Achilles’ heel poked
An antibody from a SARS patient back in 2003 is shedding light on how antibodies might bind to Covid-19. A group in California showed precisely where the antibody – CR3022 – attached to SARS-CoV-2, highlighting a possible vulnerability.
Air quality boost for India
Air pollution kills 1.25m people in India every year. India’s capital New Delhi has the worst air pollution of any capital city. However, air pollution has dropped dramatically as a result of lockdown to control coronavirus.
Covid opportunity for India
Indian drug companies think the current coronavirus crisis could be a boost for India’s bulk drug manufacturing companies and an opportunity to again become a preferred active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) supplier of pharma products for the world.
Harder than diamonds
More than 100 years ago, telephone inventor Alexander Graham Bell developed strong, yet lightweight kites based on a lattice arrangement of triangular cells and tetrahedra. Fast forward to the present day, and inventors are using similar principles in the fabrication of nanolattice materials – lattice structures composed of nanoscale constituents.
Japanese drug for Covid
In mid-March 2020, Chinese minister Xinmin Zhang reported that Japanese drug favipiravir was effective in treating Covid-19 patients. Administered under the brand name Avigan, the drug was developed by Toyama Chemical, now owned by Fujifilm.
Oxford vaccine promise
A Covid-19 vaccine trial under way at the University of Oxford will recruit 510 volunteers, who will receive the new vaccine or a control vaccine for comparison. Healthy individuals aged between 18 and 55 are now receiving the vaccine jab in initial Phase 1 trials.
Science briefs
Researchers at the Graduate Schools of Engineering and Science at the University of Tokyo, Japan, have developed a new fluorinated cyclic phosphate solvent (TFEP) electrolyte as a safer alternative for the ethylene carbonate (EC) currently used in Li-ion batteries.
US Particulates Ruling
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced it will not strengthen standards for particulate matter pollution, against the recommendations of independent experts and EPA’s own scientists.
Vulnerable organs
Initial reports of infection with the Covid-19 virus (SARS-CoV-2) focused on the lungs and pneumonia caused by severe infection. But increasingly there are reports that other organs, such as the heart and kidneys, are also affected.