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<ul><li>Scientists have developed an ultrasensitive biosensing method that could dramatically shorten the amount of time required to verify the presence of the <keyword id="8784604" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="COVID-19-virus">Covid-19 virus</keyword> in a sample.</li><li><keyword id="9620654" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="current-covid-19-verification-tests">Current Covid-19 verification tests</keyword> require a few hours to complete, as verification of the presence of the virus requires the extraction and comparison of viral genetic material, a time-intensive process requiring a series of steps. </li><li>According to the researchers, the key to this method is in creating a surface over which water containing the sample travels in different ways. On surfaces where drops of water may "stick" or "glide", the determining factor is friction.</li></ul> In a fight against <keyword id="1754604" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="coronavirus">coronavirus</keyword>, scientists have developed an ultrasensitive biosensing method that could dramatically shorten the amount of time required to verify the presence of the Covid-19 virus in a sample. The study, published in the journal ACS Nano, found that there's significant room to improve the pace of coronavirus testing. Current Covid-19 verification tests require a few hours to complete, as verification of the presence of the virus requires the extraction and comparison of viral genetic material, a time-intensive process requiring a series of steps. "In our method, all of the contents of a sampling droplet can be detected, and there is no extraction or other tedious procedures," said study authors from the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in the US. According to the researchers, the key to this method is in creating a surface over which water containing the sample travels in different ways. On surfaces where drops of water may "stick" or "glide", the determining factor is friction. The method starts by placing a collected sample into liquid. The liquid is then introduced into an engineered substrate surface with both high and low friction regions. Droplets containing sample will move more quickly in some areas but anchor in other locations thanks to a nanoantenna coating that introduces more friction. These stop-and-go waterslides allow water droplets to be directed and transported in a programmable and reconfigurable fashion. The "stopped" locations are very small because of an intricately placed coating of carbon nanotubes on etched micropillars. These prescribed spots with nanoantennae are established as active sensors, the researchers informed. They heated the substrate surface so that the anchored water droplet starts to evaporate. In comparison with natural evaporation, this so-called partial Leidenfrost-assisted evaporation provides a levitating force which causes the contents of the droplet to float toward the nanoantenna as the liquid evaporates. The bundle of sample particles shrinks toward the constrained centre of the droplet base, resulting in a rapidly-produced package of <keyword id="9620653" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="analyte-molecules">analyte molecules</keyword>. For fast sensing and analysis of these molecules, a laser beam is directed onto the spot with the packed-in molecules to generate their vibrational fingerprint light signals, a description of the molecules expressed in waveforms. This method of laser-enabled feedback is called surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy. All of this happens in just a few minutes, and the fingerprint spectrum and frequency of the coronavirus can be quickly picked out of a lineup of the returned data, the study noted. SEE ALSO: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/science/health/news/coovid-vaccine-from-oxford-serum-institute-and-astrazeneca-shows-promising-immune-response/articleshow/77069321.cms">The COVID-19 vaccine from Oxford and Astrazeneca shows 'promising' results in early human trials</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/careers/news/from-intel-and-wipro-to-tcs-and-google-here-are-the-top-job-openings-in-the-multinational-companies/articleshow/77058769.cms">From Intel and Wipro to TCS and Google— Here are the top job openings in the multinational companies</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/mobile/news/checkout-upcoming-affordable-smartphone-oneplus-nord-launch-price-specifications-features/articleshow/77061620.cms">OnePlus Nord launch price, specs and more – Everything we know about the upcoming affordable OnePlus smartphone</a>

Droplet biosensing method to identify Covid-19 virus faster

<ul><li><keyword id="15777223" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="generative-ai" source="Orion">Generative AI</keyword> has found applications in various fields, and the arena of life insurance operations is no exception.</li><li>In this article, we examine the potential use-cases that generative <keyword id="6355999" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="ai" source="Orion">AI</keyword> can have in the life <keyword id="6512638" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="insurance-sector" source="Orion">insurance sector</keyword>.</li><li>We also explore the various challenges in successfully implementing this technology to maximise benefits and mitigate risks.</li></ul>Generative AI is a category of artificial-intelligence (AI) procedures that involves generating <a href="https://www.infosysbpm.com/offerings/functions/digital-business-services/service-offerings/marketing-operations/case-studies/documents/putting-content-back-on-the-throne.pdf">new content</a>, such as images, text, or audio using models and examples learned from existing data. One of the most widely known generative AI models is the Generative Adversarial Network (GAN), introduced in 2014 by Ian Goodfellow and his team. Another advanced type is Large language models (LLMs) that help in constructing pre-trained transformer platforms. LLMs are a game-changer for the insurance industry and have enormous possibilities. They can analyse extensive written material and information effectively. They can also help automate complex business processes that deal with natural language. <cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="Reshaping life insurance operations" comment="subhead" text="Reshaping life insurance operations">Reshaping life insurance operations</cmsannotation> Generative AI has found applications in various fields. For example, it can be used to create realistic images, generate text or speech that mimics human language, enhance, and manipulate images, create virtual characters or environments, and even aid in drug discovery and molecule design. Nonetheless, it does raise ethical concerns, as it has the potential to generate realistic but fake content, such as deepfake videos or fabricated news articles. Ensuring responsible and ethical use of generative AI is a vital aspect that needs to be addressed as this technology continues to advance. Generative AI can have several potential use cases in life insurance operations. Here are a few examples: <ol><li>Synthetic customer data generation: Generative AI can be used to create synthetic customer data that resembles real policyholders. This data can be utilised for testing and training purposes without compromising the privacy and security of actual customer information. </li><li>Risk assessment: By analysing large volumes of historical data, generative AI models can learn patterns and generate simulated scenarios to assess risk. This can help insurers in predicting and quantifying potential risks associated with policyholders and their life situations. </li><li>Underwriting and policy generation: Generative AI can aid in automating the underwriting process by analysing customer information and generating policy terms and conditions based on predefined rules and regulations. This can streamline the policy generation process and reduce manual efforts. </li><li>Fraud detection: Generative AI models could be trained on a dataset of known fraudulent activities and generate synthetic fraud scenarios. These scenarios can help insurance companies in enhancing their fraud detection capabilities by identifying patterns and indicators of potential fraud. </li><li>Customer experience enhancement: Generative AI can be used to create personalised marketing materials, such as tailored policy offers and customer communications. By analysing customer preferences and historical data, generative AI can generate content that resonates with individual policyholders, improving their overall experience. </li><li>Predictive analytics: By generating synthetic data and simulating various scenarios, generative AI can assist insurers in predicting customer behaviours, such as lapse rates, premium payment patterns, and customer churn. These insights enable strategic decision-making and help in developing more effective retention and customer engagement strategies. </li></ol><cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="Need to proceed with caution!" comment="subhead" text="Need to proceed with caution!">Need to proceed with caution!</cmsannotation> It is important to note that the implementation of generative AI in life insurance operations requires careful consideration of ethical and regulatory implications, as well as the protection of customer privacy. The responsible and transparent use of generative AI is indispensable to ensure its <a href="https://www.infosysbpm.com/dis/streamlined-digital-advertising-operations/documents/digital-interactive-services.pdf">benefits</a> are maximised while mitigating potential risks. Implementing generative AI in life insurance operations can pose several challenges such as: <ol><li>Data availability and quality: Generative AI models require large volumes of high-quality data for training. Obtaining relevant and representative data can be challenging, especially in the case of life insurance where sensitive and personal information is involved. Ensuring data privacy, compliance with regulations, and data quality can cause significant hurdles. </li><li>Ethical and legal implications: Generative AI can create synthetic data or content that closely resembles real individuals or situations. This raises ethical concerns and legal implications, especially in terms of privacy, consent, and potential misuse. Ensuring that the generated content is used responsibly and following legal and regulatory frameworks is vital. </li><li>Interpretability and clarity: Generative AI models are often complex and difficult to interpret. Understanding the decision-making process of these models and providing explanations for the generated outputs can be challenging. In the insurance industry, where transparency and clarity are important, ensuring that generative AI models can provide clear justifications for their outputs is crucial. </li><li>Bias and fairness: Generative AI models can inadvertently get influenced by biases present in the training data, which can lead to unfair/biased outcomes. It is essential to address and mitigate biases in the generative AI models to ensure equitable treatment of policyholders in life insurance, where fairness and non-discrimination are critical. </li><li>Regulatory compliance: Life insurance is subject to various regulatory frameworks, including data protection, privacy, and fairness regulations. Implementing generative AI while complying with these regulations can be complex. Insurers need to ensure that their generative AI systems meet the necessary compliance requirements and adhere to industry standards. </li><li>Integration and adoption: Integrating generative AI into existing life insurance operations can be challenging. It requires infrastructure and system updates, as well as training and upskilling employees to work effectively with generative AI technologies. Ensuring a smooth integration process and fostering organisational adoption can be a significant undertaking. </li><li>Continual model improvement: Generative AI models require continual monitoring and improvement to ensure their effectiveness and performance. Regular updates, retraining, and fine-tuning are necessary to adapt to evolving data patterns and business requirements. Establishing processes for ongoing model maintenance and improvement is essential. </li></ol>To tackle these obstacles, a collaborative approach involving data scientists, domain experts, legal professionals, and compliance officers is essential. It is imperative to prioritise ethical considerations, regulatory compliance, and transparency when implementing generative AI in life insurance operations. Disclaimer: This article is authored by Neeraj Kaushik, Principal Consultant, Infosys McCamish and Chuck Johnson, Principal Product Architect, Infosys McCamish. The opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Business Insider India.

Generative AI: The next big leap in transforming life insurance operations

<ul><li>The <keyword id="69007" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="world-economic-forum" source="Orion">World Economic Forum</keyword> has picked ten breakthrough technologies that show promise for the future. </li><li>Flexible batteries, <keyword id="15777223" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="generative-ai" source="Orion">generative AI</keyword>, <keyword id="7931350" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="sustainable-aviation-fuel" source="Orion">sustainable aviation fuel</keyword>, wearable sensors for plants and <keyword id="432748" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="green-computing" source="Orion">green computing</keyword> are some of them. </li><li>Many other biological breakthroughs like designer phages, metaverse for mental health, brain-machine interfaces and more have made it to the list. </li></ul>The world is changing fast with new dangers and permacrisis afoot. However, the good news is that a number of breakthrough new technologies are working to make it a better place. The World Economic Forum has picked ten such for 2023 — right from deep biology that can look into the cells to flexible batteries that can be twisted, bent and stretched. To make it to this coveted list, the technologies must offer promising major benefits to societies and economies, be disruptive, attractive to investors and researchers; and expected to have achieved considerable scale within five years. “New technologies have the power to disrupt industries, grow economies, improve lives and safeguard the planet – if designed, scaled and deployed responsibly,” said Jeremy Jurgens, Managing Director, World Economic Forum and Head of the Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. In the past, the WEF has picked many such winners — like the genetic-engineering tool CRISPR-Cas9 which was featured in 2015, went on to win the Nobel Prize five years later. “It is now being used to create insect and drought-resistant crops in harsh growing conditions around the world,” said Jurgens. Messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) vaccines, earned their place in the 2017 report, became the technology underpinning the majority of Covid-19 vaccines protecting lives worldwide. AI-led molecular design made it onto the 2018 list. Since then, Deepmind’s AlphaFold predicted the structure of 200 million proteins, and the first AI-discovered drugs have entered clinical trials. Let’s look what technologies made it to this year’s list: Flexible batteries: Bend, twist &amp; stretch The world is going flex – with rollable computer screens to smart clothing. And the systems that power them should be so too. Flexible batteries, made of lightweight materials that can be easily twisted, bent or stretched, will soon hit the market and make standard rigid batteries a thing of the past. “The rapidly escalating development of wearable devices, flexible electronics and bendable displays demand power sources that match the agility of these systems,” the report says. One study forecasts that the global flexible battery market will grow by $240.47 million from 2022-2027, accelerating at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 22.79%, says WEF. Several companies like LG Chem, Samsung SDI, Apple, Nokia are are actively developing and commercialising flexible battery technology. Generative AI: Sparring partner to conventional thinking Imagine an algorithm that can draw the image that a human holds in his mind? That’s one example of the boundless potential of generative AI which can design drugs, aid in architecture and engineering — in addition to what ChatGPT does. NASA engineers are working to use this technology to build lightweight spaceflight instruments. But this technology needs to build something more, trust. “To build public trust in generative AI, applications should meet agreed-upon professional and ethical standards. Care should be taken to mitigate AI bias based on training data, with a focus on including “outlier” data and novel societal conventions,” WEF says. It should also address copyright attribution and more. With correct controls, generative AI can demonstrate the boundaries of knowledge, and act as a sparring partner to challenge conventional thinking. Sustainable aviation fuel: Moving up, with challenges ahead The road-bound cousins of aeroplanes – cars, bikes and more are going green at a rapid pace. However, the cost of making the aviation sector, which contributes to 2-3% of CO2 emissions annually, is enormous. Enter sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) that’s produced from biomass, and non-biological resources. Now it makes up for 1% of the global jet fuel demand, but must rise to 13-15% by 2040, WEF says. “Such an increase will require the creation of 300-400 new SAF plants; and airlines, manufacturers and fuel companies are working around the clock to enable this level of scale,” the report says, adding that availability and collection of raw materials, along with the need for sustainably produced green hydrogen, remain major challenges. Designer Phages: Virus that carry ‘genetic scissors’ Viruses, as scary as they are, can be engineered to benefit humans. Key to this engineering are phages – viruses that selectively infect specific types of bacteria. Upon infection, a phage injects its genetic information into the bacterium. With ‘genetic scissors’, these phages can execute a set of instructions – they can change a bacterium’s functions. It can be made into a therapeutic molecule or to become sensitive to a certain drug and more. “Phages are also being designed as feed supplements to enhance the growth of livestock, treat certain plant diseases and eliminate dangerous bacteria in food supply chains,” WEF says. Locus Biosciences and Eligo Biosciences are using this approach to combat antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Metaverse for mental health: Augmenting connections The Covid-19 pandemic has pushed the mental health crisis to such an extent that the world is falling short of health providers. The conditions are ripe for metaverse-enabled mental health treatment, WEF says. “Maturing interface technologies could further augment social and emotional connections between distant participants,” the report says. Many players are already working on it with gamification and other ways which can also reduce the stigma attached with mental health. Noninvasive neurotechnologies can provide feedback attuned to a user’s emotional state. For example, Neurable headsets use electrodes to measure emotion and can adjust music accordingly. Eventually, the metaverse will also connect to therapeutic neurotechnologies, such as direct brain stimulation to treat intractable depression,” WEF adds. Wearable plant sensors: The new frontier Traditionally, crops have been monitored via soil testing and visual inspections, both of which are expensive and time-consuming. Recent tech advancements have been monitoring crop health via low-resolution satellite data, which has gone on to sensor equipped drones and tractors which provide information. The next frontier is monitoring individual plants – with wearables. “These sensors are small, non-invasive devices that can be attached to crop plants for continuous monitoring of temperature, humidity, moisture and nutrient levels,” the report says. Growvera and Phytech have developed micro-sized needle sensors that insert into a plant’s leaves or stems to measure changes in electrical resistance, but challenges remain in terms of expense and the reading of the data might need specialised expertise. It needs data analytics tools that can help farmers ‘read it’ and make informed decisions. Spatial omics: Unravelling evolutionary secrets Humans are made of millions of cells —- but what happens inside them? Spatial omics might actually help us ‘see’ the biological processes, how they work in detail that was unprecedented before. A spatial omics study of samples from people who died from Covid-19 revealed that SARS-CoV-2 causes widespread disruption of cellular pathways across all tissues. Scientists have also identified a set of neurons that help paralysed mice walk, sooner. But this technology needs to be democratised, WEF believes. It had a total market value of $232.6 million in 2021 and an estimated revenue of $587.2 million in 2030. While academic and translational research centres made up 89% of the market in 2020, the market is dramatically expanding to include pharmaceutical and biotech industries. Flexible neural electronics: Biocompatible now Brain-machine interfaces (BMIs) allow electrical signals the brain produces to be captured by sensor hardware – and are already being used for patients with epilepsy, and create prosthetic limbs connected to the nervous system. But the current implants are made of hard material like chips, which can scar humans and cause substantial discomfort. They cannot bend or adapt to brain movements so, over time, they “drift” in position, decreasing the accuracy. But now researchers developed these circuits on biocompatible materials that are soft and flexible. It can deepen understanding of conditions like dementia and autism; and can also be used to develop cardiac pacemakers and more. But eventually, it holds the potential to true human-AI interfacing – but since the data from the brain is sensitive, privacy and ethical use guidelines must be established. Sustainable computing: Optimism ahead Every time we search on Google, send email or use any form of AI, we are connecting to data centres — which consume an estimated 1% of the electricity produced globally. And, this will only grow. There is no single “green data” magic bullet, but the coming decade will see strides toward net-zero-energy data centres. The first is to use cooling systems to dissipate the heat. Stockholm is using heat from data centres to heat homes. Then, AI itself can come with a solution for the heat it is generating, but analysing and optimising energy use in real-time. DeepMind has successfully demonstrated the potential of AI-powered energy management, achieving up to a 40% reduction in energy consumption at Google’s data centres. Crusoe Energy instals its modular data centres at sites where methane flaring occurs to enable cloud computing infrastructure to be powered by methane gas that would otherwise have been released directly into the atmosphere. “Given the wave of innovation and investment in this area, there is reason to be optimistic about the years ahead,” WEF says. AI-facilitated healthcare: Easing access Ever since the pandemic governments and academic teams alike have been using AI and ML models to improve access to patient care – to cut down the long delays many patients experience. This can aid developing nations in particular. India, for example, has a widely dispersed population of over 1.4 billion and has embraced an AI-based approach to enhance medical outreach. “The Indian government has enabled physicians to engage remote communities through assistive technologies, with requisite privacy safeguards in place,” the report says. However, hurdles to this system remain like patient compliance and national security concerns. “Moreover, any system that curates personal data on the health and welfare of a vast population must function within the bounds of a carefully crafted legal and ethical framework,” WEF says.

Wearables for plants, bacteria eating viruses, and 8 technologies in 2023 that can change the future

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Demand increases and supply-chain woes have led to a <keyword id="13369025" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="creatine" source="Orion">creatine</keyword> shortage.</li><li>One athlete said he'd seen prices for the muscle-building supplement triple in the past two years.</li></ul><a href="https://www.insider.com/creatine-supplements-build-muscle-how-to-use-expert-advice-2022-3">Creatine</a>, one of the most effective muscle-building <keyword id="11911136" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="supplements" source="Orion">supplements</keyword>, has long been a cheap, reliable standby for boosting the <keyword id="11897658" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="fitness" source="Orion">fitness</keyword> routines of bodybuilders, athletes, and fitness buffs.But demand increases, supply-chain challenges, and transportation delays are creating a shortage, Justin Allen, the chief operating officer at Onnit, told Insider. Onnit is an Austin supplement seller that was <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/unilever-buy-food-supplement-brand-154043408.html">acquired by Unilever</a> last year.The shortage arrived as interest in creatine spiked — retail prices have soared 150% since April 2021, supplement sellers at The Vitamin Shoppe told Insider.Gym rats say they're willing to keep shelling out money for the benefits of the supplement, since there's so much evidence that creatine improves muscle, strength, and even brain <keyword id="11894571" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="health" source="Orion">health</keyword>.While the price of creatine is unlikely to drop anytime soon, according to supplement-industry insiders, athletes say they are keeping up their gains by buying in bulk. For people who can't find creatine or afford the extra cost, trainers recommend other fitness hacks to make the most of your gym sessions without it.<h2>Creatine is one of the most well-researched fitness supplements for muscles and performance</h2>Creatine is an amino acid that's naturally produced in the human body and stored mainly in muscle tissue to provide energy. It works by helping your body produce a steady supply of a molecule called adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the chemical currency of energy in your cells. Having more ATP supply during exercise means your muscles can work harder and maintain intensity for longer periods of time, which translates to more muscle growth and strength gains. <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5469049/">Extensive research</a> has found it's safe for most people, Scott Forbes, a <keyword id="11893855" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="sports" source="Orion">sports</keyword> nutritionist and professor at Brandon University, said.For athletes, it can help improve performance and build muscle, but it can also benefit people outside the gym, since evidence suggests it supports cognitive health. <h2>Demand for creatine has skyrocketed at the same time supply-chain issues squeeze supply, sellers say</h2>Rachel Jones, a vice president at GNC, said shortages had been driven by increased demand, sourcing, transportation, production, and competition between companies."It's the perfect storm," she told Insider in February.Sales of creatine products at GNC have increased nearly 90% year over year in 2022, Jones said.The creatine sales spike coincides with people returning to gyms after pandemic lockdowns. Crunch Fitness reached record-high membership by the end of 2021, according to the Bloomberg-owned analytics firm <a href="https://secondmeasure.com/datapoints/gym-memberships-new-years-resolutions-planet-fitness-nyse-plnt/">Second Measure</a>. Planet Fitness said in a recent <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/reviews/out?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.fool.com%2Fearnings%2Fcall-transcripts%2F2022%2F02%2F24%2Fplanet-fitness-plnt-q4-2021-earnings-call-transcri%2F">earnings call</a> the company ended January with a record 15.6 million members, surpassing pre-pandemic levels.Shoppers may have a stronger appetite for creatine, but many are having a hard time finding it at stores.Forbes said athletes had approached him for advice on where to get creatine. People in Canada and the Midwest told Insider they'd also had a hard time buying it locally, particularly outside major cities, and had to shop online and sometimes switch brands to resupply."Macro supply-chain challenges are continuing to impact creatine availability," Jones said.Jack Gayton, Divisional Merchandise Manager at The Vitamin Shoppe said creatine was the supplement most affected by supply constraint, labor shortages, and logistical challenges in stores.<h2>Creatine prices have tripled, but people are willing to pay extra for the benefits </h2>For people who have been able to find creatine, the cost has gone up dramatically, between 20 and 300% depending on the type, brand, and region, consumers told Insider. Sulman Aziz Mirza, a psychiatrist who has been taking creatine for a decade to support his strength-training regimen, said he was shocked to see the recent prices."The price had nearly tripled, and I was totally caught off guard because creatine has always been the cheap effective standard," he told Insider.He said it cost him just over $22 to buy a kilogram of creatine-monohydrate powder in 2020 — last month, the same amount set him back nearly $60.Part of the sticker shock comes from the fact that creatine has previously been one of the cheapest supplements on the market, Marc Lobliner, a professional bodybuilder and the CEO of <a href="https://mtsnutrition.com/">MTS Nutrition</a>, said."We were so spoiled," he said. Comparatively, creatine is still more affordable than many supplements on the market, including flashy pre- and post-workout formulas. Personal trainers and gymgoers said they're unlikely to be deterred from buying it. "If you're serious about training, you're going to cut out something else before you cut out creatine." Lobliner said.Mirza said he didn't plan to stop taking creatine because it's worth the extra money for improvements to his stamina in the gym."It's undeniable. If you're working out, you have to be taking it," he said.<h2>One supplement seller says supply-chain disturbances overseas are a bigger factor than domestic ones</h2>Allen of Onnit said since most creatine was manufactured in Germany, China, and Japan, problems with labor shortages and logistics were starting overseas. <a href="https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3163097/chinas-factories-are-wrestling-labour-shortages-age-old">Chinese factories</a> are facing an increasing shortage of workers, and Germany's <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/reviews/out?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wsj.com%2Farticles%2Faging-germany-is-running-out-of-workers-putting-europes-largest-economy-at-risk-11640180607">aging population</a> is also creating a labor shrinkage.Creatine supply has also been squeezed because of delays at the Port of Shanghai, Allen said. The number of ships in Shanghai waiting to take off has <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/snarled-up-ports-point-worsening-global-supply-chain-woes-report-2022-05-03/">increased 34%</a> over the past month to 344, Reuters reported.Allen predicted the creatine shortage would last until the end of the year and could extend into early 2023. The shortages don't mark disaster for fitness buffs, though — trainers say you won't lose your gains if you stop taking creatine and that you can even take a short break without noticing much of a difference."The fatigue might start to set in a little sooner, or you may not get that extra rep on the last set," Andre Adams, a master trainer with the National Academy of Sports Medicine, said.Other supplements with evidence supporting their benefits include beta alanine, essential amino acids, and caffeine. You can also get creatine from foods like beef and fish, though you'd have to eat a lot of food to get the amount of creatine in a tiny scoop of powder, Adams said.Supplements, no matter how effective, make up a small percentage of overall fitness progress compared with foundational health habits, according to trainers and nutritionists."Creatine is not something I'd consider essential, especially for people starting out. Your healthy diet and macronutrients are more important," Adams said.

Demand for the muscle-building supplement creatine has exploded as people flock back to the gym &mdash; creating a shortage and price hikes that could last until 2023

The CEO of Moderna on the moment he first realized the company could make a COVID-19 vaccine

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image">Courtesy Lux CapitalShiru founder and CEO Jasmine Hume (right) and Deena Shakir of Lux Capital.</div></div></div><ul class="summary-list"><li>A food startup focused on protein just raised $3.5 million from VC firm Lux Capital, the company told Business Insider exclusively.</li><li>The company, called Shiru, is led by a scientist who spent 2.5 years at <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/meat-disruptors-list-beyond-impossible-ipo-stock-2019-8#just-3">Silicon Valley food startup Just</a>.</li><li>"What I'm interested in is unlocking the actual chemistry of how and why proteins behave," she told Business Insider.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/?hprecirc-bullet">Visit Business Insider's homepage for more.</a></li></ul>It's one thing to make a plant-based burger that tastes like the real thing. Swap the ground beef for a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/impossible-foods-bleeding-veggie-burger-ingredient-gets-fda-green-light-2018-7">carefully-designed mixture</a> of tasty carbs, fats, and proteins, and voila: a patty that's <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/impossible-burger-national-launch-gmo-soy-burger-king-2019-5">ready for a fast-food grill</a>.But making a viable alternative to yogurt and cheese - prized for their delicate mouth-feel, smooth texture, and consistency - is a trickier task.Jasmin Hume, the founder of a new food startup called Shiru, just raised $3.5 million to tackle that mission. The funding round was led by venture firm Lux Capital, known for backing high-tech startups with lofty ambitions that may take years to materialize. In addition to hiring a foundational team, Shiru will start piloting its first protein product: an ingredient that could be used in alternatives for cheese, yogurt, milk, eggs, or even meat, Hume said.Protein startups are hot these days, evidence perhaps of a new and more agnostic approach emerging in the plant-based industry that involves focusing on one ingredient (protein) instead of one type of food (meat or cheese).Read more: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/meat-disruptors-list-beyond-impossible-ipo-stock-2019-8">Meet the 11 alt-meat startups vying for a bite of a $200 billion industry</a>In February, a startup called Sustainable Bioproducts <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/startup-protein-yellowstone-volcanic-hot-springs-sustainable-bioproducts-2019-1">launched with a focus on leveraging a "super protein"</a> discovered in Yellowstone's volcanic hot springs. A few months later, another protein-focused venture called Emergy Foods said it had closed a $4.8 million funding round to <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/theres-a-new-source-for-meat-substitutes-fungi-11570647109">turn fungi into filets</a>.Also participating in Shiru's funding round is food venture firm S2G, which backed the newly-public plant-based burger company <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/meat-disruptors-list-beyond-impossible-ipo-stock-2019-8#beyond-meat-2">Beyond Meat</a> and a protein startup called MycoTechnology. The venture firm CPT Capital, backers of the plant-based meat company <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/meat-disruptors-list-beyond-impossible-ipo-stock-2019-8#impossible-foods-1">Impossible Foods</a> and the protein startup Motif Foodworks, and also participated.Hume previously served as the director of food chemistry for <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/meat-disruptors-list-beyond-impossible-ipo-stock-2019-8#just-3">Just</a>, one of the best-funded plant-based food startups in Silicon Valley (and formerly known as Hampton Creek). <a href="https://www.luxcapital.com/team/deena-shakir/">Deena Shakir</a>, who joined Lux as its newest investment partner in August, is joining Shiru's board. <h2>'Focusing on function first'</h2><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image">Courtesy Jasmin HumeShiru founder and CEO, Jasmin Hume, spent 2.5 years at food startup Just and has a doctorate in protein engineering from NYU.</div></div></div><a href="https://www.shiru.com/">Shiru</a> will build a database of unique proteins that can be readily swapped into various animal-based foods, Hume said. The company launched publicly at the tech-startup accelerator <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/y-combinator-ginkgo-partner-give-startups-access-biology-tools-2019-9">Y Combinator</a> in August.The idea is to identify non-animal proteins that are perfectly suited to fit into a recipe for a given food product."We're focusing on function first: for example, why are you using that protein in that particular product," Hume said.That's the opposite approach to the one taken by the majority of today's dominant food startups, which mostly plug in various plant or fungi ingredients into traditional dairy, egg, or meat-based recipes and then iterate from there.Because Shiru isn't putting a stake in one particular kind of food, it has the potential to disrupt an entire class of animal-based products.The <a href="https://www.cbinsights.com/research/meatless-transforming-industries/">plant-based milk market alone is worth $18 billion globally</a>, according to a report from analytics firm CB Insights. Meat is a roughly <a href="https://www.meatinstitute.org/index.php?ht=d/sp/i/47465/pid/47465">$200 billion industry</a>, the North American Meat Institute says, and <a href="https://www.imarcgroup.com/cheese-manufacturing-plant">cheese is worth nearly $17 billion</a>, according to market research company IMARC.Hume knows the alternative food space better than most, having spent 2.5 years at Just and a year as a consultant to other food startups. Hume also has a doctorate in protein engineering from New York University and a master's degree in materials engineering from Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden. Additionally, she spent a summer as an intern at Lux.<h2>Taking a page from the drug development playbook</h2><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image">Shiru</div></div></div>In the next six months, Hume aims for Shiru to develop its first food product: something Hume would only identify as an "extremely versatile" ingredient that could be used in alternatives for dairy, eggs, or meat.To do it, she's taking a page from the drug discovery playbook - where a drug company might use its computational tools to pinpoint new molecules whose structure makes them well-suited to a potential new drug, Shiru is using the same approach to find molecules whose structure makes them well-suited to a potential new food.When it comes to taste and nutrition, plant-based cheeses and yogurts have lagged behind their meat-like counterparts. Meat-free ground beef has existed for decades; more recently, Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods have broken ground with ready-to-eat <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/impossible-burger-national-launch-gmo-soy-burger-king-2019-5">fast-food patties available at places like Burger King</a> and Carl's Jr.Hume said that spending time at several existing food startups helped her see a potential reason for this. While many companies succeed at making large quantities of high-quality plant- or fungi-based proteins, they encounter difficulties when it comes to turning those proteins into scramble-ready eggs or meltable cheese."Pea protein isn't designed to behave like an egg protein," Hume said. Hume, who is vegetarian, said she'd like to completely eliminate animal-based products from her diet and go vegan. But she's waiting on viable cheese and yogurt alternatives to make the switch, which is part of the reason she started Shiru. "What I'm interested in is unlocking the actual chemistry of how and why proteins behave," Hume said.<a href="/intelligence/digital-health?IR=T&amp;itm_source=businessinsider&amp;itm_medium=ctgr_bii&amp;itm_term=ctgr_subscription&amp;itm_content=health&amp;itm_campaign=digital-health-3"></a>Featured Digital Health Articles: - <a href="/telehealth-industry-explained">Telehealth Industry: Benefits, Services &amp; Examples</a> - <a href="/value-based-care-pay-for-performance-healthcare-model">Value-Based Care Model: Pay-for-Performance Healthcare</a> - <a href="/senior-care-market-trends">Senior Care &amp; Assisted Living Market Trends</a> - <a href="/wearable-technology-healthcare-medical-devices">Smart Medical Devices: Wearable Tech in Healthcare</a> - <a href="/artificial-intelligence-healthcare">AI in Healthcare</a> - <a href="/remote-patient-monitoring-industry-explained">Remote Patient Monitoring Industry: Devices &amp; Market Trends</a> <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/marvel-captain-americas-shield-science-physics-2016-7">The Marvel movies pay incredible attention to the physics of Captain America's shield</a></h3> <div> </div> </div>

A former scientist at one of Silicon Valley's top food startups just landed $3.5 million to take on a $240 billion market using tools from Big Pharma

<ul class="summary-list"><li>The business of developing new drugs faces two "existential challenges," Amgen's research chief David Reese told Business Insider in a recent interview.</li><li>Those are: How long it takes to take a drug from idea to approval, and the high failure rates for therapies that start human trials, said Reese. He took charge of the $130 billion biotech's research strategy in 2018.</li><li>"It has to change, therefore it will," Reese said on the low success rate of drugs, where about 8% that enter clinical testing are eventually approved. "Because, realistically, the only alternative is extinction."</li><li>In light of these problems, Amgen has recently narrowed its research focus, backing away from the areas of neuroscience, kidney disease, and bone health.</li><li>Instead, Amgen is investing in genetics, with a "triple threat" approach to understand disease and craft better treatments. "We want to load the dice," Reese said, on boosting success rates with this approach.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/?hprecirc-bullet">Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories</a>.</li></ul>The drug industry is facing two existential challenges in developing new treatments, according to Amgen's top research exec: the process takes too long and the drugs fail too often.Roughly one in 10 drugs that enter clinical testing <a href="https://www.policymed.com/2014/12/a-tough-road-cost-to-develop-one-new-drug-is-26-billion-approval-rate-for-drugs-entering-clinical-de.html">eventually make it to market</a>, and those that do typically take <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nrd3078">12 to 14 years</a> to go from idea to approved drug. "We can't go on like that," David Reese, Amgen's executive vice president of research &amp; development, said in a recent interview with Business Insider.Reese is far from alone - these are well-recognized problems facing the industry. The biggest pharmas have seen returns on their research and development spending plummet over the past decade, from 10% in 2010 to 2% in 2019, <a href="https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/pages/life-sciences-and-health-care/articles/measuring-return-from-pharmaceutical-innovation.html">according to Deloitte research</a>. The consultancy said it costs about $2 billion to bring a single drug to market."It has to change and therefore it will," Reese added on the low success rate of drug development. "Because realistically the only alternative is extinction."Never miss out on healthcare news. <a href="http://newsletter.businessinsider.com/join/health-insider">Subscribe to Dispensed</a>, our weekly newsletter on pharma, biotech, and healthcare.In response, the world's largest biotech has narrowed its research strategy under Reese, focusing in on three areas: cancer, heart disease, and inflammation.The California biotech is still selling some treatments for kidney disease, bone health, and brain disorders, and may also make deals to acquire new treatments in those areas. But it won't focus on finding new treatments in those areas in its own labs, Reese said. He said the company just doesn't have a strong enough understanding of the biology underlying those disease areas to make it worthwhile.<h2>'Loading the dice' with genetics</h2>To tackle the big R&amp;D challenges facing the drug industry, Amgen has been building up its expertise in genetics. "The use of genetic and allied technologies is really meant in many ways to address the success rate," Reese said. "We want to load the dice."The R&amp;D head called it a "triple threat" approach: building a foundation of genetic data, using biology to turn that data into targets for treatments and a better understanding of how diseases work, and then crafting drugs to target those areas using molecular engineering.While several large drugmakers are taking similar steps in genetics, Amgen's partnerships make it unique, Reese said. To build its genetic database, Amgen <a href="https://www.decode.com/amgen-to-acquire-decode-genetics-a-global-leader-in-human-genetics/">agreed to acquire deCODE Genetics</a> in 2012. Back then, the Icelandic company had sequenced about 3,000 whole genomes in total. Now, the subsidiary is sequencing more than 10,000 each month and has built a database of 1.5 million participants, Reese said.<h2>Amgen is using deals and partnerships to get access to more genetic data</h2>Two new partnerships inked in 2019 will add one million more genomes over the next few years: Amgen is one of four companies working with the UK government to sequence 500,000 participants. And the biotech also struck a <a href="https://wwwext.amgen.com/media/news-releases/2019/06/intermountain-healthcare-and-decode-genetics-launch-groundbreaking-dna-study-of-500000-people-to-find-new-links-between-genetics-and-disease/">deal with the Utah health system Intermountain Health</a> to provide another half a million genomes."At that point, we will largely have the scale we're interested in," Reese said.The next step is adding depth beyond genetics: large-scale studies of proteins and RNA molecules. deCODE is working with a Colorado-based protein specialist called SomaLogic to run experiments collecting massive amounts of protein measurements.One ongoing experiment, for instance, is collecting 5,000 protein measurements from 40,000 people, Reese said, totaling 200 million data points from that one effort.Traditional analytic tools won't be sufficient for this massive data effort, Reese said, inevitablly putting AI and machine learning in Amgen's future. While the big biotech has stayed out of gene therapy so far, Reese called it "inevitable" that Amgen will eventually enter the burgeoning space. He said he is waiting for when these one-time treatments show the ability to go beyond treating rare diseases."Gene therapy now tends to be very focused," he said. "Eventually, it will develop into platforms that are more widely applicable. For me, that's where I am probably going to likely make a move."<h2>Speeding up success </h2>While the moutain of genetic data accumulates and theoretically boosts Amgen's chances of success in drug development, Reese is also attempting to speed up the process.A few years ago, he led an effort at Amgen to map out in fine detail all the steps in taking a drug from an idea to a marketed product. The goal was to answer the question: what is the speed of drug R&amp;D? The end result was a playbook to shave as much time as possible off of the drug development process. Now, Reese said the California biotech has begun to do that. An Amgen spokesperson confirmed this is in place for one of its most valuable experimental drugs, AMG 510, which targets a mutation to a gene called KRAS that causes cancer. "In a number of our programs, we think we're probably on track to take up to three years out of that process," he said. "That's a lot. I think we can do better. So we're continuing to strive for, and iteratively learn, how we can reduce that cycle time going forward."<ul class="read-more-links"><li>Read more:</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/amgen-and-mirati-cancer-drug-push-despite-kras-failures-2019-4">A $105 billion drugmaker and a $3 billion biotech upstart are racing to develop a type of 'silver bullet' drug for aggressive cancers that has eluded their industry for 30 years</a></li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/why-gsk-invested-300-million-in-23andme-genetic-drug-discovery-collaboration-2018-7">Why pharma giant GSK just made a $300 million bet on 23andMe's approach to finding new medicines</a></li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/bezos-startup-gilead-nash-liver-drugs-insitro-2019-4">A Jeff Bezos-backed startup just inked a deal with $84 billion biotech Gilead to make drugs for a troubling and increasingly common disease</a></li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/biggest-healthcare-and-biotech-developments-of-the-decade-2019-12">From Obamacare to cancer cures, here are the advances that defined the decade, according to top healthcare leaders who worked for Trump, Obama, and Bush</a></li></ul><a href="/intelligence/digital-health?IR=T&amp;itm_source=businessinsider&amp;itm_medium=ctgr_bii&amp;itm_term=ctgr_subscription&amp;itm_content=health&amp;itm_campaign=digital-health"></a>Featured Digital Health Articles: - <a href="/telehealth-industry-explained">Telehealth Industry: Benefits, Services &amp; Examples</a> - <a href="/value-based-care-pay-for-performance-healthcare-model">Value-Based Care Model: Pay-for-Performance Healthcare</a> - <a href="/senior-care-market-trends">Senior Care &amp; Assisted Living Market Trends</a> - <a href="/wearable-technology-healthcare-medical-devices">Smart Medical Devices: Wearable Tech in Healthcare</a> - <a href="/artificial-intelligence-healthcare">AI in Healthcare</a> - <a href="/remote-patient-monitoring-industry-explained">Remote Patient Monitoring Industry: Devices &amp; Market Trends</a>

The man in charge of discovering new drugs at the world's biggest biotech told us how Amgen's 'triple threat' genetics approach can overcome the industry's high failure rates

ModernaThe biotech Moderna is developing a coronavirus vaccine.<ul class="summary-list"><li>In the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/wuhan-coronavirus-treatments-vaccine-jj-regeneron-gilead-2020-2">sprint to develop vaccines for the coronavirus outbreak</a>, the world's largest drugmakers have been lapped by a startup biotech. </li><li>It took 42 days for Moderna to turn the genomic sequence of the virus into a vaccine candidate and ship it to US health officials. </li><li>The National Institutes of Health will now start the first human trial in a matter of weeks, focused on safety. It will require months of additional study to know if the vaccine is safe and effective in protecting people against this novel coronavirus.</li><li>Moderna showed how its novel genetic technology can speed up vaccine development. The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based biotech is also testing vaccines for infectious diseases like the Zika virus, respiratory syncytial virus, and cytomegalovirus, or CMV.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/prime">Click here for more BI Prime articles</a>.</li></ul>Scrambling to respond to the growing coronavirus outbreak, some of the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/wuhan-coronavirus-treatments-vaccine-jj-regeneron-gilead-2020-2">world's largest drugmakers</a> have begun researching vaccines to prevent the deadly virus.But a small, startup biotech has sped past them, becoming the first company to produce a potential vaccine ready to be tested in humans. That biotech is Moderna, which earlier this week shipped the first batch of its coronavirus vaccine to begin clinical trials in people. It's still a long ways away from determining if it is safe and effective at stopping the virus.The first study will focus on safety, with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) planning to administer it to 45 healthy adults in the US. Future tests would focus on whether the vaccine works, and would involve hundreds to thousands of people.Even with a long road ahead, Moderna has beaten history in the race to construct a potential vaccine. Moderna needed 42 days to translate the DNA of the virus into a vaccine and ship it. For comparison, it took about 20 months to start testing a vaccine candidate for the 2002-2003 SARS outbreak after that virus was sequenced.Moderna designed and manufactured the vaccine even more quickly: in 25 days. The company had the vaccine ready on February 7, according to <a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1682852/000119312520033353/d871325d424b5.htm">a regulatory filing</a>. The next couple weeks were spent on analytical testing before sending the first batch to the NIH.The urgency has been driven by the rapid spread of the virus, which causes the disease known as COVID-19. The death toll <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/china-virus-everything-we-know-deadly-2019-ncov-wuhan-spread-2020-1">has surpassed 2,800 people with more than 82,000 infected.</a> While the vast majority of cases have been in China, the virus has spread to at least 47 countries on six continents. The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company is dwarfed by the size of drugmaking giants also hunting for vaccines. At $9.5 billion, Moderna is less than 3% the size of Johnson &amp; Johnson by market value. The French pharma giant Sanofi has more than 100 times as many employees - 100,000 compared to fewer than 1,000 at Moderna.The Boston biotech venture capital group Flagship Pioneering founded Moderna in 2010. It's led by Stephane Bancel, previously the CEO of a French diagnostics company.Steven Ferdman/Getty ImagesModerna CEO Stephane Bancel at the 2019 Forbes Healthcare Summit.Moderna's unique advantage is its novel technological platform, which also drove its record-breaking IPO for the biotech industry in 2018, in which it raised $604 million. Through this point, the company's value has been driven by the potential of its genetic platform, as the company has no approved drugs or vaccines on the market.That speedy progress to get to the brink of starting clinical trials is "unquestionably the world indoor record," Anthony Fauci, the longtime leader of the NIH's infectious disease division, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/drugmaker-moderna-delivers-first-coronavirus-vaccine-for-human-testing-11582579099">recently told The Wall Street Journal</a>. "Nothing has ever gone that fast," he added.<h2>How Moderna went from DNA to vaccine in 42 days</h2>Moderna's speed is built on the decades of progress in vaccine development and genetics.At the basic level, vaccines work by giving cells a taste of a virus - just enough for our bodies to recognize it as an intruder and pump out antibodies to fight a similar invasion in the future.For decades, vaccines have traditionally contained a dead or weakened version of the virus itself. Early advances in genetics allowed a vaccine to use just proteins made by the virus. That was first used <a href="https://www.niaid.nih.gov/research/vaccine-types">in the 1980s</a> to develop a vaccine for hepatitis B. Moderna has gone a step further back: instead of using viruses or proteins, the platforms works with just the genetic material. The biotech is focused on messenger RNA (mRNA) - the genetic material from DNA that makes proteins. Read more: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/wuhan-coronavirus-treatments-vaccine-jj-regeneron-gilead-2020-2">The US is gearing up to test the first coronavirus treatments and vaccines. Here's how 6 top drugmakers are racing to tackle an outbreak that's spreading around the world.</a>In the case of the coronavirus, Moderna's strategy was to load its vaccine with mRNA designed to produce the coronavirus protein. The body's immune cells can recognize that protein and create antibodies against it, prepping to fight a future infection.Moderna's speed wasn't a solo effort. Scientists from Fudan University in Shanghai <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nuccore/MN908947">posted the genomic sequence</a> of the coronavirus on January 10. NIH investigators then worked with Moderna's scientists to study that data and find potential targets.Just three days later, NIH investigators and Moderna's infectious disease team finalized the sequence for the vaccine, moving into production mode. The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations also supported Moderna's work, announcing a funding agreement later in January. By February 7, the company had completed a first batch of the vaccine.If Moderna was using traditional vaccine technologies, Moderna would "still be working at it as we speak, and we most probably would not even have started to make the product," CEO Bancel said a couple days after shipping off the vaccine to the NIH.Instead, Moderna had to do "a tiny bit of optimization" to an mRNA molecule "and then go right into production," he said - the promise of its platform, realized.<h2>The challenges ahead include a lengthy clinical timeline, uncertain production capability </h2>Even with the speed in getting to this point, determining the safety and efficacy of Moderna's drug will likely take more than a year, at a minimum.Vaccine research experts have <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/wuhan-coronavirus-vaccine-could-take-years-timeline-and-cost-2020-2">told Business Insider</a> that it typically requires several years of testing and hundreds of millions in funding to bring a vaccine for an infectious disease to approval. In past cases, like SARS, when the virus began to go away, so did the money for research. There's still no approved vaccine to prevent SARS.The NIH's Fauci laid out the timeframe for vaccine development in a February 26 press conference at the White House.This first study is based out of Seattle, Washington, at the Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute. The trial is looking to enroll 45 healthy volunteers who are men or non-pregnant women ranging from ages 18 to 55.They will be split into three groups of 15, with each group receiving a different dose strength - two injections about a month apart. The strongest dose is 10 times as potent as the low dose. Currently, the trial is expected to begin in March, according to a clinicaltrials.gov listing. While the study will follow participants for a year, early safety results should be available about three months after the trial starts, according to Fauci.If those show the vaccine is safe, it can advance to mid-stage testing that enrolls hundreds or potentially thousands of people to begin testing its effectiveness at stopping the virus. Those trials would take at least six to eight months to run, Fauci said.While the NIH takes the lead on development, Moderna is still in charge of producing the vaccine. If the demand persists and the mRNA-1273 shows promise, that will be a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-vaccine-moderna-looks-to-ramp-up-production-2020-2">formidable challenge</a> for a biotech with no history and limited capability to mass-produce a product."We're looking at everything that it would take and how to actually get it done," Moderna's Chief Medical Officer Tal Zaks said about <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-vaccine-moderna-looks-to-ramp-up-production-2020-2">scaling up manufacturing</a> on a February 26 earnings call. This could include building out the company's own manufacturing capiability or partnering with contract manufacturers.The Norwood, Massachusetts plant that produced mRNA-1273 is focused on developing new treatments, not pumping out lots and lots of a vaccine. That means it prioritizes flexibility, not scalability, Bancel said.<h2>Moderna's bold vision for the future of vaccines</h2>Wall Street analysts have expressed skepticism over whether the coronavirus vaccine would drive commercial value for Moderna, but also acknowledge the speediness demosntrates the power of its technology. "The rapid turnaround of a COVID-19 vaccine candidate is impressive and illustrates the potential power of this platform," JPMorgan analyst Cory Kasimov said in a Wednesday note."However, the ultimate commercial opportunity is TBD but unlikely to be substantial, in our view," he wrote.But Moderna's value stems from the ability to potentially crank out vaccines for a wide range of diseases in rapid time with essentially a few tweaks to the genetic code. Investors have also noticed - the biotech's stock has jumped up 33% in the first couple months of 2020. Shares kept climbing even when the company sold $550 million of additional stock in early February.Beyond coronavirus, Moderna is testing 12 mRNA programs in clinical trials, a majority of which are vaccines. The compaany is going after some major diseases with no approved vaccines, like respiratory syncytial virus, Zika, and cytomegalovirus (CMV).If successful, mRNA could become a new template for speedy vaccine development."I have never been more optimistic about Moderna's future and potential since joining as employee number two in 2011," Bancel said on a February 26 earnings call. "I believe mRNA is going to be a new class of medicines, and I believe Moderna is the leading company in that field."<ul class="read-more-links"><li>Read more:</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/wuhan-coronavirus-vaccine-could-take-years-timeline-and-cost-2020-2">The Wuhan coronavirus has now claimed more lives than SARS. Top scientists told us it could take years and cost $1 billion to make a vaccine to fight the epidemic.</a></li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/wuhan-coronavirus-treatments-vaccine-jj-regeneron-gilead-2020-2">The US is gearing up to test the first coronavirus treatments and vaccines. Here's how 6 top drugmakers are racing to tackle an outbreak that's spreading around the world.</a></li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/gilead-clinical-trials-for-coronavirus-treatment-remdesivir-2020-2">The $95 billion biotech Gilead just announced plans to test a promising potential coronavirus treatment in 1,000 people</a></li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-vaccine-moderna-looks-to-ramp-up-production-2020-2">Buzzy biotech Moderna is 'looking at all options' to ramp up production just days after shipping the first potential coronavirus vaccine</a></li></ul><a href="/intelligence/digital-health?IR=T&amp;itm_source=businessinsider&amp;itm_medium=ctgr_bii&amp;itm_term=ctgr_subscription&amp;itm_content=health&amp;itm_campaign=digital-health"></a>Featured Digital Health Articles: - <a href="/telehealth-industry-explained">Telehealth Industry: Benefits, Services &amp; Examples</a> - <a href="/value-based-care-pay-for-performance-healthcare-model">Value-Based Care Model: Pay-for-Performance Healthcare</a> - <a href="/senior-care-market-trends">Senior Care &amp; Assisted Living Market Trends</a> - <a href="/wearable-technology-healthcare-medical-devices">Smart Medical Devices: Wearable Tech in Healthcare</a> - <a href="/artificial-intelligence-healthcare">AI in Healthcare</a> - <a href="/remote-patient-monitoring-industry-explained">Remote Patient Monitoring Industry: Devices &amp; Market Trends</a>

How the buzzy biotech Moderna sped past Big Pharma to develop the first potential coronavirus vaccine in just 42 days

<keyword id="71593" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Copenhagen-summit">Copenhagen Summit</keyword> on climate control in 2009 came as a cropper after the US, China, the EU and other countries failed to sign a legally-binding pact, enforcing them to agree to a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, whose validity ended in 2012. 
Six years later, countries from across the globe are meeting again in Paris in December this year for the UN Climate Summit to formulate a legally binding agreement that set specific time frame for top polluting countries to cut carbon emissions. 
 While country heads miserably failed to show responsible leadership traits at Copenhagen, leaders of the world’s biggest economies will get another opportunity to initiate responsible action and the change the course of history that can otherwise turn catastrophic in the near future as <keyword id="6366055" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="global-warming">global warming</keyword> has already transitioned from a rhetoric of doomsday mongering environmentalists to a real life-or-death question for the humanity. 
 
There are some positive signs that world leaders are likely to exhibit more shades of prudence this time. The US and <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=china">China</a>, the world’s biggest polluters, began tackling <keyword id="6361617" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="Climate-Change">climate change</keyword> together when they announced an agreement last November to curb carbon emissions. While the US promised to double the speed at which it will reduce carbon emissions, aiming for a 26-to-28% reduction by 2025 from 2005 levels, China agreed to peak emissions by around 2030. Also, China and India, recently, issued a joint statement on <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=paris+climate+change">climate change</a>, promising to submit plans carbon targets before the Paris conference. 
 
These gestures assume significance as such joint statements were unthinkable six years ago. And now climate science is forcing country heads to look at global warming more seriously. So what is the science behind environmentalists’ alarm signals on global warming? 
 
Since the beginning of human civilisation, the atmosphere contained about 275 ppm of carbon dioxide, one of the most heat trapping gases (ppm stands for ‘parts per million’, which is a way of measuring the ratio of carbon dioxide molecules to other molecules in the atmosphere). A few hundred years ago, as humans began to burn coal, gas and oil to produce energy and goods; and gradually, the amount of carbon in the atmosphere began to rise. Most human activities like cooking food, heating homes and turning the lights on rely on energy sources that emit carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases. And in the process, humans are releasing millions of years worth of carbon into the atmosphere, which was once stored beneath the earth as fossil fuel. 
 
The carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere currently stand at 400 ppm and humans are adding 2 ppm of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere every year. 
 
Climatologists say that if humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilisation developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere needs to be reduced from 400 ppm currently to 350 ppm, which, according to scientists, is ‘safe’ for humanity survival on planet Earth. If we don’t rapidly turn the maddening carbon dioxide addition around and return to below 350 ppm level, we risk triggering tipping points and irreversible impacts that could send climate change spinning truly beyond our control, climatologists warn. 
 
China, the US, the EU, India, Russia, Japan are topping the list of countries with maximum CO2 emissions; while China's CO2 emissions were estimated around 10 billion tonnes in 2012, that of the US was more than 5 billion tonnes and EU more than 4 billion tones. India’s contribution was roughly one-third of China's and half of the US’. 
 
Between 1850 and 2012, the US and <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=europe">Europe</a> produced 45% of greenhouse gases currently in the atmosphere, compared to 18% from China and India, according Climate Analytics, a non-profit organisation. However, it is estimated that by 2020, China alone will produce 24% of global greenhouse gas emissions, the US 13% and the EU 8% and India 7%. 
 
So mathematically, China, the US, the EU along with India can play a large part in shaping the future of the planet by reducing carbon emissions. 
 
While the US’ emissions are less than China’s, its per-capita emissions are three times that of China and 10 times India’s. Therefore, if the US wants to persuade China, the EU and India to reduce CO2 emissions, it must lead the way by switching to low-carbon energy sources. 
 
At a time when poverty reduction remains a key priority, India (along with China) fears that radical action on greenhouse gas emissions will hamper economic growth. 
 
Considering the larger threats that climate change poses—for instance, enhanced melting of Himalayan glaciers and increased coastal flooding due to warming; rising temperatures making water security a crucial concern with significant ramifications on already strained <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=India+pakistan">India-Pakistan</a> relations, etc.,—it makes sense for India too to join the growing ‘<keyword id="76836" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Save-earth">save Earth</keyword>’ chorus. 
 
However, what India can do would make sense only when China, the US, the EU—make a determined effort to set an example by snipping their carbon footprint. 
 
So will these countries show responsibility at the upcoming UN climate change summit in Paris—which could be the world’s last big opportunity to regain sanity and stop abusing planet Earth’s delicate atmosphere—to take lead and positively change the course of human history from a possible catastrophic end to sustenance and balance? 
The world is watching. 
(Image: BCCL)

Why US, China and EU together can save planet Earth

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<td style="color: #000000; text-decoration: none; font-size: 16px; line-height: 20px; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;" width="700">This is the second of the 10-part series <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/category/game-changers">"Game Changers,"</a> which investigates cutting-edge innovations that are changing the way we live. "Game Changers" is sponsored by Samsung Galaxy S 4. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/category/game-changers">More in the series »</a></td>
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</table><div class="image-container float_right" style="width:480px"><div class="image">Wikimedia Commons</div></div>European researchers have created <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/intelligent-surgical-knife-can-detect-cancerous-tissue-2013-7">a scalpel that can "smell" a tumor and determine whether or not it is cancerous</a> in a matter of seconds.
In doing so, they found a way to turn a pesky byproduct of new <keyword id="26785" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="surgery">surgery</keyword> technology — the smoke that emits from tissue cut with electric scalpels — and used it to make tumor surgeries safer and more effective. 
The new technology was reported in the <a href="http://stm.sciencemag.org/">journal Science Translational Medicine on July 17</a>.
"Electrosurgical" tools that use heat and electricity to make precision cuts and cauterize wounds are already common in many operating rooms. And although surgeons like the advantages these tools have, the often also create small amounts of smoke normally considered to be nothing more toxic irritants.
But lead scientist Julia Balog and her team hypothesized that this smoke could be a "rich source of biological information."
Upon examining the smoke, they found that certain chemicals contained within would be able to indicate whether a tumor a surgeon cut into would be cancerous or not. 
Their "intelligent knife," — "iKnife" — uses sensors to analyze the smoke emitted from these cauterized cuts and the data with with a database of 3000 samples of smoke from cancerous tissue.
The team says their iKnife can accomplish in just a few seconds what it takes currently available methods between 20 and 30 minutes to do — often while a patient waits, still sedated and open, on the operating table. This knife could eliminate the need for that, reducing operating time and potential complications significantly.
Because it relies on electronic sensors, the "smell test" could be more accurate than traditional methods of identifying cancerous tissue where technicians rely dye the tissue and examining it under a microscope. Current methods are subjective and subject to human error.
It is often difficult to determine the borders of a tumor, potentially cancerous tissue, while preserving as much healthy tissue as possible.
As many as 20% of breast <keyword id="6355291" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="Cancer">cancer</keyword> patients receiving a lumpectomy may still need further surgery to remove all cancerous tissue, according to the study. In some cases — say, if the tumor metastasizes — a second operation is impossible.
While a surgeon cuts into cancerous tissue the iKnife draws the continuous stream of smoke into a tube and then feeds into a machine called a mass spectrometer, which breaks the smoke down to identify the molecules found in it. These molecules provide a chemical signature that identifies the tumor as cancerous or not. 
The device does all this inside of three seconds, providing almost instant feedback. The surgeon can determine with each cut whether they have reached the edge of cancerous tissue. 
After numerous trials on animal and human subjects, the team says the tool is ready to be used in clinics and hospitals.
Here's a diagram of how it works: The top section (A) shows the device as it would be equipped with a scalpel, section (B) shows the device equipped with forceps, and section (C) offers a close-up of the forceps. The electrosurgical unit powers the device and contains the analytical equipment. The air jet pump and "atmospheric interface" provide the vacuum to draw the smoke into the electrosurgical unit, then filter and expel the smoke once it has been analyzed. 
<div class="image-container" style="width:800px"><div class="image"><keyword id="41551" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="100" keywordseo="science">Science</keyword> Translational Medicine/AAAS</div></div>

How A Smart Scalpel Can 'Smell' Cancer During Surgery

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image">AvaYou've never seen a winery like this.</div></div></div>Ava Winery's first public taste test didn't exactly go well. Two reporters on camera at<a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/2088322-synthetic-wine-made-without-grapes-claims-to-mimic-fine-vintages/"> New Scientist</a> compared the biotech startup's artificial wine with a glass of the Moscato D'Asti that it was based on. They complained that the fake wine had too little color, too little viscosity, and an unpleasant plastic smell.But that was May, and this is September, and Ava is already bragging about making huge improvements in its product, to the point where it is all but indistinguishable from fermented grape juice, and looking ahead to how it's going to change the world."What we have done since then is leaps and bounds beyond what they were able to taste back in May," co-founder Alec Lee says. "Now we're at the point where about 90% of people fail out blind taste test."Ava is about to get a lot of new tech, too, after closing a $2.7 million seed round led by Horizon Ventures in August. Lee says this will help them perfect their product and soon."There will be a step-wise progression as soon as that equipment comes in," Lee says. "It will get a lot better very quickly."Ava has promised to release 499 bottles modeled on a 1992 Dom Perignon champagne later this summer, with plans to go to market in the next six-to-12 months. The goal is to sell high quality wine for much cheaper than you'd get with traditional methods, while also making a more sustainable and customizable product.But first, they've got to convince people that artificial wine tastes good.<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image">Ava Winery</div></div></div>Ava co-founder Mardonn Chua was inspired to create wine in a lab after seeing a bottle of a '73 Chateau Montelena behind a glass case and wishing more people could taste what it's like. He thought "I have access to a lab, I have this biotech background, I've done analytical chemistry: surely, wine is nothing more than a collection of molecules," says Lee.Chua and Lee, both graduates for a biotech program at the University of British Columbia who had previously founded a stem cell company (which "may wind down"), launched Ava Winery in 2015. They brought on fellow UBC graduate and certified sommelier Josh Decolongon as a co-founder.Chua's early efforts at reverse-engineering wine were gleefully fast and loose."Has anyone tried to make wine by simply mixing the raw compounds and ingredients together (ie. sugars, alcohol, organic volatiles, and flavonoids)? Would it be possible to make a great tasting wine this way?"<a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/wine/comments/4apx67/science_can_you_make_wine_on_a_compoundbycompound/"> he posted on Reddit</a> in March. "I might actually try this tonight."<a href="https://medium.com/@mardonn/hacking-wine-e5ed219f3605#.8kohk68ki">Chua described on Medium</a> how he mixed "tartaric acid, malic acid, tannin powder, vegetable glycerin, ethanol, sucrose … ethyl hexanoate (smells like pineapple), butanoate (strong scent of grape juice), limonene (citrus/lime), and acetoin (rich butter smell-like popcorn at the movies).""I spent the whole weekend making ~15 different formulations, and I'm not much closer to the taste of chardonnay or any other wine (though I'm not discouraged). It's not a good wine yet, but it was acceptable enough to drink," Chua wrote.Ava has gotten a lot more high-tech since then, using gas chromatography, liquid chromatography, and other techniques to identify exactly what's in different samples of wine. For the past few months, they've been outsourcing this testing, but now they plan to bring the tools in house.Wine is about <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/2088322-synthetic-wine-made-without-grapes-claims-to-mimic-fine-vintages/">85% water and 13% ethanol</a>. Then there are several hundred compounds in small quantities that give it flavor, aroma, color, and other characteristics. Some of these matter, others don't."We can identify the compounds that are there, but the big challenge is in quantifying them," Lee says.<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image">Ava WineryWant a sip? A gas chromatograph shows different compounds in a sample.</div></div></div> Ava insists its wine is rapidly getting better. Eight months ago, Lee says, 80% of people could identify the two glasses of artificial wine in a sample of five: today, only 10% can."The product is really there in terms of fooling people, but that's not really good enough for us," Lee says.The team says its two biggest challenges going forward are regulation and marketing."We want to get the classification as wine and that's one of the hurdles that we're up against is convincing the [Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB)] that there's good justification for why we should be able to call this wine," Lee says.TTB spokesman Tom Hogue confirmed that the bureau is aware of Ava and said it had reached out to remind them their drink would be a taxable commodity. He declined to comment on whether it would be classified as wine.As for marketing, Ava hasn't decided whether its initial selection of wine will all be designed to replicate other bottles or include some originals. Ava also hasn't figured out its price point, though it claims to be much cheaper than the traditional way of making wine. The hardest part, of course, is convincing people to ditch traditional wine, and all the romantic connotations we have for that, in favor of something made in a lab."We need to first demonstrate the quality of this process," Lee says. "Once we've done that, then we have an opportunity to digitally optimize the flavors of wine. To make wines that have never been tasted before and that are in many ways arguably better than anything that's been tasted before. We can identify the things that make great wines great and combine those into something that's never been tasted before or that no one could even grow."Lab-grown wine, Lee points out, uses 50 to 100 times less water than the traditional version.Synthetic wine may also have the nice perk of not going bad as fast as regular wine, since it's made of sterilized components, while normal wine is filled with organic compounds that start growing when exposed to oxygen.If Ava can figure out wine, then there's no reason they couldn't move into other products, too"Where are unsustainable food production practices happening or where is there limited food production capacity in general, especially in the luxury food market, and how can we disrupt that and produce in a way that is more sustainable, more ethical, and, of course, cheaper?" Lee asks. "Could this be done with coffee, for example, or chocolate?"<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Napa_Valley.jpg">Brocken Inaglory on Wiki</a>No more vineyards?</div></div></div>But first the big question: does Ava's wine actually taste good?Ava was not yet ready to share a bottle with Business Insider, so we can't say for ourselves.Scientists at Replica Wine, a less-radical wine disruptor that uses <keyword id="41551" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="60" keywordseo="science">science</keyword> to make grape blends that taste like more expensive bottles, said Ava's approach seemed viable."The concept of adding all kinds of chemicals together to create something else: is it feasible? Probably. Does it have the same appeal to consumers who are looking to have some kind of greater connection to wine? Maybe not," said Ellipse Analytics president Jaclyn Bowen, who works with Replica.Food scientist Steven Witherly, president of Technical Products Inc., was more skeptical: "I wish them luck but wine is way too complex for them; they really don't stand much of a chance."Decanter World Wine Awards judge Matt Walls told Decanter: "The concept is mind-blowing, and I'd love to try the finished article. It reminds me of the drinks machine in 'Star Trek' that dispenses anything you ask for. But do I believe they'll produce an exact replica of a legendary wine? Not in a million light years."Ava's team, at least, seems confident."I think the product will pretty easily be ready to go in the next six months," Lee says.Even today it gets the endorsement of Ava's in-house sommelier. "It's definitely not bad," says Decolongon, who also <a href="http://www.joshlikeswine.com/">runs a wine blog</a>. "I can tell [the difference between Ava and traditional wine], but it's getting closer and closer to being unidentifiable every day." <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/this-wine-glass-cannot-spill-2016-3">Thanks to this ingenious glass, you'll never spill wine again</a></h3> <div> <div> <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="E0cHU3MjE6DuytsM5ZGT2xGC1mwvxlH7" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div> </div> </div> </div>

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