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Two new studies by researchers in Tel Aviv University and Harvard University on the subject were published in the journal Nature Biomedical Engineering on Monday.

Organs-on-a-chip were first developed in 2010 at Harvard University. Then, scientists took cells from a specific human organ — heart, brain, kidney and lung — and used tissue engineering techniques to put them in a plastic cartridge, or the so called chip. Despite the use of the term chip, which often refers to microchips, no computer parts are involved here.

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Drexel University researchers have reported a method to quickly identify and label mutated versions of the virus that causes COVID-19. Their preliminary analysis, using information from a global database of genetic information gleaned from coronavirus testing, suggests that there are at least six to 10 slightly different versions of the virus infecting people in America, some of which are either the same as, or have subsequently evolved from, strains directly from Asia, while others are the same as those found in Europe.

First developed as a way of parsing genetic samples to get a snapshot of the mix of bacteria, the genetic analysis tool teases out patterns from volumes of genetic information and can identify whether a virus has genetically changed. They can then use the pattern to categorize viruses with small genetic differences using tags called Informative Subtype Markers (ISM).

Applying the same method to process viral genetic data can quickly detect and categorize slight genetic variations in the SARS-CoV-2, the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19, the group reported in a paper recently posted on the preliminary research archive, bioRxiv. The genetic analysis tool that generates these labels is publicly available for COVID-19 researchers on GitHub.

The lungs are ground zero for COVID-19, but blood clots may play a surprisingly big role in severe illness.

Expert Systems and Sociometrica analyze the sentiment of 63,000 social media posts each day to … [+] determine the emotional state of the internet in response to COVID-19.

Lab tests show potential of gene-spreading strategy to fight plant diseases.

New discoveries have raised the possibility of exploring dino genetics, but controversy surrounds the results.

Washington (AFP) — The wealthy Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation called Wednesday for global cooperation to ready COVID-19 vaccines for seven billion people, while offering $150 million toward developing therapeutics and treatments for the virus.

While it is likely to take as many as 18 months to develop and fully test a safe coronavirus vaccine, global authorities and businesses need to start now on plans to manufacture it, said foundation chief executive Mark Suzman.

“It’s normal to have, at maximum, hundreds of millions of doses manufactured,” he said.

Just like a virus hijacks your cells and forces them to churn out more copies of the virus, this vaccine is expected to automate the production of those particles, which B-cells and T-cells — the biological hunter-seekers of the immune system — can use to ready themselves to fight the real-deal coronavirus.

The main difference between this sort of DNA-based vaccine and a traditional one, Slavcev told Futurism, is that it relies on the person’s cells to create the mock virus instead of merely exposing them to an inert version of the real virus.

“Personal genetics only has to do with how the vaccine is presented,” Slavcev told Futurism, regarding the decision to develop a DNA-based vaccine. “There is some variation between individuals and populations, but in this case the DNA is just to improve immune response and make it mimic a viral infection as closely as possible to stimulate the most effective immune response.”

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With psilocybin on the cusp of becoming a clinically validated and approved medicine, scientists are exploring new ways to produce the chemical without needing to grow magic mushrooms or relying on costly synthesis techniques. A team of Danish researchers has presented a novel method of producing the psychedelic chemical using common yeast.

“It’s infeasible and way too expensive to extract psilocybin from magic mushrooms and the best chemical synthesis methods require expensive and difficult-to-source starting substrates,” explains Nick Milne, an author on the new study published in the journal Metabolic Engineering. “Thus, there is a need to bring down the cost of production and to provide a more consistent supply chain.”

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