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Category: biotech/medical – Page 1,888

This Japanese face mask translates into eight languages

When the Covid-19 pandemic made face masks an everyday essential, Japanese startup Donut Robotics spotted an opportunity. They created a smart mask — a high-tech upgrade to standard face coverings, designed to make communication and social distancing easier.

In conjunction with an app, the C-Face Smart mask can transcribe dictation, amplify the wearer’s voice, and translate speech into eight different languages.

The cutouts on the front are vital for breathability, so the smart mask doesn’t offer protection against the coronavirus. Instead, it is designed to be worn over a standard face mask, explains Donut Robotics CEO Taisuke Ono. Made of white plastic and silicone, it has an embedded microphone that connects to the wearer’s smartphone via Bluetooth. The system can translate between Japanese and Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Indonesian, English, Spanish and French.

How a DNA Test Machine Mutated to Find Covid in 90 Minutes

A small DNA-testing company that just months ago was trying to get its footing in consumer genetics is now part of an effort to make U.K. hospitals safer during the pandemic.

The company, DnaNudge, won a 161-million pound ($211 million) order for 5,000 machines and a supply of cartridges to test patients for the new coronavirus in hundreds of the National Health Service hospitals.

Bill Gates-backed vaccine alliance raises $8.8 billion from world leaders and businesses

Governments and business leaders pledged $8.8 billion on Thursday to a vaccine alliance backed by the Gates Foundation.

The money was raised at the Global Vaccine Summit, hosted by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, with funds going toward global vaccine alliance Gavi’s efforts to immunize children amid the coronavirus crisis.

The funding was raised at a U.K.-hosted summit, which saw world leaders pledge billions of dollars to global vaccine alliance Gavi.

Covid-19 is turning skeptical doctors into telehealth believers

“When I first heard [of these startups], I thought this was going to be bad for the field,” Ramasamy tells Inverse. “This is going to be a disservice to our patients. And more importantly, I thought there was going to be some harm involved on the patient side.”

Direct-to-consumer telehealth companies aim to provide accessible, speedy, stigma-free care for everything from erectile dysfunction to herpes — without a physical exam. However, troubled by the risks of mistakes and misdiagnoses, as well as privacy breaches, some physicians and patients have been skeptical.

Then Covid-19 hit. In a pandemic that makes a visit to the doctor riskier than ever before, telehealth has seemingly come to the rescue, promising efficient care from the safety of home.

Tick-borne bunyavirus causing fever, hemorrhages spreading in China: Everything we know so far

tech2 News Staff Aug 07, 2020 13:06:46 IST

While new cases of the novel Coronavirus are still popping up in China, the country is facing yet another potentially contagious viral infection. This time, it’s jumping from ticks to people.

According to a report by Global Times, cases of the Severe Fever with Thrombocytopenia Syndrome (SFTS) virus first appeared in April and since then more than 37 people in East China’s Jiangsu Province have contracted with the virus and 23 people were found infected in East China’s Anhui Province. As of 6 August, around seven people have died from the infection.

Listeria protein provides a CRISPR ‘kill switch’

Could find the coronavirus kill switch and shut it off then let the immune system eat the remainder.

A single protein derived from a common strain of bacteria found in the soil will offer scientists a more precise way to edit RNA.

The protein, called AcrVIA1, can halt the CRISPR-Cas13 editing process, according to new research from Cornell, Rockefeller University and the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center published in the journal Science July 3.

“We’re expanding our scientific toolbox to effectively use a CRISPR without causing side effects,” said co-author Martin Wiedmann, Ph.D. ’97, the Gellert Family Professor in Food Safety and director of Cornell’s Food Safety Laboratory and Milk Quality Improvement Program. “Thanks to this bacterium, we’re getting a chance to turn off and on our ability to make changes to RNA.”

Sanofi, GSK Pursue COVID-19 Vaccine Trials with $2.1B from “Warp Speed”

Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) will be awarded up to $2.1 billion by the U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Defense (DoD) toward development and manufacturing of the recombinant protein-based COVID-19 vaccine being produced by the companies, they and the U.S. government said.

HHS and DoD are providing the funding as part of Operation Warp Speed—the program through which President Donald Trump’s administration has committed the nation to delivering 300 million vaccine doses protecting against SARS-CoV-2 by January 2021.

“The portfolio of vaccines being assembled for Operation Warp Speed increases the odds that we will have at least one safe, effective vaccine as soon as the end of this year,” HHS Secretary Alex Azar II stated.