Can Robots Help Stop The Spread Of The Ebola Virus?

Even though the worse is over but global health policymakers warn the dangers of a reemergence, can robots help health workers stop the spread of the dreaded Ebola virus? 

By: Ringo Bones 

As of late, epidemiologists recently found out that the Ebola virus strains that affected Liberia and neighboring countries in Africa had somehow mutated. Given that by only stopping the further spread of the dreaded Ebola virus is the only viable way to prevent it from further mutating, would robots in conjunction with health workers help stop the spread of the Ebola virus? 

Back in November 2014, three leading U.S. robotics universities and the White House got into a meeting to discuss if they can design a new batch of robots that could lessen the risks of health workers’ exposure to the Ebola virus. One idea presented by Worchester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Massachusetts is to avoid designing new robots from scratch because it involves a huge investment in time and money that governments around the world in search of ways to control the spread of the dreaded Ebola virus cannot currently afford. Rather, WPI says existing robots should be repurposed on Ebola specific tasks. The other universities involved in the discussion are Texas A&M and the University of California, Berkeley.   

One of the robots WPI has begun repurposing into an Ebola virus decontaminating robot is the AERO or Autonomous Exploration Rover. It was originally designed for space exploration but is now being converted to help with decontamination work by adding decontamination sprayer tanks and sprayers to its body. The idea is that a health worker will be situated safely outside an Ebola virus contaminated area and would control most of the hazardous decontamination work remotely. “We’re trying to pull the workers further away from the disease,” says Velin Dimitrov, a robotics engineer and Ph.D. candidate. “Ebola doesn’t (yet?) spread through the air, so if you can tele-operate a robot from just outside, it reduces the risk to workers”. WPI’s team hopes to deploy AERO in conjunction with other Ebola virus decontamination robots like the Baxter automotive assembly robot now repurposed as an Ebola virus decontamination robot and scores of former bomb disposal robots that are formerly used to disarm IEDs in Iraq to help with the decontamination efforts in West Africa. 

Can We Grow Vaccines And Other Pharmaceuticals As Crops?

Even though it has been hyped as one of the benefits of genetic engineering, can we soon grow vaccines and other pharmaceuticals like crops in an economically viable manner? 

By: Ringo Bones

If Prof. Henry Daniel has his way, we would all be soon growing our vaccines and other pharmaceuticals as easily as we crow corn and other cash crops. For some years now, Prof. Daniel of University of Pennsylvania has been growing an experimental batch of genetically modified lettuce that could eventually lower the cost of dosage of vaccines from hundreds of dollars a batch to produce to pennies per batch. A 1-acre greenhouse could produce 350 million doses of plant based vaccines using Prof. Daniel’s method.

 Other benefits of genetically modified crops that are infused with oft needed pharmaceuticals – i.e. pharming – is that soon we can manufacture insulin inside a plant cell that can be viably used as orally taken insulin tablets. Orally taken insulin tablets were experimented in the mid 1980s via artificially grown protein crystals that are grown in the weightless conditions of low earth orbit during NASA’s Space Shuttle program, but with a lack of a “cheap” way to create these specialized protein crystals, orally taken insulin research was eventually abandoned as “not economically viable”. 

Prof. Henry Daniel joined the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine back in 2013 is a molecular biologist with a focus on plants, pursued basic science research after earning his biochemistry Ph.D. from Madurai Kamaraj University in his native India. Yet he began to think differently about his work upon recognizing what he perceived as a human-rights injustice: the sky-high costs of medications taken for chronic or lengthy illnesses. 

“Interferon, a common anti-cancer drug, for example, costs $30,000 to $40,000 for a four-month treatment, and a third of the global population earns $2 or less a day” Daniel says. “To me, there is something morally not right about that. If you have something that saves lives, you have an obligation to make it available to everyone.” 

Prof. Daniel’s outside of the box thinking has turned lettuce leaves into drug delivery systems, with results that have the potential to make disease treatment and prevention to most of the global population. Now at Penn, Prof. Daniel is working to take his plant based medicine platform from the lab to the clinic and to begin saving lives. 

Prof. Daniel’s platform addresses a shortcoming in vaccine production, because vaccines contain pathogens – even if they are killed or inactivated – they must be refrigerated to ensure that the organisms don’t reproduce and pose threats to people receiving the inoculations. So if Prof. Daniel “sidesteps” the cold chain problem of vaccine production and distribution by “genetically manipulating” plants to become room temperature vaccines. 

Plants have several properties that lend themselves well to producing and carrying biomedical molecules in the body. First, their cells are totipotent, in other words, all the different tissues of a plant can be grown starting from a single cell in a culture dish. This characteristic enables scientists to make modifications to one plant cell and from that grow a plant to which every cell has those modifications. 

Plant cells also have fibrous walls made of cellulose which cannot be broken down by human enzymes, though they can be digested by microbes that reside inside in the gut. This feature enables therapeutic proteins produced inside plant cells to travel partway through our digestive systems before being released in the intestines, where they can disseminate into the bloodstream. 

In addition, because plants are commonly consumed as foods, most people won’t be allergic to them as they might to some synthetically produced drugs that are based on egg proteins – to which a substantial number of people are sensitive to. And finally, plants can easily be grown; Prof. Daniel has reported that just an acre of genetically modified tobacco plants, for example, could produce enough anthrax vaccine / anti-toxoid to immunize every person in the United States. And it was a batch of genetically modified tobacco plants that produced the first truly effective anti-Ebola cure – ZMapp. 

Since developing the concept of a plant based vaccine in the 1990s, Prof. Daniel has methodically tested each step – from introducing proteins into a plant to designating molecular tags to direct the protein from the gut into the bloodstream or immune system, to harvesting and freeze-drying the specially engineered plants in capsules. Animal studies have shown this platform’s power. In 2012, Prof. Daniel and colleagues published a paper in the Journal of Plant Biotechnology describing the creation of lettuce plants engineered to express a protein that stimulate the pancreas to produce insulin. Mice fed capsules of the freeze-dried material produced insulin and had normal sugar levels in their blood and urine, the appearance of a fundamental cure for diabetes. What’s more, the capsules could be stored at room temperature for as long as 15 months and still retain their potency. Similarly, a 2010 publication in the journal PNAS demonstrated the ability to block severe immune reaction and death in hemophilic mice. Prof. Daniel’s lab has also developed oral vaccines against cholera, malaria, anthrax and the plague. 

Can Over The Counter Pharmaceuticals Cause Dementia In Older People?

Dementia may be just a fancy word for insanity, but do some popular over-the-counter pharmaceuticals cause such problems in older people? 

By: Ringo Bones 

In a recent preliminary study of how commonly available over-the-counter pharmaceuticals can affect older people, it has been found out that there is a statistically significant rise in dementia of older people using quite common over-the-counter drugs like some popular antihistamine anticholinergic drugs like Benadril and some tricyclic antidepressants like sertraline or mirtazapine. Most of the pharmaceuticals causing the increased dementia risk are found out to be older formulations – developed back in the 1950s or so – of common over-the-counter drugs.     

Common treatments for insomnia and hay fever are also linked to a statistically significant rise in the dementia incidences of older people using such drugs over a long period of time, as in regularly taking these drugs for 3 years or more. But the U.K.’s National Health advises older people not to panic and quit their meds abruptly, whereby causing more heath problems as a result. Many of them are advised to consult their General Practitioners to switch them to newer formulations if they are currently taking older formulations of antidepressants. 

People of all ages are also advised to update their current meds to newer formulations if they are currently taking older formulations of antidepressant medication. This incident reminded me on when Duke University pharmacologist Dr. Mohamed Abou Donia discovered that the anti nerve gas medication Pyridostigmine Bromide issued during Operation Desert Storm causes the so-called Gulf War Syndrome if troops taking Pyridostigmine Bromide uses Deet – a common mosquito repellant. And during the mid 1990s, Dr. Mohamed Abou Donia also found out that some asthma inhalers causes Gulf War Syndrome like symptoms if asthmatics using these inhalers are exposed to common lawn pesticides.   

Can Sound Be Used To Assess One’s Brain’s Health?

Though it may seem counter intuitive from the layperson’s perspective, but can sound be used as a brain analysis tool?

By: Ringo Bones 

It is now a well-accepted physiological fact that one of the serious side effects of brain disorders is impaired hearing. That fact was put to work by Arnold Starr and two other researchers from the University of California at Irvine, who developed a way to make use of psycho-acoustical hearing impediment to locate disorders in the brain. Would such a method prove to be a very useful new diagnostic tool - as in using sound as a brain analysis tool -  to assess how healthy one’s brain is? 

The procedure is begun by placing electrodes on the patient’s scalp and earlobes. A series of loud clicks is then sent in rapid succession through earphones worn by the patient. As the nerve impulse generated in the inner ear by each click travels through the brain circuitry, it is detected by a super sensitive tracking system, isolated from each other activity in the brain by a computer and recorded. The result is a graph whose peaks represent the activity level at seven critical relay points along the auditory route. If there is brain damage near a relay point, that peak will be missing. In a person of normal hearing there would be no missing peaks, therefore showing negative results for brain disorders. 

The system has several advantages over other methods of diagnosis: it does not require the patient to describe what he or she hears – or even to be conscious during the procedure. But most important, says Arnold Starr, Irvine’s chief of neurology and one of the developers of the technique says that “for the first time we can get information from the depth of the brain, and with a procedure that takes about four minutes.”   

Ebola: The Savior of the American Tobacco Industry?

With the tobacco sourced ZMapp as the leading reliable candidate for stopping the current Ebola pandemic, has Ebola inadvertently saved the embattled American tobacco industry? 

By: Ringo Bones

With the recent 23-billion US dollar lung cancer settlement of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco and the anti-tobacco use campaign of former US Surgeon General C. Everett Koop during the Reagan Administration, making the conclusion that the American tobacco industry is currently embattled may be a bit of an understatement. But with the current Ebola pandemic sending fear and panic to the world’s global public health policymakers, could Ebola not only save the embattled American tobacco industry because of ZMapp – the current tobacco sourced sole reliable cure for Ebola – but might make the American tobacco industry a prospective leader in the global healthcare industry?  

As of late, the second-largest tobacco company in the United States – the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company – is currently paying the widow of a lung cancer victim a settlement worth 23 Billion US dollars, which, at present, is the largest court-approved wrongful death settlement payout. Add to that the increasing legislation of “generic packaging requirements” of brand-name cigarettes replete with graphic picture warnings of how deleterious tobacco cigarette smoking can be to ones health, it’s a no-brainer that America’s leading tobacco firms, and probably the rest of the world, are now probably hard at work retooling their company’s image and future outlook. But will the current Ebola epidemic, ironically, thrust America’s and the rest of the world’s leading tobacco companies into the healthcare and pharmaceutical business? 

Though negotiations between the top brass of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company and Prof. Charles J. Arntzen, Ph.D. – the inventor of the Ebola cure ZMapp while working at Mapp Biopharmaceutical.Inc. – is probably yet to happen or yet to get the press coverage it rightfully deserves, it is now a well-known fact that the tobacco plant derived ZMapp is, at present, the most effective and most economically viable to produce cure for Ebola. Thanks to Professor Arntzen “toying with the tobacco mosaic virus – the virus that causes the tobacco mosaic disease – during the last eight years that was originally intended as a cure for cystic fibrosis, the genetically modified tobacco sourced ZMapp has recently proved its worth for saving the lives of Ebola infected healthcare volunteers Dr. Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol. 

From the global pharmaceutical industry’s perspective, even though Ebola the disease was discovered back in 1976, the search for a cure / vaccine was never pursued with the current fervor because only a handful people got affected by the disease in the extremely remote parts of Africa and the unfortunate Ebola sufferers at the time died before they managed to infect other people. In short, making an Ebola vaccine / cure back in 1976 is considered not economically viable by the world’s pharmaceutical industry. Even though the next batch of ZMapp are yet to be “pharmed” from the next harvest of genetically modified tobacco plants, the “competing” Ebola vaccine that has a planned 3,000 doses for 2015 has an effectiveness that is still in question in comparison to ZMapp.

Will MERS Ruin This Year’s Hajj Pilgrimage?

Will an emerging viral disease ruin this year’s Hajj proceedings?

By:Ringo Bones 

Even though it was discovered near the end of 2012, Saudi authorities were criticized for its delayed handling of MERS – Middle Eastern Respiratory Virus – which is also prevalent across the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, etc. and now threatens to disrupt the 2014 Hajj pilgrimage. Given the relatively “silent” spread of the virus, it was only as recently as July 2013 that the structure and histology of the MERS virus was fully documented.

Caused by a coronavirus called MERS-CoV which in humans will result in severe acute respiratory illness, symptoms of which includes cough and shortness of breath and in the advanced stages of the disease results in severe pneumonia and kidney failure. About 30 percent of people confirmed to have MERS-CoV infection have died. As of the middle of September 2014, there are 855 cases of MERS-CoV worldwide and 333 deaths so far. The virus was traced back to camels, but the way Middle Eastern public health authorities “downplayed” the urgency of the risk of the virus – which was way cavalier in comparison to the way public health authorities in East Asia handled the 2003 SARS coronavirus outbreak – resulted in the sacking of various health officials that included the health minister of Saudi Arabia which was personally sacked by HRS The King of Saudi Arabia himself for downplaying the risk of the MERS outbreak since 2013.

Due to the recent public health revamp, hospitals in Saudi Arabia has since taken more sensible precautions to avoid inadvertently spreading the MERS-CoV virus by having their nurses and other medical personnel to wash with disinfectant soaps before seeing other patients while doing their rounds on suspected MERS virus infected patients. Due to the increased urgency, Prof. Tariq Madani – the Saudi government’s scientific advisor on MERS recently spoke to the BBC back in the middle of September of 2014 that even though they still currently know very little of the MERS-CoV virus, safeguards are already implemented to avoid the spread of the virus during the upcoming Hajj pilgrimage in Mecca which is slated to greet a little over 2-million pilgrims this year. And Saudi Arabia’s acting health minister Adel Bin Muhammad Fakeih are urging camel merchants on the outskirts of Jeddah to take the necessary precautions on wearing masks and gloves when handling their camels. Though the camel merchants across the Middle East are still adopting a cavalier attitude when it comes to taking the necessary precautions against the MERS virus.

Even though Saudi Arabia’s public health authorities are doing the best they can to tackle the current MERS outbreak, the world narrowly averted a similar pandemic of a relatively unknown virus that was killing horses and their trainers in Australia during the mid-1990s. Back in September 1994, health authorities in Australia were worried. More than a dozen prize racehorses at the Hendra stables, outside of Brisbane in Australia’s northeast, were ill, running temperatures of up to 41 degrees Celsius. The animals had difficulty breathing and were emitting a bloody froth from their mouths and noses. Some began to die a ghastly, wheezing death. Within days, the worst fears of the public health authorities were realized: both the trainer and his stable-hand had collapsed, also suffering from respiratory problems.

The symptoms matched those of the African horse virus, or of equine influenza, both of which could spread from the Hendra stables and wreak havoc across Australia. But the infection of the two men raised another, more sinister possibility – that the health authorities were dealing with an unknown organism not only fatal to horses, but also capable of affecting humans as well.

Samples of horse spleen, lung and blood were sent to the Australian Animal Health Laboratory in Geelong – an imposing concrete structure outside Melbourne that houses one of the world’s most advanced infectious disease centers. Blood samples were from the two infected men were also rushed to the infectious diseases “hot labs” of Melbourne Fairfield Hospital and to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.A.

Electron microscopy later revealed that the virus grown in the media had similarities with a large family of viruses called Paramyxoviridae, which includes measles, canine distemper and a then newly identified disease first seen to affect seals back in 1994, But it had an array of protrusions like no other paramyxovirus and no Paramyxoviridae are known to cause serious disease in both horses and humans. Not long after, scientists in Brisbane also isolated a virus which matched that found by the Geelong group. Sadly though the trainer died and equine morbillivirus still flare up time and time again in that region, the virus’s relatively high fatality rate seems to be its own containment mechanism that prevents equine morbillivirus from becoming a global pandemic.