It has been over half a year since Covid-19 swept across the world and forced many countries into quarantine. Hopes of a quick resolution of the disease in many countries have since been, unfortunately, proven to be wrong, and it is evident that the virus is here to stay for a while [1]. The virus is so difficult to deal with considering it can be transferred from person to person even if the carrier does not outwardly display symptoms. Even animals, ranging from mice to tigers, can contract and transmit it to humans [2, 3], and we cannot quarantine or force them to wear facemasks. The virus will eventually hit each person; it is just a matter of time. The virus may additionally arrive in multiple waves, as it is possible to be reinfected [4]. COVID-19 will most likely have a lifespan of a few years, much like other major virus outbreaks of the past such as the swine flu in Hong Kong or Spanish flu. It will probably come and go like a common flu in never ending waves. So, each of us need to be ready until a successful vaccine is developed, and the wisest action for each person to be ready would be to boost our immune systems and practice effective social distancing and sanitation measures, while we deal with this virus for however long it may last.

Vaccines are critical for stunting the development and spread of viruses; however, they can be costly, time-intensive to develop, and not always perfect. It is worth exploring alternative methods to help protect our bodies from these pathological invaders while vaccines are being researched. As it so happens, the best method of prevention to date for HIV infections is not a vaccine, but is instead a tradition that is as old as thousands of years: male circumcision [5]. To give a comparison, the current widely popular and heavily promoted influenza vaccine is considered “50% effective against influenza B/Victoria viruses and 37% effective against influenza A(H1N1)” [6]. On the other hand, according to an article published in the prestigious medical journal, The Lancet, circumcision is up to 88% effective in preventing heterosexual transmission of HIV [7]. Male circumcision does not have any medicinal side effects, and the only risks that are involved are those related to any minor surgery – bleeding and infection.

In the 1980s, when I first heard of HIV, I remember reading articles which claimed, quite arrogantly, that vaccines and cures for the condition would be found within two or three years [8]. Forty years later, and after spending many billions of dollars on research, we are still nowhere near an HIV vaccine. At best, we found treatments which helped keep the HIV virus at bay [9]. To date, only two people have been fully cured with a method far too expensive to be applied to the general public [10]. In the meantime, at least 30 million people have died with more than half a million in the year 2019 alone [11]. While vaccines are critical for helping to eradicate viruses, putting all of our eggs into that basket alone can be a risky public health strategy due to how difficult and time consuming they are to discover, verify, and distribute. It is impossible to know for sure how long it will take to develop a vaccine for the coronavirus. In the meantime, communities should heavily consider following the instructions of their local health officials which often include social distancing, limited size gatherings, and frequent hand washing as these methods are already proven to help reduce the spread of the virus.

Development, and even the rushed development of a vaccine, is always a very tedious and dangerous process. The science behind them is exceptionally complex, and imperfect results can have disastrous consequences upon thousands of people. This is further complicated by the fact that phase 2 and phase 3 trials can have quite diverging results [12]. In the USA, AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine trials were stopped after trial participants fell ill [13]. Third phase trials, which encompass thousands of people [14], still can give little indication of the long-term side effects to any vaccine. Besides, even though there is human life at risk, the vaccine has already become an instrument for many political and economic disputes and conspiracy theories. Some governments claim they have already developed a vaccine, while others find them unreliable, or try to lure a foreign company to work for themselves [15]. In August of this year Russia rushed registration of an unproven Coronavirus vaccine and named it, in Cold-War-like fashion, the “Sputnik V” [16]. The announcement was made by none other than Vladimir Putin himself. It was offered to the USA, but was rejected due to safety concerns stemming from a belief that the drug was not adequately researched and developed [17]. In the meantime, Russia announced the development of a second vaccine [18]. Surely enough, it was dismissed and downplayed by the West as unproven and unreliable. On the other hand, a vaccine developed by a Chinese company Sinovac proved to be the most successful in its phase 3 trials in Brazil [19]. Sao Paulo Governor João Doria purchased 47 million shots of the vaccine. However, the transaction was stopped, arguably for political reasons, by the Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro [20]. Bolsonaro’s comments when rejecting the purchase of the Sinovac vaccine on the basis that “the Brazilian people will not be anyone’s guinea pig” are not totally without merit. Recalls of “proven and tested” vaccines have happened in the past [21].

It is important for all people to continue exploring methods to develop their immune systems and prevent the spread of the virus while we wait for a vaccine. In an article I had previously published, I discussed the benefits of fasting, vitamin C, and Wim Hof breathing methods to help protect the body from disease [22]. All of these methods are well known and quite benign with respect to side effects, however they are unable to cure Covid-19 or prevent its spread. Additionally, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) has heavily stressed practices included social distancing and the wearing of non-ventilated face masks. Our hope is that going above and beyond to protect ourselves and our neighbors will give scientists the time that they need.

One way of giving that time to scientists is fasting. Fasting, like circumcision, is a tradition that is thousands of years old. In recent studies, a three-day water fast has been shown to reset the immune system of elderly people to the level of a twenty-year old’s [23]. At this current level of emergency in the world it would be very easy to find thousands of willing volunteers to trial monthly three-day water fasts and/or to take extra doses of vitamin C, not as a cure, but as a shield against COVID-19. This kind of study would not pose much risk and would definitely be very cost-effective. We could dive straight into the third phase of trials, for any side effects of fasting are already well known. And finally, if proven effective, its uptake by the population at large would be basically cost free and readily available across the whole world.

Our world has been enduring a difficult and challenging period for the better half of a year now. Time has given us the ability to learn more about the virus, how it disrupts our bodies, and how it spreads. This knowledge has, in turn, allowed us to research it and develop effective social guidelines for limiting its spread. Still, there is much work to be done. Hysteria and haste are not conducive to producing a vaccine that is thorough, effective, and efficient. It should be the responsibility of every able-bodied citizen to do what they can to learn more about how they can protect themselves from the virus and thus prevent it from spreading even more while we wait for a vaccine.

1. https://www.wuky.org/post/beshear-next-few-weeks-will-be-critical#stream/0
2. https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2020/09/03/coronavirus-deer-mice-spread/
3. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/daily-life-coping/animals.html
4. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7326402/
5. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(99)03421-2/fulltext?_eventId=login
6. https://www.aafp.org/news/health-of-the-public/20200226interimfluve.html
7. Halperin, D. T., & Bailey, R. C. (1999). Male circumcision and HIV infection: 10 years and counting. The Lancet, 354(9192), 1813-5. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(99)03421-2
8. https://www.immunology.org/publications/bsi-reports/60-years-immunology-past-present-and-future/the-hunt-for-hiv-vaccine
9. https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/basics/livingwithhiv/treatment.html
10. https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/2nd-person-cured-of-hiv-thanks-to-stem-cell-transplant
11. https://www.unaids.org/en/resources/fact-sheet
12. https://www.fda.gov/media/102332/download
13. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/09/09/covid-vaccine-astrazeneca-trial-hold-what-does-mean/5757590002/
14. cancer.org/treatment/treatments-and-side-effects/clinical-trials/what-you-need-to-know/phases-of-clinical-trials.html
15. 15 https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/15/world/europe/cornonavirus-vaccine-us-germany.html
16. https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/11/21363135/russia-coronavirus-vaccine-unproven-registration
17. https://www.techtimes.com/articles/251792/20200814/covid-19-us-says-no-to-russias-vaccine-sputnik-v-saying-theyll-never-use-it-on-monkeys-let-alone-people-vietnam-and-philippines-say-otherwise.htm
18. https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/russia-approves-2nd-virus-vaccine-early-trials-73614460
19. https://fortune.com/2020/10/20/covid-vaccine-china-brazil-testing-ground-safest-most-promising-sinovac/
20. https://apnews.com/article/virus-outbreak-brazil-state-governments-health-sao-paulo-b7b5b620ba54f402dbf803e26fe6b842
21. https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/concerns/recalls.html
22. https://medium.com/@arasweb/surviving-the-pandemic-370b47120d8d
23. https://news.usc.edu/63669/fasting-triggers-stem-cell-regeneration-of-damaged-old-immune-system/

Agrochemical control of plant water use via engineered abscisic acid receptors
Park et al. Nature, February 2015.

A recent breakthrough study reported that scientists successfully engineered drought-tolerant plants by adding a new piece of DNA to their genomes. Crops and many types of plants are increasingly challenged by hostile environmental conditions such as globally warming temperatures and diminishing water sources. Plants have very small openings called “stomata” that let carbon dioxide in and oxygen out. Each stoma is surrounded by two guard cells that control opening and closing using osmotic pressure. During daytime, the stomata lets plants allow carbon dioxide in and oxygen out. Since the air around the leaves is often drier than inside, water molecules also move out through the stomata – a process called transpiration. Under the stress of drought, plants produce a hormone called abscisic acid (ABA). When ABA is released, it makes guard cells close the stomata and in turn keeps the plant from losing the water. Scientists previously thought that if they could spray ABA on a whole field, plants would survive a drought. However, since ABA is very expensive and highly sensitive to light, this strategy never became an option. Then, scientists decided to take the commonly used fungicide mandipropamid and genetically engineered the plants to respond to mandipropamid as if it were ABA. By adding a new piece of DNA into genomes, plants ended up having slightly different ABA receptors, which can be efficiently activated by mandipropamid.  Researchers tried this approach on two different plants: tomatoes and Arabidopsis. When mandipropamid was sprayed, genetically engineered plants stopped transpiration, and hence were able to survive for 12 days without water. The next challenge is to test this strategy in real world crops. This approach potentially opens new avenues for crop improvement that could highly benefit a growing world population.

3D Vaccines to Cure the Cancer

Injectable, spontaneously assembling, inorganic scaffolds modulate immune cells in vivo and increase vaccine efficacy
Kim J et al. Nature Biotechnology, December 2014.

Cancer is a devastating disease.  The World Health Organization (WHO) predicts that global cancer incidence rates will grow by nearly 60% to 22 million cases per year over the next two decades. The effective cure for cancer has not been developed yet, mostly due to its ability to escape the body’s immune system. Unlike infectious reagents like bacteria and viruses, cancer cells are actually our own cells that are broken and misplaced; they cause trouble as they grow. Scientists have been trying hard to develop vaccines that activate the immune system to recognize tumor cells as foreign and attack them. In a recent study, scientists reported that they designed a “3D vaccine” to effectively provoke the immune system to fight cancer. The 3D vaccine is composed of many microsized, porous silica rods submersed in liquid, where any combination of tumor antigens and immune-stimulating reagents can be loaded into.  Once the 3D vaccine is injected under the skin, it forms into a dime-sized scaffold that creates an “infection-mimicking microenvironment.” The scaffold then attracts the dendritic cells that patrol the body for harmful pathogens. When the scaffold was tested in mice, it showed over a 90% survival rate in animals that would normally die from lymphoma within 25 days. Further analyses in mice showed that the 3D vaccine can recruit, house, and manipulate immune cells to initiate a powerful immune response against cancer. As much as the discovery is promising, one should keep in mind that much more evidence will be required to establish 3D vaccines as a feasible way of combating human cancer.

Smoking Shrinks the Brain

Cigarette smoking and thinning of the brain’s cortex
Karama S et al. Molecular Psychiatry, February 2015.

Smoking is regarded as the single most preventable cause of disease, disability, and death. Past studies strongly linked smoking to cancer and lung diseases. A recent study now shows that smokers have a thinner brain cortex than non-smokers. The cortex is the outer brain layer in which critical cognitive functions such as memory, language, and perception take place. It is well known that the cortex becomes thinner with normal aging and cortical thinning is associated with cognitive decline and dementia. The study found that smoking accelerates this thinning process. Researchers analyzed brain MRI scans of 244 males and 260 females with an average age of 73, around half of whom were former or current smokers. Participants who had given up smoking for the longest time had a thicker cortex compared with those who had given up recently. Researchers cautiously suggest that the cortex might regain some thickness once smokers quit but the recovery is very slow and incomplete. For example, heavy smokers who had quit more than 25 years before still had a thinner cortex.

Original Article: Cranford, S.W. et al., Nature 482, 72 (2012).

Spider silk has been a symbol of durability and strength, but the role the design of a web plays or contributes to the strength was unknown. Researchers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology discovered that the impressive design of web and the feature of silk allow spiders to build a super-strong web under different levels of stress. The response of spider silk subjected to load was studied. They studied webs of a variety of species, including European garden spiders and orb weavers, and combined their experiments with correlated web models. At low stress, silk threads soften and extend that result in retaining web structure. At high stress, the silk threads extend and the most stretched ones break. The strength of the silk and the geometry of the web allow only one or two threads being broken under strain. Therefore, the break in the web is minimized and prevents destruction of the whole web. The localized web damage can be repaired by the spider and therefore a requirement for rebuilding the web completely is eliminated. This study shows that spider silk web is very stable even under hurricane winds. This research gives an idea to engineers to build a system that will fail only at small parts of the system under certain stress. Therefore, the system will continue to work just after repairing the destroyed parts of the system. Otherwise, the whole system may be destroyed under potential load and will have to be rebuilt. For example, when a building is exposed to large mechanical stress such as an earthquake, it may be destroyed as a whole and become dysfunctional. Applications on such systems require further research in engineering to achieve structures as stable as a spider’s web.

2- Benefits of Exercise Through a Protein

Original article: Bostrom, P. et al., Nature 481, 463 (2012).

Exercise has a number of beneficial effects in human health such as increasing cardiovascular, respiratory and metabolic capacity. Scientists at Harvard Medical School have discovered a muscle hormone, Irisin, which may be responsible for the many beneficial effects of exercise. Irisin secreted from muscle after exercise and act on white adipose tissue that stores energy. Excessive amounts of white fat cells contribute to many pathologic effects of obesity and diabetes. Irisin, however, converts white fat into the more beneficial and metabolically active brown fat, which burns more calories and produce heat instead of energy. It helps to prevent excessive glucose and fatty acid accumulation in the body. The researchers demonstrated that mildly increased Irisin levels in the blood cause an increase in energy expenditure in mice with no changes in movement or food intake. It also reduces body weight and improves glucose tolerance and obesity induced insulin resistance. This research suggests that Irisin can be a new therapeutic target in human metabolic diseases treatment. Also it could help people lose weight and fight against obesity induced problems such as diabetes and hypertension.

3- New Generation Vaccines with High Efficacy

Original Article: Avci F.Y. et al., Nature Medicine 17, 1602 (December 2011).

Most pathogenic bacteria contain complex carbohydrate structures on their surfaces. These carbohydrates are called capsular polysaccharides. “Glycoconjugate” vaccines are prepared by chemical conjugation of capsular polysaccharides with proteins. This method is the standard design for many vaccines that protect us against common diseases such as pneumonia and meningitis. One drawback with these vaccines is their limited efficacy in populations such as the elderly, children and patients with compromised immune systems. Researchers at Harvard Medical School and Rockefeller University have designed and synthesized a vaccine that is about 100 times more potent than traditional vaccines available today. Until now, the scientific community believed that the body’s professional immune cells, called T-cells, were only able to recognize vaccine’s protein molecules to generate an immune response. However, after studying how glycoconjugate vaccines stimulate immune response, the researchers found that T-cells are also able to recognize the carbohydrate molecules. In a series of elegant experiments, they demonstrated that there is a repertoire of T-cells that can recognize the carbohydrate portion of a glycoconjugate vaccine, and that these T-cells stimulate antibody producing B-cells to generate high affinity antibodies against the carbohydrates. Based on the knowledge obtained from this mechanistic study, researchers have designed a new-generation glycoconjugate vaccine and showed that this new vaccine was about 100 times more immunogenic than a vaccine made by traditional methods.

4- Producing Fuel from Waste with Bacteria

Original Article: Bokinsky, G. et al., PNAS 108, 19949 (December 2011).

It turns out, the secret for alternative source for oil might be hidden in a very common bacterium and plant, E coli and switch grass. As the world’s natural resources are quickly exhausted by humans, new energy sources or alternative energy production methods are needed. One popular way for addressing this question is promoting biofuels. Most of the biofuel source is in ethanol form, often produced from sugar that is extracted from sugarcane and corn. However the consuming of main food sources for energy sources begs a question: What if one day feeding the machines with our food sources makes food scarce? Another concern is that many countries are not using ethanol as an energy source. All these led researchers to pursue another idea: Instead of using food sources as precursor for ethanol, non-food biomass or bio-waste can be converted to precursors for biofuels by utilizing the cellulose or hemicellulose as a starting material. Human body cannot digest cellulose. Hence, cellulose is a bio-waste, which can be broken down into sugar using a mixture of enzymes and subsequently can be used for gasoline production. The enzymes for this procedure can be produced by bacteria in massive amounts. To this end, researchers genetically engineered Ecoli bacteria to consume large amount of cellulose from switch grass and convert it to sugar. Scientists achieved to produce different precursors for different fuels, including gasoline, diesel or jet fuel with bacteria. These are big steps in turning bio-waste into fuels. Imagine one day your plane will be powered with a hay of switch grass and a bottle of bacteria. Next time when you fly over a field of switch grass, you might actually be seeing the next oil well.

So-called ‘new’ viruses most probably derive from existing viruses; in general, viruses of today have ancestors and relatives. However, as viruses show great variety, and many of the viruses of gravest concern mutate rapidly and unpredictably, it is not always possible to trace their ancestry with any great confidence. A ‘new virus may be genuinely new or a major evolutionary variant arising from genetic processes such as mutation or recombination. Their rate of mutation is so high that controlling them, or predicting their behaviour, is well-nigh impossible. High mutation rate means that no RNA (ribonucleic acid) virus population is a single entity, but rather a ‘quasi species’. Introduction of a virus from one species to another and dissemination from a smaller to a larger population are also among the basic mechanisms by which viruses emerge.

The emerging viruses are surfacing from ecologically damaged parts of the earth. When viruses come out of an ecosystem, they tend to spread in waves through the human population. Among the most notorious are: Lassa, Rift Valley, Oropuche, Rocio, Q. Guanarito, VEE, Monkeypox, Dengue, Chikunganya, the Hanta viruses, Machupo, Junin, the rabies like strains Mokola and Duvenhage, LeDantec.

AIDS: Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a more difficult case compared to, for example, influenza, itself a great killer – the influenza pandemic of 1918-9 in China caused some 20 million fatalities. We do not know the origin of HIV, but a probable primate origin is often suggested, and appears highly plausible. HIV-2 (one of the major strains of HIV) may be a mutant that jumped into humans from an African monkey known as the sooty mangabey, perhaps when monkey hunters or trappers touched body tissue. HIV-1 (the other strain) may have jumped into man from chimpanzees – perhaps when hunters butchered chimpanzees.

HIV attacks the type of lymphocytes known as helper T-cells that stimulate the activity of B lymphocytes that produce antibodies. After an HIV infection sets in, helper T-cells begin to decline in number and the person becomes more susceptible to infections.

The AIDS virus mutates rapidly and constantly. It is a hyper-mutant, a shape-shifter, spontaneously altering its character as it moves through individuals. It mutates even in the course of one injection.

The drug AZT has been found to be helpful in prolonging the lives of AIDS patients. Also, it has been shown that administration of Interleukin-2 and AT-538 can prevent viral replication in cells in the early stages of the infection.

The Filoviruses

Marburg and Ebola viruses were recently elevated to family status as the Filoviridae. The name, ‘thread viruses’, is based on their morphology. These viruses made their appearance in the 1960s and 1970s in the form of frightening nosocomial and occupational outbreaks, initially among polio vaccine production workers in contact with Ugandan green monkeys and their kidney tissues, then in independent hospital epidemics of devastating proportions during 1976 in the Sudan and Zaire. Mortality from these infections can range to nearly 90%, that is 90% of infections, not just of clinical illnesses.

The incubation period of a filovirus in a human being, is from 3 to 18 days during which time the number of virus particles climbs steadily in the bloodstream. Then the suffering begins.

Marburg was the first filovirus to be discovered. It erupted in a factory producing vaccines using kidney cells from African green monkeys. Thirty-one people caught the virus. Seven infected persons died in pools of blood in just two weeks. This fatality rate of one in four makes Marburg an extremely lethal agent, yet it is the mildest of the filoviruses. No vaccine is available.

Ebola Sudan

The next indication of the existence of filoviruses came from an extraordinary pair of epidemics in 1976. In the Sudan the initial focus was a cotton factory in Nzara, and several of the earliest recognized cases worked there in a single room. Travel to nearby Maridi introduced the virus into the medical care system, with subsequent latrogenic dissemination that devastated the Maridi hospital. In this outbreak, 150 out of 280 infected people died.

In 1979, it recurred in Nzara, Sudan. The index case had worked in the same room in the cotton factory identified in the earlier epidemic. Twenty-two out of 34 infected patients died. When it first erupted, the medical stuff had used dirty needles which facilitated the spread of infection. Again, no vaccine is available.

Two months after the start of the Sudan emergence in 1976, an even more lethal filovirus emerged. The Ebola Zaire, a new strain was nearly twice as lethal as Ebola Sudan. The fatality rate of Ebola Zaire is 9 out of 10. Staff at a hospital which had been at the epicenter of the epidemic were almost all wiped out: 13 out of 17 of the doctors and nurses died. The disease erupted more or less simultaneously in fifty-five villages near the headwaters of Ebola River.

This epidemic was clearly dependent on the use of unsterilized needles and syringes for its major dissemination between villages, although multiple later generations of cases occurred among family contacts without any defined exposure route.

Ebola is distantly related to measles, mumps and rabies. It is also related to certain pneumonia viruses, to the parainfluenza virus which causes colds in children, and to the respiratory syncytial virus, which can cause fatal pneumonia in a person who has AIDS.

Ebola kills a great deal of tissue while the host is alive. It triggers a creeping, spotty necrosis that spreads through all the internal organs. The liver bulges up and turns yellow, begins to liquefy and then it cracks apart. The kidneys become jammed with blood clots and dead cells, and cease functioning. As the kidneys fail, the blood becomes toxic with urine. No vaccine is available.

Ebola does in ten days what it takes AIDS ten years to accomplish. In principle Ebola-like viruses could spread out all over the world in just one month and a half. Richard Preston, the author of Hot Zone argues that AIDS may be the first step in a natural process of clearance. What is being cleared is human beings: the earth’s immune system, so to speak, has recognized the presence of our species and is starting to kick in and signal its potential to rid itself of an infection by human beings. There can be no excuse for failing to reflect radically on the way we manage our economies, our societies and our lifestyles. We have no absolute right of tenure of this planet, nor does our collective intelligence or our science and technology afford a reliable immunity from vulnerability, whether as individuals or as a species. We do need to be fearful perhaps, though not to panic – so that we redress the balance in favour of humility in our attitudes and activities, so that we become more caring and careful in using our God-given faculties to prevent the worst before it happens.

References

• MADER, S. S. (1992) Human Biology, WCB Group.
• PRESTON, R. (1993) Hot Zone, Random House, New York.
• MORSE, S. 5. (1993) Emerging Viruses, Oxford University Press, New York.
• DOWDLE, W. (1993) ‘The Origins of Plagues’, Science, 261 (September 17).
• GRIFFIN, B. E. (1994) ‘Live and Let Live’, Nature, 368 (March 3).