredibly inappropriate, but a reflection of Justin Trudeau's penchant for elevating ethnic minority candidates reflecting Canada's massive absorption of ethnic and cultural groups from all over the world who eventually form a voting bloc. That it might be wiser to allow immigrants to first immerse themselves in Canadian culture and values before bestowing on them the privilege of helping to administer the country's affairs plays second fiddle to reaping the vote.

 

Taliban fighters take control of Afghan presidential palace after the Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled the country, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Sunday, Aug. 15, 2021. Person second from left is a former bodyguard for Ghani. (AP Photo/Zabi Karimi)

 

The victorious Taliban whose swift return to power while brushing away any opposition the duly elected government or/and the national police along with the military initially proffered, are not in the habit of taking advice from mere women, much less from advice emanating from foreign countries, particularly one of no great reputation as a power broker. Evidently Maryam Monsef feels comfortable enough to address the terrorist group with the self-confidence of vainglorious conceit.

Even Hillel Neuer, director of United Nations Watch commented: "158 Canadian soldiers died fighting the Taliban. Thousands wounded, Taliban not our brothers." An Afghan refugee and political analyist, Zahra Sultani responded: "If you think ppl of Afghanistan -- even the most illiterate -- are OK with calling Taliban 'brother' and it's not a big deal, you're a bigot. Taliban is our enemy not our brother!"

"Our BROTHERS the Taliban. Just take a moment and think about what that means to our troops and allies who fought and died in Afghanistan over the last 20 years", wrote David Jacobs, a frequent Twitter commenter on the failings and absurdities of the Canadian government under Justin Trudeau. Unknown thousands of people, mostly Afghans desperate to escape Taliban rule in their country court death by crowding around the Kabul airport in a desperate effort to depart elsewhere. None seem to regard the Taliban as their 'brothers'.

Magnifying Grief

"Grief is a normal response to the loss of someone close, but traumatic losses may severely harm survivors for years."

"Our findings suggest that when treating trauma survivors, targeting symptoms of PTSD early might help them avoid complicated grief later on. Complicated grief has been defined as a persistent, intense yearning, longing and sadness, usually accompanied by insistent thoughts or images of the deceased and a sense of disbelief or an inability to accept the painful reality of the person's death."

"The fact that we found that PTSD symptoms predicted complicated grief reactions at a subsequent time point, but complicated grief did not predict the development of PTSD, is interesting because it suggests that targeting PTSD symptoms may hinder later development of complicated grief."

"This may have important implications for clinicians working with bereaved trauma survivors."

Kristin Alve Glad, researcher, Norwegian Centre for Violence and Traumatic Stress Studies

Terrified youngsters hid in the woods, with some jumping into the water to escape the hail of bullets.  AFP

A new study placed its focus on survivors of the terrorist attack that took place in Oslo, Norway, and on the nearby island of Utaya in 2011, when 77 people lost their lives. This event -- a shooting spree combined with a bombing -- represented the deadliest attack to take place in Norway since the Second World War. Published in the journal Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice and Policy, the research found symptoms of a more complex grief can intensify over time with the potential to prevent survivors from leading normal lives.

 

In most instances when people suffer a shocking loss such as the death of a loved one, the sorrow it brings tends to recede with the passage of time. However, those people who experience PTSD resulting from a traumatic event which directed involved/impacted them personally and that also claimed the life of someone near and dear, according to the study conclusions, may end up suffering from a persistent sense of sadness which leaves them with an inability to cope, years on.

 

A total of 275 people were interviewed for the study; of that number 256 had lost a close friend, six lost a family member, and thirteen lost a close friend and family member/partner. In face-to-face interviews conducted by health-care professionals on three separate occasions -- five months after the attack, 15 months later, and finally 30 months later -- participants were asked questions relating to symptoms of post-traumatic stress syndrome.

 

Other questions were asked with a view to revealing feelings of complicated grief; as example, those related to difficulty in accepting the loss, managing intense grief and coping with thoughts focusing on death. The researchers found that those who reported symptoms of PTSD to be significantly likelier to relay feelings of complicated grief; those who still felt the effects of PTSD a year following the event were seen to struggle with the most intense symptoms of this severe form of grief.

 

Survivors were seen to have taken on a particularly heavy toll of grief from the terrorist attack since while they lost loved ones, they were also participants in the traumatic event, the researchers found. Leading to the conclusion that the "dual burden" of unexpected loss in combination with high exposure to the event steered PTSD symptoms in the direction of complicated grief, not identified in those who were removed from the violence.

 

The hope is that this refined understanding of the relationship between PTSD and complicated grief may lead to assisting in the development of targeted therapies to be used in giving aid to survivors who have lost loved ones to unexpected trauma. 

Locals gathered boats near the island to try and help those jumping into the water to escape   AFP

A Tale of Two Outbreaks

 

"First there was one asymptomatic infection at the airport in Nanjing. The next day, there were more than a dozen. By the end of that week in July, daily infections had climbed to nearly 50, suggesting exponential spread across more than 1,000 kilometers. In less than three weeks, daily cases ballooned to more than 100, scattered across half of the nation. Then it ended, almost as quickly as it began. The number of infections dropped to single digits the next week amid tightening curbs, then zero. More testing will show if it has been vanquished."

"The blazing spread of the delta variant across the country became the biggest test of China’s COVID control model. Ultimately it penetrated nearly 50 cities across 17 provinces and reintroduced the virus to "Wuhan, which had been COVID-free for over a year."

Still, China eliminated the virus in about a month, roughly the same time it took to quell previous outbreaks including one at the start of 2021 that totalled some 2,000 cases. In comparison, cities in Australia have undergone repeated lockdowns, keeping more than half of the country’s 26 million people confined to their homes, without gaining control of the virus. In the U.S., which has never succeeded in containment, relying instead of vaccination, booster shots are slated to roll out next month to shore up protection against its delta resurgence."

Fortune magazine 

Waiting for Covid-19 testing in Nanjing. About 200 cases were reported in an outbreak centered on the city.   Credit...Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

"The vaccines that are currently approved by the WHO all provide significant protection against severe disease and hospitalization from all the variants, including the Delta variant."

"We are fighting the same virus but a virus that has become faster and better adapted to transmitting amongst us humans -- that's the change."

Mike Ryan, top emergency expert World Health Organization

At the end of July China suddenly found itself trying to control the most threatening COVID-19 outbreak it had been forced to confront in months in a return of COVID infections, thanks to the Delta variant. At the same time the United States plans to intensify its efforts to control the Delta strain believed on ample evidence to be more contagious than the original coronavirus.

 

An official lockdown was mandated for hundreds of thousands of people living in Jiangsu province when a cluster of infections was identified in its provincial capital of Nanjing. The infections were tracked to airport workers who had cleaned a plane arriving from Russia in late July. It took little time before infections were detected in Beijing and five provinces. By standards other than China's the number of infections were modest. But the speed of the spread was not.

Across China a total of 206 infections were linked to the original cluster which became the largest in the country geographically in several months. Two locally transmitted cases were found in Beijing's Changping district which spurred lockdown in nine housing communities with a total population of 41,000 people. At the same time a document from the U.S.Centers for Disease Control spoke of the Delta variant causing more severe illness than earlier variants, spreading as readily as chickenpox.

U.S. health officials, points out the document, must "acknowledge the war has changed", and be prepared to intensify efforts to halt the spread. The U.S. struggles to persuade Americans to become vaccinated and adapt to prevention measures like wearing face masks amidst surging cases -- and new research which suggests that those who are vaccinated can also spread the virus.

Three quarters of those who were infected with COVID-19 at public events in a town in Massachusetts had been fully inoculated against COVID. According to the study, vaccinated individuals reflected similar virus loads as those who were unvaccinated; unlike other variants, vaccinated people infected with the Delta variant are able to transmit the virus, the CDC revealed.

 

Authorities in China tested millions of people after an outbreak spread to 15 provinces   Getty Images

 

This realization caused the health agency to change its guidelines recommending that vaccinated Americans once again wear face masks where transmission levels are high. "Given higher transmissibility and current vaccine coverage, universal masking is essential", the document added. Local media reported most of those infected in Nanjing were vaccinated, a situation that led to questions of the Sinovac vaccine efficacy.

"If the goal is to slow down the spread and reduce the fatality rate, [Chinese vaccines] can afford a certain degree of protection", assured the leading Shanghai infectious diseases expert, Zhang Wenhong. The country's top disciplinary watchdog pointed a finger at the airport officials in Nanjing for "poor supervision and unprofessional management", in failing to separate cleaning staff working on international flights from those on domestic flights.

No fewer than 132 countries globally have detected the presence of the Delta variant, making it the dominant global strain, according to the World Health Organization. Over the past few months COVID-19 infections increased by 80 percent in most regions of the world, stressed WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. In Africa, where only 1.5 percent of the population has been vaccinated, infections rose by 80 percent in a few weeks.

"Hard-won gains are in jeopardy of being lost and health systems in many countries are being overwhelmed", he noted. WHO technical lead on COVID-19, Maria van Kerkhove, affirmed the Delta variant to be about 50 percent more contagious than the ancestral strains of SARS-CoV-2 that emerged first in late 2019, in Wuhan, China. The good news is that though hospitalization rates have increased, not so higher rates of mortality from the Delta variant.

If there is any irony here, it is that the country where the coronavirus first emerged and managed to bring it under control -- while it went on to infect the rest of the world -- had  to battle a more virulent strain brought in from abroad. And that same country's vaccines have proven to be less effective than vaccines produced elsewhere in the world scientific-medical community. Yet by strict lockdowns and allied measures, China has time and again brought COVID under control, while throughout the world the virus rages and measures of control lack efficacy.

Bioprinting Brain Tumours

"I would put 1,000 cells each on two petri dishes and treat one with a chemotherapeutic agent, The next day, or three days later, I expect to see the treated cells to be reduced to 10% of the original cells, while the control will continue to multiply every day."

“"It’s outrageous! And it means that something is wrong. I started to wonder. I got to the point of thinking that maybe we were working with the wrong cancer model."

"We found that this protein is responsible for a failure in the microglia, causing them to support rather than attack the deadly cancer cells, helping the cancer spread, However, we identified the protein in tumors removed during surgery, but not in glioblastoma cells grown on 2D plastic petri dishes in our lab."

"Each model is printed in a bioreactor we have designed in the lab using a hydrogel sampled and reproduced from the extracellular matrix taken from the patient, thereby simulating the tissue itself."

"The physical and mechanical properties of the brain are different from those of other organs, like the skin, breast or bone. Breast tissue consists mostly of fat; bone tissue is mostly calcium. Each tissue has its own properties, which affect the behavior of cancer cells and how they respond to medications."

"First, we tested a substance that inhibited the protein we had recently discovered, P-Selectin, in glioblastoma cell cultures grown on 2D petri dishes, and found no difference in cell division and migration between the treated cells and the control cells which received no treatment. In contrast, in both animal models and in the 3D-bioprinted models, which overexpress the protein, we were able to delay the growth and invasion of glioblastoma by blocking the P-Selectin protein."

"We had a lot of difficulties and challenges on the way."

"If we take a sample from a patient’s tissue, together with its extracellular matrix, we can 3D bioprint from this sample 100 tiny tumors and test many different drugs in various combinations to discover the optimal treatment for this specific tumor, Alternatively, we can test numerous compounds on a 3D-bioprinted tumor and decide which is most promising for further development and investment as a potential drug."

"But perhaps the most exciting aspect is finding novel druggable target proteins and genes in cancer cells – a very difficult task when the tumor is inside the brain of a human patient or model animal.”

"We have about two weeks [to] test all the different therapies that we would like to evaluate [on] that specific tumour, and get back with an answer -- which treatment is predicted to be the best fit."

Professor Ronit Satchi-Fainaro, Tel Aviv University, Israel

Microscopic image of the 3D-bioprinted glioblastoma model. The bioprinted blood vessels are covered with endothelial cells (red) and pericytes (cyan). The blood vessels are surrounded with a brain-mimicking tissue composed of gliblastoma cells (blue) and the brain microenvironment cells (green).    (photo credit: TEL AVIV UNIVERSITY)

"The more physiological mimicry you create, the better prediction you get in terms of how drug treatments will work on the actual tumour in the patient's body."

Ofra Benny, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

New research out of Israel, just recently published in the journal Science Advances, chronicled an advance in the treatment of brain cancer. Researchers made use of brain cancer patients' specific cells in a form of 3D printing material to produce a model of the cancer tumour which would enable them to test the efficacy of various possible treatments to assess them before making use of them within the patient's body.

A portion of the tumour would be extracted from a patient's brain who suffered from glioblastoma -- an aggressive cancer whose outcome is never too assured given its poor prognosis -- to make use of the extracted portion in printing a model matching MRI scans, explained Professor Satchi-Fainaro, leading the research team at Tel Aviv University.

Bioprinting: has been used in previous research simulating cancer environments, but according to the Tel Aviv University researchers' claim, they represent the first to print "viable" tumours. Should the printed tumour shrink, or be seen to lower metabolic activity against control groups, the treatment used is considered promising. 

 

In planning for surgery 3D printed tumour models have been printed. Recent innovations,  however have sought to focus on bioprinting with the use of live cells as a bio-guide to building up layers. According to Ofra Benny of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who herself leads research that is similar, the use of a patient's own cells to develop 3D tumour models could be "a game-changer" in the understanding and accuracy and success in treating these most difficult of tumours.

(Left to right): Eilam Yeini, Prof. Satchi-Fainaro and Lena Neufeld. (credit: TEL AVIV UNIVERSITY)

Aging Body Image

"These results are also consistent with theoretical work suggesting that women place less importance on evaluating the appearance of their bodies as they age, and that older adults may value body function over body appearance."

"Similarly to their female peers, aging men may value body functionality over body appearance, which in turn may buffer against appearance dissatisfaction." 

"The weights of contestants and winners of an American beauty pageant were found to persistently decline between 1958 and 1988. Similarly, Playboy centrefold models became increasingly slender between 1959 and 1988."

"[In recent years both men and women were exposed to the] fit [ideal of a slender muscular body shape which can also dent confidence when it eludes achievement]."

Body image study, Australia/New Zealand researchers

Fittingly enough the study and its conclusions on peoples' perceptions as they age of their body image and how important it is in their younger ages -- over time when physical enfeeblement and chronic health conditions turn minds away from image to sheer endurance -- saw publication in the journal Body Image. The researchers wrote of increasing 'body confidence' as men and women age, as opposed to conflicting 'body insecurity' through self-criticism when those same men and women were young and their focus was attaining the perfect body image in a reflection of society's image-conscious young.

The study concluded that once having attained to the age of 60 most people are more content (resigned) with the physical conformations of their bodies. Size, shape and appearance metrics all gain in satisfaction levels  in lock-step with aging, the later years blessed with the highest levels of self-assurance. This, according to data derived from over 15,000 test subjects. 

Women tended to exhibit the greatest degree of unhappiness with their natural bodily attributes aged between 19 and 24. By the time they reached age 60, they were more placid about how they appeared, and accepting to the point of contentment with what is. Men as well between ages 29 and 34 were less self-confident and more self-aware, a condition that diminished slightly from ages 44 to 49. On approaching their 60th birthday, male self-esteem gradually rose and continued to do so as they further aged.

Society's idealization of beauty and associated attractiveness is lodged squarely in nature's gift to her creatures, that appearance appeals, bringing the genders together for the ultimate purpose at the most basic level of existence, of procreation; it is what survival of the species is all about. And so anxiety about personal appearance is the translation of that elemental urge, the need to attract a member of the opposite sex. 

Pressure felt by both men and women to appear to have the perfect body image is responsible for the levels of self-confidence each attains, an emotional self-appraisal based on expectations gleaned from popular images of celebrities, models, athletes and entertainers who groom themselves to appear glamorous, fit and body-image-charismatic, serving symbolically as icons of perfection. 

Once both men and women reach maturity on the other hand, that same urge to perfection has mellowed to take a back seat to concerns over health and aging. The researchers from Australia and New Zealand polled 15,264 people between the ages of 18 and 94, assessing how satisfied they were with their body image, between 2010 and 2015. 

 

Body image satisfaction was given ratings on a sliding scale from one to seven. For women the average rating turned out to be 4.052, while for men it was 4.413. Men tended to have a more positive overall attitude of their bodies, seeing gradual improvement as they aged, while women's increase in body confidence as they aged was more emphatically dramatic.

Body satisfaction increases across the lifespan for men and women, a new study from experts in Australia and the University of Auckland in New Zealand reveals. But women specifically started to love their body around the age of 60

Using Your Brain At Work Works To Retain Its Function

"High cognitive stimulation jobs included senior government officers, other specialist managers, production and operations managers, social science and related professionals, directors and chief executives, and health professionals [excluding nurses]."

"Occupations with low cognitive stimulation were booking clerks, cashiers, agricultural, fishery and related labourers, transport labourers, mobile-plant operators, motor vehicle drivers, metal moulders, welders, sheet-metal workers, structural metal preparers, and related trades workers, textile-, fur- and leather-products machine operators."

“The levels of dementia at age 80 seen in people who experienced high levels of mental stimulation was observed at age 78.3 in those who had experienced low mental stimulation. This suggests the average delay in disease onset is about one and half years, but there is probably considerable variation in the effect between people."

Professor Mike Kivimaki,  University College London’s Institute of Epidemiology and Health Care

 

"This multicohort study of more than 100,000 participants suggests that people with cognitively stimulating jobs have a lower risk of dementia in old age than those with non-stimulating jobs."

"The findings that cognitive stimulation is associated with lower levels of plasma proteins that potentially inhibit axonogenesis and synaptogenesis and increase the risk of dementia might provide clues to underlying biological mechanisms."

Mega-study, published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) August 2021 

New research suggests that jobs that involve a lot of working with others, negotiating or mentoring are good for your brain's health. AP Photo/ Steve Ruark/File

"This new work is an important reminder to all in the specialty of dementia prevention that we can only go so far with intervention studies that are short, late, small, and include only people who are heterogenous in their risk profiles to reveal any benefit of mental enrichment on dementia risk."
"Carefully designed, large, population-based studies with long periods of follow-up that also aim to provide biological clues, can be an important addition to randomized controlled trials. Kivimäki and colleagues’ study is an outstanding example."

Serhiy Dekhtyar, Karolinska Institutet

 

"The general view has been that physical activity normally reduces the risk of dementia, just as another study from the University of Copenhagen recently showed that a healthy lifestyle can reduce the risk of developing dementia conditions by half."

"Here the form of physical activity is vital, though, says associate professor Kirsten Nabe-Nielsen from the Department of Public Health at the University of Copenhagen."

"Before the study we assumed that hard physical work was associated with a higher risk of dementia. It is something other studies have tried to prove, but ours is the first to connect the two things convincingly," says Kirsten Nabe-Nielsen, who has headed the study together with the National Research Centre for the Working Environment with help from Bispebjerg-Frederiksberg Hospital."

"For example, the WHO guide to preventing dementia and disease on the whole mentions physical activity as an important factor. But our study suggests that it must be a 'good' form of physical activity, which hard physical work is not. Guides from the health authorities should therefore differentiate between physical activity in your spare time and physical activity at work, as there is reason to believe that the two forms of physical activity have opposite effects," Kirsten Nabe-Nielsen says and explains that even when you take smoking, blood pressure, overweight, alcohol intake and physical activity in one's spare time into account, hard physical work is associated with an increased occurrence of dementia."

Science News, October 2020

Previously, research found that keeping one's brain active well into later life is the essential ingredient required  to fend off the cognitive decline that leads to dementia. Now, a new study has concluded that those with a mentally stimulating profession or work benefit by up to 25 percent over people whose cerebral power fails to be challenged in their workplace. This is an area of research that appears to have been under-researched in the past in studies on the decline of mental abilities.

Researchers involved in the study collected data on over 100,000 people who had participated in 13 different studies worldwide, with participants asked to rate how mentally stimulating they found their job to be, when the study began. The study then went on to track participants for an average of 17 years to determine whether any of them eventually developed dementia.

In people with active, stimulating jobs dementia was found to be 23 percent less common than their counterparts who worked in brain-passive professions, by the tracking researchers. Who determined that the incidence of dementia among those with a mentally taxing job turned out to be 4.8 per 10,000 person-years. While for the low-mental stimulation group, the level per 10,000 person years was 7.3.

Since it can take decades, adding up to tens of thousands of hours, the accumulated effect of cognitive workplace stimulation was seen to last "considerably longer" than any efforts undertaken with respect to cognitive interventions or exposure to cognitively stimulating hobbies. Workplace-cognitive-stimulation is more enduring, in other words than later efforts to compensate for lack of it.

Further adjustments were undertaken in recognition of a range of established dementia risk factors in childhood and adulthood, and taking into account potentially influential factors such as age, sex, educational levels and lifestyle. No differences were found between genders, or participants younger or older than 60. What was found however, was that the associative impact was more notable for Alzheimer's disease than for other types of dementia.

Scientists looked at more than 100,000 participants across studies from the UK, Europe and the US focused on links between work-related factors and chronic disease, disability and mortality. Photograph: Alamy

"This large, robust study adds to a body of evidence suggesting that staying mentally active is important for helping reduce the risk of dementia."

"Previous research has suggested that keeping the brain active can help build cognitive reserve, a type of resilience that helps the brain ‘rewire’ its connections more easily and keep working for longer when diseases like Alzheimer’s take hold."

"This new research also identified proteins in people’s blood plasma that may be connected to this process, and further research should investigate this finding in more detail."

"Not everyone is able to choose the type of work they do, but studies like this highlight the importance of finding activities that help keep the brain active, whether it’s through work or hobbies."

Dr Sara Imarisio, head of research, Alzheimer’s Research UK

Health Nutritional Index : Hotdog, Anyone?

"For example, we found that, on average, 0.45 minutes are lost per gram of any processed meat that a person eats in the U.S."

"The 61g of processed meat in a hotdog sandwich results in 27 minutes of healthy life lost due to this amount of processed meat alone. Then, when considering the other risk factors, like the sodium and transfatty acids inside the hotdog -- counterbalanced by the benefit of its polyunsaturated fat and fibres -- we arrived at the final value of 36 minutes of healthy life lost per hotdog."

Study, published in journal Nature Food

"The urgency of dietary changes to improve human health and the environment is clear."

"Our findings demonstrate that small targeted substitutions offer a feasible and powerful strategy to achieve significant health and environmental benefits without requiring dramatic dietary shifts."

Professor Olivier Jolliet, University of Michigan

"Previous studies have often reduced their findings to a plant vs animal-based foods discussion."

"Although we find that plant-based foods generally perform better, there are considerable variations within both plant-based and animal-based foods."

Katerina Stylianou, study lead author

 

Food and environmental experts at University of Michigan released a study, published in the journal Nature Food, focusing on a standardized method of assessing the carbon footprint and nutritional impact of close to 6,000 different foods. The method of calculation is set out by their Health Nutritional Index through which the health burden of a gram of food is calculated and scaled to a standard serving size. The study authors also wrote an article which was published in The Conversation, to explain their rationale, reasoning and recommendations.

Minutes -- it would seem of a lifespan -- can be extended when nutritional and problem-free foods are eaten, such as a portion of nuts which, according to the Index, adds close to 25 minutes. In the calculation process, a peanut butter and jam sandwich offers over half an hour of extra life. Really! According to the researchers a peanut butter and jam sandwich turned out the best example of food to extend lifespan, reflecting the high nut content; the nuts, the researchers adding, outweighing any negative aspect of consuming peanut butter.

A unique equation is attributed to each item of food so that studying the entries and their qualifications there is no requirement to commit to a wide dietary change, according to the researchers. Should a meat eater wish to replace ten percent of their daily calories -- 250 for men and 200 for women -- with nuts, fruits and vegetables instead of processed meat or beef, there would result a gain of 48 minutes of healthy life each time that exchange is committed to.

 

Eating a hot dog could cost you 36 minutes of healthy life, while choosing to eat a serving of nuts instead could help you gain 26 minutes of extra healthy life, according to a University of Michigan study.

 

And then there are the environmental benefits to be considered in following the recommended exchanges where an individual can reduce their daily dietary carbon footprint by a third. The purpose of scaling back problematic food and ramping up approved foods to fill the gap targets a healthy life expectancy; the length of time an individual can enjoy a good quality of life while remaining disease-free.

All aspects of a food product's life cycle, from harvesting, production, processing, consumption and waste disposal along with its nutritional value or detriments are taken into account through the Health Nutritional Index. Each food was given a traffic-light rating in the Index, where for example salmon scored well for nutrition adding 16 minutes to a healthy life, but failed for its environmental impact, therefore not recommended.

"The green zone represents foods that are recommended to increase in one’s diet and contains foods that are both nutritionally beneficial and have low environmental impacts. Foods in this zone are predominantly nuts, fruits, field-grown vegetables, legumes, whole grains and some seafood."

"The red zone includes foods that have either considerable nutritional or environmental impacts and should be reduced or avoided in one’s diet. Nutritional impacts were primarily driven by processed meats, and climate and most other environmental impacts driven by beef and pork, lamb and processed meats."

Michigan News, University of Michigan

As another example of a food good for health but problematic for the environment, Chili con carne with beans rates as well in that category. Yet there are some food consumers who will be pleased to see, riffling through the entries in the Index that cola, while deserving a red (fail) for nutrition, removing 12.5 minutes of life per drink, receives a green for environmental impact. 

• Decreasing foods with the most negative health and environmental impacts including high processed meat, beef, shrimp, followed by pork, lamb and greenhouse-grown vegetables.
• Increasing the most nutritionally beneficial foods, including field-grown fruits and vegetables, legumes, nuts and low-environmental impact seafood.

Eating a hot dog could cost you 36 minutes of healthy life, while choosing to eat a serving of nuts instead could help you gain 26 minutes of extra healthy life, according to a University of Michigan study.

Post-Vaccination Infectivity With Delta Contagion

"With Alpha [the original mutated SARS-CoV-2 virus, that emerged in Great Britain], people with two doses had really low levels of virus."

"When Delta started to come in, the first thing that happened was that the virus values went up and now we really don't see any difference in the amount of virus people get if they get infected after vaccination."

"Two doses are still protective, you are still less likely to get infected, but if you do, you will have similar levels of virus as someone who hasn't been vaccinated at all."

"But the fact that they [vaccinated individuals] can have high levels of virus suggests that people who aren't yet vaccinated may not be as protected from the Delta [originated in India] variant as we hoped ..."

"I suspect the higher levels of the virus in vaccinated people are consistent with the fact that unvaccinated people are still going to be at high risk."

Sarah Walker, professor of Medical Statistics and Epidemiology, University of Oxford

 

"While vaccinations reduce the chance of getting COVID-19, they do not eliminate it."

"[Our] data shows the potential for vaccinated individuals to still pass COVID-19 on to others and the importance of testing and [self-isolation]."

Dr.Koen Pouwels, senior researcher, Nuffield Department of Population Health, Oxford University

DERBY, ENGLAND - APRIL 09: Sonia Akbar administers the AstraZeneca aka Oxford Covid-19 vaccine to a patient at a pop up vaccination centre. (Photo by Nathan Stirk/Getty Images)

Now we know that fully vaccinated people while acquiring a large measure of immunity to the coronavirus once inoculated, may still carry a risk of communicating the virus to others if they are infected with the Delta strain, because though their own risk levels are immensely reduced, they retain a high level of communicable virus, comparable to the load that the unvaccinated who contract COVID-19 carry.

 

There was a  hope nourished by experts in the field that the two vaccine doses comprising the full vaccination process would result in a significant reduction of the viral load that people who become infected carry with them, thus effectively lowering risk of passing the disease on to others. Past studies indicated that vaccinated people who went on to contract the Alpha variant picked up a lower viral load than did people who were unvaccinated and contracted the Alpha strain.

 

The Delta variant, now globally considered a 'strain of concern', altered that reality, a new study by Oxford University revealed. The Delta variant, while being far more communicable than the Alpha strain also has the effect of reversing load reduction of the virus seen with the Alpha strain. With Delta, even those who are fully vaccinated go on to carry high virus levels if infected, and become likelier to be symptomatic as opposed to vaccinated individuals who contracted an Alpha infection.

 

It appears, from these study results that people who are fully vaccinated may pass on the virus to others, as readily as those who are unvaccinated. The brighter perspective is that when vaccinated, people are less likely to be infected with the virus, to begin with. 

 

Dr.Walker, chief investigator and academic lead for the COVID-19 Infection Survey, is not entirely certain whether transmission would be as steep resulting from the high viral loads with the vaccinated since having been vaccinated the tendency is for them to clear the virus mores swiftly, so they are infectious for a shorter period of time than the unvaccinated.

 

According to a large study published in The BMJ, two doses of the Pfizer vaccine endowed a 97 percent protection level against coronavirus death occurring in nursing home residents.

"It’s actually quite dramatic how the growth rate will change,” says F. Perry Wilson, MD, a Yale Medicine epidemiologist, commenting on Delta's spread in the U.S. in June. Delta was spreading 50% faster than Alpha, which was 50% more contagious than the original strain of SARS-CoV-2, he says. “In a completely unmitigated environment—where no one is vaccinated or wearing masks—it’s estimated that the average person infected with the original coronavirus strain will infect 2.5 other people,” Dr. Wilson says. “In the same environment, Delta would spread from one person to maybe 3.5 or 4 other people.”

“Because of the math, it grows exponentially and more quickly,” he says. “So, what seems like a fairly modest rate of infectivity can cause a virus to dominate very quickly.”

Yale Medicine

People queue to receive a dose of the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine at the Central Middlesex Hospital in London, Britain, August 1, 2021. REUTERS/Henry Nicholls