BD BioTech

12/08/2022

"A. sativum, A. paniculata, A. herba-alba, A. vulgaris, A. indica, C. sinensis, C. limon, C. longa, E. globulus, E. hirta, G. glabra, M. indica, N. sativa, P. guajava, S. aromaticum, and Z. officinale are the most commonly used traditional phytomedicine for COVID-19 prevention and treatment in various geographical locations. These plant species have reported in vitro, in vivo, and in silico antiviral efficacy with diverse mechanisms (such as inhibition or blocking viral entry into host cells, viral RNA polymerase and RNA replication, viral DNA synthesis, viral hemagglutination, viral assembly, disruption of viral membrane proteins, enhancing cytotoxic T cells, natural killer (NK) cells, and phagocytosis). Due to these advances in understanding, there should be enhanced recognition for extensive biological research of ethnomedicines for developing plant-based COVID-19 eradication strategies."

Read More: https://rdcu.be/cTqpi

Background Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus, ethnomedicinal plants have been used in diverse geographical locations for their purported prophylactic and pharmacological effects. Medicinal plants have been relied on by people around the globe for centuries, as 80% of the world’s population ...

07/08/2022

Role of ethno-phytomedicine knowledge in healthcare of COVID-19: advances in traditional phytomedicine perspective

"This review portrays advances in traditional phytomedicine by bridging the knowledge of ethno-phytomedicine and COVID-19 healthcare. Ethnomedicinal plants have been used for symptoms related to COVID-19 as antiviral, anti-infective, anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant, antipyretic, and lung–gut immune boosters. Traditionally used medicinal plants have the ability to inhibit virus entry and viral assembly, bind to spike proteins, membrane proteins, and block viral replications and enzymes. The efficacy of traditional medicinal plants in the terms of COVID-19 management can be evaluated by in vitro, in vivo as well as different in silico techniques (molecular docking, molecular dynamics simulations, machine learning, etc.) which have been applied extensively to the quest and design of effective biotherapeutics rapidly. Other advances in traditional phytomedicines against COVID-19 are controlled clinical trials, and notably the roles in the gut microbiome. Targeting the gut microbiome via medicinal plants as prebiotics is also found to be an alternative and potential strategy in the search for a COVID-19 combat strategy.

Since medicinal plants are the sources of modern biotherapeutics development, it is essential to build collaborations among ethnobotanists, scientists, and technologists toward developing the most efficient and the safest adjuvant therapeutics against the pandemic of the twenty-first century, COVID-19."

Read more: https://rdcu.be/cTaPY

22/07/2022

Researchers don’t always stick to careful citation practices and occasionally cite evidence that has been called into question or even retracted by publishers. Dmitry Malkov provides practical tips on how to avoid citing faulty evidence and maintain good citation hygiene

19/02/2022

"Experiences of LAFS (love at first sight) were marked neither by high passion, nor by intimacy, nor by commitment. Physical attraction was highly predictive of reporting LAFS."

https://doi.org/10.1111/pere.12218

06/02/2022

70% of COVID mRNA vaccine doses have gone to the richest countries, so South African scientists at WHO hub are copying Moderna’s COVID vaccine

Researchers at WHO technology-transfer hub complete first step in a project aimed at building capacity for vaccine manufacturing in low- and middle-income countries.

28/01/2022

https://youtu.be/b41QOinwkeA

Abed CHAUDHURY is an Australian-Bangladeshi geneticist, science writer and poet living in Australia.Know more about Abed CHAUDHURY https://www.linkedin.com/...

17/12/2021

"Colchicine was first mentioned in an ancient Egyptian papyrus dating back to 1550 BC, even before the Jewish people left Egypt, according to the biblical story. Later, it was used by physicians in ancient Greece, in the Byzantine period and then by Arab physicians more than 1,000 years ago."
https://www.jpost.com/health-and-wellness/ancient-greek-drug-could-save-lives-of-covid-patients-israeli-scientist-688730

Prof. Ami Schattner: “Initial results are promising to say the least.”

17/12/2021

Plant lectins as prospective antiviral biomolecules in the search for COVID-19 eradication strategies

-specific/mannose-binding lectins
-CoV-2 glycobiology
plant lectins


Key content:

• The complement lectin pathway is a “first-line host defense” against viral infection.

• Mannose-binding lectin (MBL) plays a key role in innate immunity and activation of the lectin pathway of the complement system.

• Serum MBL deficiency (below 500ng/ml) facilitates infectious diseases including the severity of COVID-19.

• MBL has potent properties of anti-infectivity, immunoadjuvants, DC-SIGN antagonists, or glycomimetic approach.

• Plant-derived MBL has a role in viral recognition and can block binding of SARS-CoV-2 in-vitro, in-vivo, and in-silico.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopha.2021.112507

11/12/2021

“…Recent research has found that the gut microbiome could play a role in autoimmune disease, diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular disease, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer's, multiple sclerosis, and even depression...”

“…The balance of this delicate ecosystem can be disturbed by our diet, antibiotics, and many other factors, and can be difficult to set right…”

“…Probiotics and f***l transplants may help, but they don’t always take and may not have the desired effect…”

“…[Here] scientists at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) have successfully edited the genome of bacteria in the gut microbiome of living mice, for the first time…”

“…Bacteria-hunting viruses are loaded with the CRISPR gene-editing system, in a breakthrough that could help manipulate the ratio between different bacterial species to treat a range of health problems…”

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.celrep.2021.109930

01/12/2021

একজন বাংলাদেশী রসায়নবিদ, গ্রন্থকার এবং শিক্ষাবিদ ড. কুদরাত-এ-খুদা -র জন্মবার্ষিকী আজ। তাকে শ্রদ্ধার সাথে স্বরণ করছি ...

Muhammad Qudrat-i-Khuda (1900 – 1977) was a Bangladeshi organic chemist, educationist and writer. He founded the Bangladesh Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (BCSIR).

Muhammad Qudrat-I-Khuda's field of specialisation was organic chemistry. He conducted research on herbals, jute, salt, charcoal, soil and minerals. He successfully extracted biochemical elements from local trees and plants for medicinal use.

Qudrat-i-Khuda and his associates patented 18 scientific inventions. Manufacturing of Partex from jute-stick was his greatest scientific achievement. Manufacturing malt vinegar from the juice of sugarcane and molasses, rayon from jute and jute-sticks, and paper from jute were his other significant scientific innovations.

24/11/2021

The Health Benefits of Vitamin D Supplementation

# Vitamin D and calcium supplementation can cure nutritional rickets and can modestly decrease the risk of major fractures in older adults with poor vitamin D status or calcium intake.

# Post-hoc analysis of large supplementation trials has suggested that supplementation of individuals with vitamin D deficiency modestly delays age-related bone loss and progression to T2DM, and improves lung function.

# A meta-analysis suggested that vitamin D supplementation results in a modest decrease in cancer mortality.

# supplementation of vitamin D-replete individuals does not generate overall health benefits; however, correction of severe vitamin D deficiency remains essential.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41574-021-00593-z

25/10/2021

In an anemic world where more than 1.5 billion suffer iron deficiency, it takes guts to absorb (or not absorb) iron:

'Microbial Metabolite Signaling Is Required for Systemic Iron Homeostasis'
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cmet.2019.10.005
(November 2019)
"Lactobacillus species sense intestinal iron levels and attenuate host iron absorption"

•Microbial metabolites DAP and reuterin are novel HIF-2α inhibitors

•Gut microbial metabolites regulate intestinal iron storage via ferritin regulation

•Gut microbiota can be therapeutically targeted for iron-related disorders

"mammalian iron disorders such as iron deficiency anemia and iron overload can be therapeutically targeted by administering microbial species or regulating their metabolites."

18/10/2021

“The field has progressed a lot, and we are finding out which bacteria are generally on the good and bad guys rosters,” said Justin Sonnenburg, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Stanford University who studies the microbiome.

Companies can tell you the kinds of microbes that live in your gut, but the results may not help you lose weight or fend off disease.

15/10/2021

The new study published Oct. 5 in the Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience, discovered a sensing mechanism associated with the gut microbiome that explains how fenchol reduces neurotoxicity in the Alzheimer’s brain.

Fenchol, a natural compound abundant in some plants including basil, can help protect the brain against Alzheimer’s disease pathology, a preclinical study led by University of South Florida Health (USF Health) researchers suggests.

10/10/2021

"......stepped forward in a spirit of patriotism to develop rice varieties with higher climate resilience and greater production. Over the last 20 years we have developed multiple varieties that grow for the whole year and can be harvested five times after one planting. In addition we have developed high yielding Aman and Boro varieties that can be harvested one month earlier than the existing varieties. These multiple-harvest varieties combined with earliness of life cycle will lead to a quadrupling of rice production. When deployed into 87,000 villages of Bangladesh, these varieties will provide a powerful example of climate-responsive rice production for increased food security in Bangladesh and beyond."

https://en.samakal.com/opinion/article/211071/overcoming-climatethreat-to-rice-production-bangladesh-and-beyond?

Rice is a primary food source of the world along with wheat and maize and is the major source of food in Asia, including Bangladesh.  Bangladesh has 10 million hectares of rice land with an average of a

07/10/2021

"Hundreds of scientists had worked on mRNA vaccines for decades before the coronavirus pandemic brought a breakthrough"

Full article: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02483-w

04/10/2021

Ardem Patapoutian, awarded the 2021 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, used pressure-sensitive cells to discover a novel class of sensors that respond to mechanical stimuli in the skin and internal organs.

Patapoutian and his collaborators first identified a cell line that gave off a measurable electric signal when individual cells were poked with a micropipette. It was assumed that the receptor activated by mechanical force is an ion channel and in a next step 72 candidate genes encoding possible receptors were identified. These genes were inactivated one by one to discover the gene responsible for mechanosensitivity in the studied cells. After an arduous search, Patapoutian and his co-workers succeeded in identifying a single gene whose silencing rendered the cells insensitive to poking with the micropipette. A new and entirely unknown mechanosensitive ion channel had been discovered and was given the name Piezo1, after the Greek word for pressure. Through its similarity to Piezo1, a second gene was discovered and named Piezo2. Sensory neurons were found to express high levels of Piezo2 and further studies firmly established that Piezo1 and Piezo2 are ion channels that are directly activated by the exertion of pressure on cell membranes (see figure).

The breakthrough by Patapoutian led to a series of papers from his and other groups, demonstrating that the Piezo2 ion channel is essential for the sense of touch. Moreover, Piezo2 was shown to play a key role in the critically important sensing of body position and motion, known as proprioception. In further work, Piezo1 and Piezo2 channels have been shown to regulate additional important physiological processes including blood pressure, respiration and urinary bladder control.

The 2021 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded jointly to David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian “for their discoveries of receptors for temperature and touch.”

Learn more
Press release: https://bit.ly/3nB8UXe
Advanced information: https://bit.ly/3ErJXDq

04/10/2021

The Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institutet has today decided to award the 2021 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly to David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian “for their discoveries of receptors for temperature and touch.”

The 2021 Nobel Prize laureates in physiology or medicine identified critical missing links in our understanding of the complex interplay between our senses and the environment.

Learn more
Press release: https://bit.ly/3nB8UXe
Advanced information: https://bit.ly/3ErJXDq

30/09/2021

একাডেমিয়া-শিল্পপ্রতিষ্ঠানের মধ্যকার সম্পর্ক মোটেই নতুন নয়। তবে সময়ের পরিক্রমায় এ সম্পর্কে মাত্রাগত পরিবর্তন এ....

25/09/2021

[Be well: A potential role for vitamin B in COVID-19]

"Vitamin B modulates immune response by downregulating pro-inflammatory cytokines and inflammation, reducing breathing difficulty and gastrointestinal problems, preventing hypercoagulability, potentially improving outcomes and reducing the length of stay in the hospital for COVID-19 patients."

Find here details:
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.maturitas.2020.08.007

23/09/2021

The research team from University of California, Riverside, among others, are focusing on using chloroplasts that plants use to convert sunlight into energy, to produce edible plant-based mRNA Covid-19 vaccines.

21/09/2021

".....it’s clear that vaccine–induced antibodies do a worse job at recognizing SARS-CoV-2 variants compared with the ancestral strain of the virus. What remains unclear, however, is to what degree the immune system’s safeguards that protect vaccinated people against severe disease, hospitalization and death might be fading as well. “That,” says Davenport, “is the million-dollar question at the moment.”

As debates about booster shots heat up, what’s known about the duration of vaccine-based immunity is still evolving.

20/09/2021

Detection of COVID-19 antibodies in 5 minutes

Combining the accuracy of one popular antibody assay with the portability of another, study published in Science Advances,
have developed a technique to detect SARS-CoV-2 antibodies that can be completed within 5 minutes using a mobile phone.

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abg8387

13/09/2021

Humans have been evolutionarily programmed to defend themselves against any microbial attack.

" A diet characterised by healthy plant-based foods was associated with lower risk and severity of COVID-19."

https://gut.bmj.com/content/early/2021/09/06/gutjnl-2021-325353

Objective Poor metabolic health and unhealthy lifestyle factors have been associated with risk and severity of COVID-19, but data for diet are lacking. We aimed to investigate the association of diet quality with risk and severity of COVID-19 and its interaction with socioeconomic deprivation. Desig...

06/09/2021

The first preliminary evidence that in vivo gene editing in a clinical setting is feasible with no early signs of severe adverse events comes from an ongoing clinical trial to treat transthyretin amyloidosis, a fatal monogenetic disease.