Medical Discovery News
Science permeates everyday life. Yet the understanding of advances in biomedical science is limited at best. Few people make the connection that biomedical science is medicine and that biomedical scientists are working today for the medicine of tomorrow. Our weekly five-hundred-word newspaper column (http://www.illuminascicom.com/) and two-minute radio show provide insights into a broad range of biomedical science topics. Medical Discovery News is dedicated to explaining discoveries in biomedical research and their promise for the future of medicine. Each release is designed to stimulate listeners to think, question and appreciate how science affects their health as well as that of the rest of the world. We also delve into significant biomedical discoveries and portray how science (or the lack of it) has impacted health throughout history.
Medical Discovery News
COVID Origins
956 COVID Origins
Welcome to Medical Discovery News. I’m Dr Norbert Herzog.
And I’m Dr. David Niesel
Despite the charged politics around the origins of the COVID-nineteen pandemic, scientists continue to search for the answer.
Two sources of the SAR-CoV-two virus have been suspected: the Wuhan Institute of Virology and a wet market in Wuhan where live animals were for sale.
Health experts could only speculate since the Chinese government didn’t allow scientists to collect data from either location.
But recently a Coronavirus expert at the Wuhan lab finally presented data in Japan that suggests none of the viruses from the laboratory are the ancestor of SARS-CoV-2.
It refutes the accusation that the lab either intentionally or accidentally leaked the virus. Researchers there had been collecting coronaviruses from bats to study which presented pandemic threats.
They began the work after an earlier SARS virus sickened people in early two thousand. That one had leaped from bats to civet cats to humans through a wet market.
The latest presentation revealed that an analysis of the genomes of over fifty new coronaviruses collected between two thousand four and two thousand twenty-one showed nothing implicated the lab.
And samples from the Wuhan market showed an intermingling of SARS-CoV-2, raccoon dog and human DNAs which points to an animal source for the infection.
As more evidence is found, we’ll know what happened. Future pandemic prevention and responses may depend on it.
We are Drs. David Niesel and Norbert Herzog, at UTMB and Quinnipiac University, where biomedical discoveries shape the future of medicine. For much more and our disclaimer go to medicaldiscoverynews.comor subscribe to our podcast. Sign up for expanded print episodes at www.illuminascicom.com
