Chinese Biosecurity News - Level 4 Labs, etc.

Jeff Head

General
Registered Member
Victor, you MUST observe, listen, and learn more before posting.

I am deleting your very nubie/green/immature comments and questions.

SD prides itself on professionalism. We did not get that reputation for countenancing people who continue to try and assert the ridiculous.

Asking some questions is fine...but when you persist in the face of very credible counters and advise...that becomes something we will not allow.

If you want to come here and partake of the experience SD offers...then listen and learn.

Otherwise...you will be banned.

Numerous very educated, very experienced, and very respected posters have tried to give you advise. I suggest you start taking that adivse...today.

DO NOT RESPOND TO THIS MODERATION
 
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solarz

Brigadier
One of my collaborators has a company that uses nanoparticles to search and destroy tumors. It's minimally invasive since all you need to do is to inject nanoparticles into a vein. Once in the blood stream, the nanoparticles, which are coated with special sensors capable of recognizing tumor tissues, bind to these tumor tissues. An infra red light is then used to shine on the site of tumors (from outside of the body of course). These nanoparticles are specially designed to explode upon infra red stimulation, taking tumors with them. It's working like a miracle on animals and in limited human trials, but the FDA is so worried about long-term safety that they make them do all kinds of crazy tests to ensure safety.

Wow! Where can I buy some stocks in your buddy's company? :D
 

vesicles

Colonel
Wow! Where can I buy some stocks in your buddy's company? :D

I think their company is still privately owned at the moment. I asked them the same question not too long ago. They said they didn't know when or IF they would go public. The painful and demoralizing FDA approval process is just taking too much of a toll on them...
 

mzyw

Junior Member
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China is trying to track down at least 193 people who may have come in contact with a man with Mers, the country's first confirmed case of the virus.

The alert came as South Korea announced it had two more Mers cases, bringing the total within the country to nine.
The outbreak has been traced to a South Korean who visited the Middle East.
China's first case was another South Korean who had ignored quarantine restrictions and flew to Hong Kong, before travelling south by bus.
It confirmed the case on Thursday night, two days after the 44-year-old made the trip.
The World Health Organization says there has so far been no sustained human-to-human spread of the Mers (Middle East respiratory syndrome) virus, which has no known cure.

'High possibility'
Chinese media reported on Friday that the unnamed 68-year-old man had flown into Hong Kong's Chep Lap Kok airport on Asiana Airlines Flight OZ 723, then took a bus through the busy Shenzhen crossing to Huizhou in the southern Guangdong province. He also stayed in a hotel.
He later went to a Huizhou hospital and tested positive for Mers.
Guangdong health authorities warned that it was likely the disease would spread as he had been in busy or crowded places.
He Jianfeng, director for the Guangdong Provincial Center for Disease Control, told reporters that the possibility of Mers transferring to others in the area was "very high".
So far 38 people who came into close contact with the man have been tested and have not showed any signs of illness.
But a Hong Kong woman who was on the same flight was rushed to hospital on Friday after showing symptoms, said
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Mers comes from the same family of viruses as Sars (Severe acute respiratory syndrome) which originated in China in 2002 and infected thousands worldwide.
I think we should also include news about how China handles emerging diseases
 

broadsword

Brigadier
A little late in posting, but still relevant.

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China Develops MERS Antibodies in Lab


Jun 02, 2015

China has developed a variety of laboratory-level therapeutic antibodies and polypeptide drugs for the treatment of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), the Beijing News reported on Tuesday.

Shi Yi, a researcher with the Beijing Institutes of Life Science under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), said a group of researchers led by Gao Fu, a CAS academician, began studies on MERS antibodies in 2013. They have discovered the mechanisms under which the MERS virus invades the host cell, he said.

Shi also said the therapeutic antibodies have shown initial effects on mice in laboratory experiments. Clinical trials will be the next step, while mass production of the antibodies will require pharmaceutical companies to ensure certain production standards.

On Friday, a man from the Republic of Korea tested positive for MERS in the southern province of Guangdong.
Authorities upped the number of people who had close contact with the man to 77 on Sunday. Of them, 67 have been quarantined.

The patient is in a Huizhou City hospital and remains feverish, while none of the others in quarantine are showing any symptoms, according to authorities. (Ecns)
 

Ultra

Junior Member
Highly resistant MCR-1 'superbug' found in US for first time

Bacteria carrying the very worrisome MCR-1 resistance gene—which makes the last-line antibiotic colistin useless against them—have been found in human and animal samples for the first time in the United States, according to a report today in Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy and a statement by federal health officials.

A Chinese team first described the MCR-1 gene last November, after finding it in pigs, pork, and humans. Since then scientists in several countries have found the gene, sometimes alongside other resistance genes, after examining their sample collections. The gene can be transferred to other organisms, compounding the concern.

Today's findings involve a 49-year-old woman whose urine contained Escherichia coli harboring the MCR-1 gene and an E coli isolate from a pig intestine that also contained the colistin-resistance gene.

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Superbug resistant to antibiotics could be ‘beginning of the end’

A SUPERBUG resistant to all known medications has been found in the US for the first time. But an Australian pharmaceutical research company think they may have a solution to the superbug crisis.

Recce Ltd has just developed a synthetic antibiotic, which if approved for use, would be resistant to superbugs, its makers claim.

Recce executive chairman Graham Melrose told news.com.au the drug was before Food and Drug Administration approval and he hoped it would be on the market soon.

Dr Melrose said he didn’t believe the discovery of a superbug strain in the US, which was resistant to antibiotic, meant it was the end of the drug as we know it.

The superbug find raised fears it could old signal “the end of the road” for antibiotics.

Department of Defence researchers last month found a Pennsylvanian woman carried a strain of E. coli resistant to the antibiotic colistin.

The drug is the antibiotic used as a very last resort for the world’s most dangerous superbugs.

However Dr Melrose said he thought that was an extreme reaction given antibiotics and bacteria were both found in natural sources.

However the new drug (REECE AB 327) was synethic and as such has been especially designed to kill every germ and superbug it has been put against.

“It has been especially designed not to be suspectible to superbugs,” he said.

“I don’t see it as the end of antibiotics, they are still being developed.”

He said he hoped the drug would be on the market soon as it was obvious there was a need given the rise of superbugs.

The US superbug discovery, published in Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, a publication of the American Society for Microbiology, said it heralded “the emergence of a truly pan-drug resistant bacteria”.

“It was an old antibiotic, but it was the only one left for what I call nightmare bacteria,” a family of germs known as carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE), said Thomas Frieden, chief of the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.

The recently discovered antibiotic-resistant gene, known as mcr-1, has also been found in China and Europe.

The report gave no details about the outcome of the 49-year-old woman’s case or how she picked up the bug.

The woman had not travelled outside the United States, so could not have acquired the resistant bacteria elsewhere, Dr Frieden said.

“We know now that the more we look, the more we are going to find.

“We risk being in a post-antibiotic world.”

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Staphylococcus is not only potentially deadly but is becoming resistant to some strains of antibiotics.Source:Alamy

Colistin has been available since 1959 to treat infections caused by E. coli, salmonella and acinetobacter, which can cause pneumonia or serious blood and wound infections.

It was abandoned for human use in the 1980s due to high kidney toxicity, but is widely used in livestock farming, especially in China.

However, colistin has been brought back as a treatment of last resort in hospitals and clinics as bacteria have started developing resistance to other, more modern drugs.

“We need to do a very comprehensive job of protecting antibiotics so we can have them and our children can have them,” Dr Frieden said, calling for more research into new antibiotics and better stewardship of existing drugs.

“The medicine cabinet is empty for some patients.

“It is the end of the road for antibiotics unless we act urgently.”

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Staphylococcus aureus superbug bacteria is germ that is resistant to antibiotics.Source:News Limited

DEADLY WARNING

News of the rise of the antibacterial resistant bug follows a new report which claims superbugs are fast becoming one of the biggest health threats to mankind.

The report, tackling drug-resistant infections globally, was released this month after a two-year investigation by former Goldman Sachs economist Jim O’Neill who said
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.

Superbugs can be deadly, but not in all cases.

However, they are particularly dangerous because they become immune to antibiotic treatment.

This potentially means common gut, urinary and blood infections risk becoming incurable unless new and more powerful drugs are created to combat them.

“Routine surgeries and minor infections will become life-threatening once again and the hard won victories against infectious diseases of the last 50 years will be jeopardised,” the report said.

It also highlighted how it could cost governments across the globe $138 trillion a year.

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Experts have warned common infections may not be able to be cured by antibiotics unless more powerful ones are being developed.Source:News Corp Australia

OVERUSE PROBLEM

It isn’t the first time experts have warned about the hidden dangers of antibiotic resistance.

In a groundbreaking documentary shown on Australian TV in February, The Diet Myth, UK leading diet and obesity expert Professor Tim Spector revealed how
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.

He warned the loss of good bacteria was affecting our guts and making us fatter, especially when consumed at a young age.

“By the time the average Australian is 18 they would have had 16-17 course of antibiotics in their lifetime,” he told news.com.au

“This seriously messes things up.

“It’s like waiting for an atomic bomb to go off.”

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It looks like China really need to speed up the construction of BSL-4 labs around the country.
And develop a comprehensive high tech pharmaceutical industry. Its hard to believe a small country like Australia can develop superbig-killing capability with synthetic antibiotics.
 
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vesicles

Colonel
No need to panic! These superbugs still need to compete with other normal bugs for survival. Since their only advantage is the ability to resist antibiotics, we will be fine as long as you don't help the superbugs by killing off normal bugs.

As long as you have both normal and super bugs, the vastly more populous normal bugs will always outcompete the superbugs.

That means that you should only use antibiotics as a last resort. And I cannot emphasize enough... DON'T ABUSE ANTIBIOTICS! Throw away your antibacterial soap! With these soaps, you are literally helping the superbugs survive in your body. Once they outcompete the normal bugs and take over, that's the end.
 

Ultra

Junior Member
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No need to panic! These superbugs still need to compete with other normal bugs for survival. Since their only advantage is the ability to resist antibiotics, we will be fine as long as you don't help the superbugs by killing off normal bugs.

As long as you have both normal and super bugs, the vastly more populous normal bugs will always outcompete the superbugs.

That means that you should only use antibiotics as a last resort. And I cannot emphasize enough... DON'T ABUSE ANTIBIOTICS! Throw away your antibacterial soap! With these soaps, you are literally helping the superbugs survive in your body. Once they outcompete the normal bugs and take over, that's the end.



I don't think so mate.
If superbugs can be out-compete as you said, then the cure for these people who are infected by these superbugs are simply to smear them full of normal bugs! THE CURE! SMEAR YOUR PATIENTS WITH NORMAL BUGS! OR INJECT THEM DIRECTLY INTO BLOOD STREAM! :D

That, is not how it works.
 

vesicles

Colonel
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I don't think so mate.
If superbugs can be out-compete as you said, then the cure for these people who are infected by these superbugs are simply to smear them full of normal bugs! THE CURE! SMEAR YOUR PATIENTS WITH NORMAL BUGS! OR INJECT THEM DIRECTLY INTO BLOOD STREAM! :D

That, is not how it works.

Com'on man! Do you actually think that's what I was implying? Am I that stupid to you? You got to give people more benefit of the doubt...

That's not what I meant. My post has nothing to do with how to cure an infection. As I said at the end of my last post, once you actually get an infection of the superbugs, it's game over.

My post was about long term maintenance. What I actually meant was that the superbugs won't become a plague as the article above implies IF we can stop abusing the antibiotics. Without the help of antibiotics, these superbugs will be slowly phased out by the normal bugs during their daily survival.

You won't get an infection immediately after some bacteria get onto our body. They need to accumulate to a certain level. We carry millions of different types of bacteria, good and bad, in our bodies at all times. Even if some superbugs get on us (and this happens on a daily basis ever since the beginning a life itself on this planet), the vastly more populous normal bugs will outcompete the mutants and kill them off in no time. That's why you don't feel sick everyday, even though you are getting mutant bacteria on you all the time. The vast population of normal bugs living in our bodies are in fact our first line of defense.

When you take antibiotics all the time, you kill off normal bugs. Since the superbugs won't be affected by it, they get less pressure from the normal bugs and can survive better. Once you feel sick, that means the superbugs have accumulated to that critical level. Once that happens, nothing can help. Injecting normal bugs will not help a bit because the population of the superbugs is already big enough so that it cannot be outcompeted by anything anymore. And the presence of more bacteria will simply overwhelm your immune system.

Let evolution take care of the problem. That's what I meant. I think that's also what the article is trying to say as well.
 
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vesicles

Colonel
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I don't think so mate.
If superbugs can be out-compete as you said, then the cure for these people who are infected by these superbugs are simply to smear them full of normal bugs! THE CURE! SMEAR YOUR PATIENTS WITH NORMAL BUGS! OR INJECT THEM DIRECTLY INTO BLOOD STREAM! :D

That, is not how it works.

By the way, "injecting bugs into your body" is not as crazy as you think. Ever heard of probiotics?

Of course, no probiotics should be used for curing infections. They are mainly for long term maintenance of our bodies. The goal is exactly as you imply: increasing the population of good bacteria in your body and keep the bad ones in check. That's why you eat yogurt. Yes?
 
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