Category Archives: Transhuman News

English naturalist Charles Robert Darwins seminal book On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection went to press in 1859. That was 40 years before the concept of viruses was introduced to the world of science by Russian botanist Dmitri Ivanovsk. It took another century for viral researchers to decipher the genetic make-up of these infectious agents, to find out how they replicate and spread disease.

Darwin shunned and ridiculed after the publication of his book would probably be amazed to know that viruses such as the Covid-19 are considered living evidence of his theory of evolution.

If Charles Darwin reappeared today, he might be surprised to learn that humans are descended from viruses as well as from apes, British microbiologist Robin Weiss wrote in the journal Retrovirology. He was referring to fragments of retroviruses close cousins of the coronavirus found in the human genome.

These fragments are the fossils of a number of killer viruses, including several novel reassortments of influenza or coronaviruses that ravaged humans on a large scale in the past. These so-called endogeneous retroviruses (ERVs) are actually trophies of ancient molecular battles between viruses and their human hosts one which the humans eventually won. Some 8 per cent of human DNA represents fossil retroviral genomes, pointed out Weiss in his seminal research paper in 2010.

When competing groups of scientists in different parts of the world fully mapped the human genome in 2003, they found something they had never anticipated: bits that have no known function. Many scientists termed these seemingly inert shards junk DNA that littered our bodies. In the following decade, however, geneticists realised that some of those bits were actually endogenous retroviruses, fossils of defeated viruses that managed to invade our bodies but were disabled by our immune system. In Darwinian terms, in the struggle for existence our immune system got better of them and there was survival of the fittest through natural selection. Instead of getting buried as mineralised relics, these viruses reside within our DNA as bits of genetic code carrying records of millions of years but forever disabled, with no power to make us sick.

The discovery of the human genome as a living document of ancient and now extinct viruses prompted the emergence of a new field called palaeovirology. Two of its proponents, Michael Emerman and Harmit S. Malik, at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, US, define palaeovirology as the study of extinct viruses (called palaeoviruses) and the effects these agents have had on the evolution of their hosts. In other words, indirect evidence of these viral fossils can help reconstruct the past and offer clues on how to fight emerging viral epidemics or pandemics.

Malik grew up in Bombay and studied chemical engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology there. He studies evolving proteins and the genetics of evolutionary conflict embedded in the molecules, which has helped him uncover previously unrecognised sources of conflict.

As a pioneer palaeovirologist, Malik is fascinated by the constant battle being waged between humans and viruses for hundreds of thousands of years. In the course of his study, he found telltale imprints in our genome that narrate the story of how viruses infected our cells, how sometimes we have fought back by changing our protein and how sometimes viruses evaded them to get an upper hand. This evolutionary cat-and-mouse game has shaped our defence against viruses.

Palaeovirologists have also studied how similar viruses have attacked our close relatives, the primates chimpanzees and gorillas and compared how we have fared in these battles. For instance, the virus that leads to to the killer disease Aids in humans does not have much of an effect on chimps. What makes chimps relatively immune to this scary virus? Malik and Emerman found the clue to this mystery in an endogenous retrovirus called Pterv found in chimps (and other apes) but not in humans. They surmised that the retrovirus may have infected both humans and chimps about 4 million years ago. We learnt to stave off the virus while the chimps were hit by an epidemic. A gene called Trim 5 alpha is believed to have helped humans make a protein to purge the virus.

Malik and his colleagues reconstructed a part of the Pterv through computer modelling and found that while Trim 5 alpha helped us prevent the entry of the virus, it made us vulnerable to the HIV virus that causes Aids. However, the monkey version of the gene helps protect the apes from HIV and Aids. They concluded that if we can develop a therapy based on the Trim 5 alpha protein, it could defeat HIV. Research on drugs based on such evolutionary principles, however, is few and far between

Scientists have been studying several resurrected palaeoviruses like Pterv through evolution-guided reconstruction procedures. In 2005, researchers at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), reconstructed the influenza virus that caused the 1918-19 flu pandemic, which killed as many as 50 million people worldwide. According to CDC, the research provides new information about the properties that contributed to its exceptional virulence. The natural emergence of another pandemic virus is considered highly likely by many experts, and therefore insights into pathogenic mechanisms can and are contributing to the development of prophylactic and therapeutic interventions needed to prepare for future pandemic viruses, says a CDC release.

The rapid evolution of viruses and emergence of the new coronavirus Covid-19 has once again shown that viruses evolve by the same means as humans. Many of these viruses hop from animals to humans and evolve, swapping genetic material in and out of respective genomes. Thats why we can have immunity to a virus weve had in the past, but get seriously affected by one our body has never seen before.

Somewhere, Darwin must be feeling vindicated that his theory is so starkly exposed in a viral machinery.

Read more:
The human DNA is littered with fossils of viruses past that attacked us. And lost - Telegraph India

Canadian researchers are developing a DNA vaccine not just for SARS-CoV-2, the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19, but also for all the other viruses of the coronavirus family. This vaccine, if successfully developed, will be effective against all coronavirus-related diseases from the past, present and the future.

Entos Pharmaceuticals, a health-care biotechnology company headed by a University of Alberta researchers, has developed a new therapeutic compounds using the company's proprietary drug-delivery platform, and has begun manufacturing vaccine candidates against the novel coronavirus.

"Given the urgency of the situation, we can have a lead candidate vaccine within two months. Once we have that it's a race to get it into clinical trials," said John Lewis, CEO of Entos and a Professor at the University of Alberta in Canada.

Lewis said in comparison to a traditional vaccine, DNA-based vaccines hold several advantages.

Nucleic acids are introduced directly into the patient's own cells, causing them to make pieces of the virus, and thereby tricking the immune system into mounting a response without the full virus actually being present, the researcher said.

According to the company, the approach is recognised as being easier to move into large-scale manufacturing, offers improved vaccine stability, and works without needing an infectious agent.

In the current absence of a vaccine for COVID-19, several companies around the world are mounting efforts to begin similar work.

The first clinical trial using a DNA-based vaccine developed by Moderna Inc. in the US was on March 13. Their approach allows for antibodies to be made in the human trial volunteers against a specific protein on the surface of the coronavirus that lets the virus enter human cells. The hope is that the antibodies will stop the interaction.

Though this approach is designed to be effective against COVID-19 specifically, Lewis said Entos is taking a different track. The company plans to use plasmid DNA to amplify the production of key coronavirus surface and structural proteins with each injection, with an eye to the bigger picture.

"Many of the structural proteins in the virus are pretty well conserved across all the coronaviruses, including SARS and MERS," said Lewis.

"We're hoping that if we express more of the structural proteins that are common to most coronaviruses, we can inhibit the current COVID-19, and also potentially protect against all coronaviruses both past and future," Lewis added.

To move the project forward quickly, the company is seeking financial support from both provincial and federal levels of the government. "We have the opportunity to save a lot of lives, and I think it's really upon us and governments to find solutions for that," Lewis said.

Excerpt from:
Canadian Researchers are Attempting to Develop One DNA Vaccine to Stop All Coronaviruses - The Weather Channel

A COUPLE in their 90s returned to their home in Cork city to find that an intruder had smashed his way in through a bedroom window and left a bloody towel at the scene after him.

Judge Olann Kelleher said it was awful that a couple of this age had to deal with something like that at this late stage in their lives.

Detective Garda Robert McCarthy said the blood at the scene of the crime was forensically examined and the DNA analysis linked it to Kenneth Duggan of 65 Ballinderry Park, Mayfield, Cork.

Duggan was jailed at Cork District Court for ten months in respect of this burglary and two six-month sentences for other burglaries, those sentences made consecutive to the ten months, leaving him with a total jail term of 16 months.

Shane Collins Daly, defence solicitor, said the accused had pleaded guilty to three burglaries at the earliest opportunity. He also cooperated with the garda investigation into the crimes.

Sergeant Gearid Davis said the accused had 128 previous convictions including 38 counts for carrying out burglaries and five for theft.

Det. Garda McCarthy said the couple in their 90s returned to their home on August 29 last and noticed that a bedroom window had been broken.

The house was not ransacked but it had been disturbed by the intruder and a bloodstained towel left at the scene. The burglar appeared to have cut himself while smashing the window and getting in to the house.

As well as the DNA match for Kenneth Duggan there was video evidence from a neighbours CCTV.

The elderly householders presented a victim impact report to the court through the investigating officer but this was not read out in court. Judge Kelleher read the statement.

Also on that date at another Mayfield address at Iona Park, Duggan was forcing the backdoor when the householder was alerted by the noise. Duggan fled the scene without getting anything.

Earlier on August 16 he turned up at the home of a woman in her 70s. The householder returned home to find someone had broken in through a kitchen window and stolen 1,000 worthy of jewellery. The woman lives alone in the house in the Silverheights area.

Link:
DNA from bloody towel leads to conviction of Cork city burglar - Echo Live

"The city looks as if it has been built to withstand foul weather" J. B. Priestley

Looking at Manchester's Royal Exchange, it can be difficult to remember a time when the theatre was not the powerhouse it is today. Transformed by Sarah Frankcom during her time as artistic director, the space is a hub for creativity with younger and more diverse audiences than at any point in its history. Most importantly, the Exchange's reputation for superb theatre remains as strong as it has ever been.

Like other venues around the country that have been forced to shut their doors, the Exchange now faces a period of uncertainty. Last week the theatre closed its stages until autumn, suspending the world premiere of Winsome Pinnock's Alfred Fagon Award-winning play Rockets and Blue Lights and the return of their acclaimed 2019 West Side Story production.

The venue is relying on the generosity of the public in these troubling times but as bleak as things appear, this is a plight that can be endured. Triumph in the face of adversity is not only ingrained in the history of Manchester but in the Royal Exchange's DNA as well.

15 June 1996 is remembered by some as the day that Paul Gascoigne sparked England's Euro 96 campaign with a wonderful goal against Scotland at Wembley but in Manchester it is recalled for different reasons. The Exchange itself had been due to open their revival of Stanley Houghton's play Hindle Wakes but events 50 metres down the road that morning would change the face of the city and its theatre.

A bomb attack carried out at 11:17 by the IRA caused around 700 million worth of damage and decimated Manchester's centre. The 1,500 kilogram device that detonated remains the largest explosion in Britain since WWII and over 200 people were injured. Being in close proximity to the bomb, the damage incurred by the Exchange was appalling the theatre's famous glass domes were shattered and the building was flooded in the aftermath. Like many businesses within the blast radius, the venue was forced to close immediately and all creative work on site was halted.

Despite this tragedy, the theatre company was determined not to allow events that day to bring an enforced end to their existence and over the next two years, they found a temporary home in Castlefield whilst refurbishment on the building could begin. Thanks to fundraising and public generosity, as well as a 32 million pound donation from the National Lottery, the repaired venue was able to open its doors once again on 20 November 1998. Twenty nine months after it was supposed to have been staged, a performance of Hindle Wakes celebrated the opening of the new space the Royal Exchange had miraculously survived.

The theatre currently finds itself in a different storm to twenty-odd years ago. In contrast to the very visible damage wreaked by a bomb, the coronavirus has emptied the nation's theatres without dislodging a single brick. Yet the Exchange can take great solace from how their audiences have responded to crises in the past. Resilience and defiance are needed now more than ever.

For donations to the Royal Exchange, please visit their website.

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Coming back from a crisis is in theatre's DNA just look at the Royal Exchange - WhatsOnStage.com

It encompasses everything from dealing with the aftermath of collisions on the roads and rescuing people from rivers, to responding to medical incidents and suicide attempts.

Crews here and across West Yorkshire could be called upon to deal with building collapses, hazardous materials, flooding and much more. And, of course, there are the animal-related rescues that give rise to the well-worn jokes about days spent rescuing cats stuck up trees.

The Yorkshire Evening Post continues its Your Right to Know campaign this week with a look at the statistics for non-fire incidents tackled by West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service.

The latest figures show that the service responded to 2,995 non-fire incidents during 2018/19, an increase of 20 per cent since 2014/15.

Deputy Chief Fire Officer Dave Walton told the YEP: As we are named firefighters, there can be the misconception that all we do is fight fires when really the role is so much more than that. No two days in the job are the same and our crews have to be prepared for a huge range of possible calls.

We also keep the community safe in less dramatic ways by fitting smoke alarms and educating people around fire safety.

Our firefighters truly are multi-skilled, and were constantly training using the latest skills and equipment to keep the people of West Yorkshire safe.

It is no surprise that firefighters are joining colleagues across the emergency services, the NHS and beyond to support the fight against coronavirus. They will help as needed with tasks ranging from driving ambulances to delivering food and medicine to those self-isolating.

Chief Fire Officer John Roberts said: Its part of a firefighters DNA to provide help during difficult times so we are pleased to support this way of working together with our fellow emergency services.

We are already working at the heart of our local communities, and trained in things like driving emergency vehicles and responding to critical situations so we are well placed to deliver these additional tasks to help protect the most vulnerable.

But he stressed these additional duties would be on top of the services usual role in keeping West Yorkshire safe.

Id like to assure the public that fire cover remains a priority for us as a service and we will continue responding to all core emergencies, such as fires and road traffic collisions, he said.

Road traffic collisions were the most frequent non-fire incidents during 2018/19, with 614 recorded the equivalent of nearly 12 per week.

This was followed by 389 requests to gain entry to a property and 270 calls to support other agencies. There were also 255 lift releases, 122 animal rescues, 84 flood-related calls, 77 medical incidents and 44 water rescues.

The latter require a response from specialist water teams, such as those at Leeds Fire Station where crew manager Frank McNeil, inset, is based.

Mr McNeil: Its the training more than anything else that separates us. We have our own personal protection dry suits and personal flotation devices.

Were trained to self-rescue. If we do find ourselves in trouble in fast water as were performing a rescue and get stuck, were trained to swim ourselves out of danger, if you like.

Getting an accurate location can be among the first challenges.

Where somebody goes in, it doesnt necessarily mean its where theyre going to be when the crew get there, he said. The most important thing is to get us out first, its getting us on the way. The last thing we want is somebody else trying to go in to rescue someone and getting into difficulty themselves.

Non-fire incidents in 2018/19

614 road traffic collisions

Read more here:
'It is part of a firefighter's DNA to provide help during difficult times' - Yorkshire Evening Post