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Making pathogens more dangerous can help researchers prepare for pandemics.Credit: Anna Schroll/Fotogloria/UIG via Getty
United States debates transparency of risky disease experiments
An expert panel met in the United States last week to debate whether there should be more transparency around federally funded ‘gain-of-function’ studies — when viruses in the lab are deliberately made more dangerous to help scientists hone their preparations for a real outbreak. Some say that working with potential pandemic pathogens necessitates more public disclosure than other research. Others argue that opening up the secretive review process to the wider community means “there’s a 100 percent chance nothing will get approved”. The discussion is the latest chapter in a long-standing debate about the value of potentially dangerous biological research in the United States.
Free drugs for ultra-rare diseases
Biotechnology magnate Stan Crooke has launched a foundation that will supply free RNA therapies to people with diseases that affect fewer than ten individuals. The foundation, n-Lorum, aims to seize control of the process before for-profit companies decide to start “targeting these families for millions of dollars”, said Crooke. The organization will have to tackle how to bring down the cost of manufacturing such drugs and testing them for safety.
Nature Biotechnology | 7 min read
Creationist to lead Brazil’s higher education
Electrical engineer Benedito Guimarães Aguiar Neto, the former rector of a private religious university, has been tapped to lead the agency that oversees Brazil’s graduate study programmes. Aguiar Neto advocates for intelligent design and has said that it should be introduced into Brazil’s basic education curricula as “a counterpoint to the theory of evolution”.
Wuhan coronavirus outbreak
A worker produces protective suits at a factory in Nantong in China’s eastern Jiangsu province.Credit: AFP/Getty
Coronavirus infections surge past 4,500
The number of confirmed cases of coronavirus in China has jumped by more than 60% in the past two days and at least 100 people have died, report health authorities in China. Confirmed cases outside China have reached at least 37, but no deaths have been reported outside the country. Germany, Japan and Vietnam have become the first countries outside China to report human-to-human transmission.
Researchers are struggling to accurately model the outbreak and predict how it might unfold, because the case-report data being released by the Chinese authorities are incomplete. “What we need to identify is when people got sick, not when the cases were reported, and all we’ve seen so far is when the cases were reported,” says epidemiologist Raina MacIntyre.
One number that epidemiologists want to know is how many people one person with the virus tends to infect — known as R0, or R-naught. An R0 of higher than 1 means that countermeasures such as quarantine will be needed to contain the pathogen’s spread.
On Thursday evening, after a meeting of an emergency committee responding to the outbreak, the World Health Organization (WHO) published an estimated R0 of 1.4 to 2.5. Other teams have since come up with slightly higher values — but all the estimates come with large uncertainties.
Another important unanswered question surrounding the virus’s spread is whether — and how extensively — people without symptoms can infect others.
Plenty of disinformation about the virus is spreading, too. Inoculate yourself with this list of falsehoods and unverified information.
Nature | 8 min read, continuously updated & Buzzfeed News | 4 min read
Features & opinion
Asimov at 100: A life of wonder
For Isaac Asimov, “nurturing ingenuity and insight through exploration, learning and communication was an ethical imperative and crucial for human progress”, writes digital ethicist David Leslie. It was an ethos that Asimov promoted through 20 million printed words. Discover Asimov’s career as a chemist, science popularizer and legend of science-fiction’s Golden Age.
Founding a company versus graduate school
Mental-health researcher Adam Chekroud founded a company with fellow students during the third year of his PhD. He discovered that good science, shared responsibilities and quick results make industry a fulfilling path — although you might miss ‘nerding out’ with colleagues about the more esoteric topics in your field.
Drilling through the bottom of the world
Join the first large-scale scientific survey on the Thwaites glacier — an Antarctic ice sheet that already accounts for 4% of world sea level rise each year, and holds enough water to raise the level by more than half a metre. Lush photos and infographics explain how an enormous joint UK-US project aims to drill through the ice with hot water — and why Thwaites is so important in the first place.
