Dr. Matthew R. Willmann, Delivery Technology Lead at Pairwise, served as Editor for the book titled “Genome Editing for Precision Crop Breeding” which is part of the Burleigh Dodds series in agricultural science.
After 35 years on the faculty at The Ohio State University, Dr. John Finer will retire on June 1, 2021. He will relocate to Naples, Florida to pursue his passion of growing tropical plants and orchids. He was recently added to the Board of Directors of the Gulf Coast Orchid Alliance and has become a member of the Research Committee of the American Orchid Society, joining Rob Griesbach and Wagner Vendrame on this committee. He hopes to continue some research activities as Emeritus faculty at Ohio State and as visiting faculty at Florida Gulf Coast University.
Dr. Pamela Weathers (Professor, Biology & Biotechnology Dept., Worcester Polytechnic Institute) Research Group recently published their research study showing in vitro efficacy of Artemisia annua hot water extracts (aka tea infusions) against SARS-CoV-2 and two of its variants (UK and South African) in the Journal of Ethnopharmacology (vol 274: 114016). Dried leaves sourced from 4 continents were all equally active, even one leaf batch that was ~12 yrs old. Although artemisinin was also active, the results also showed that as the artemisinin content increased, antiviral activity decreased suggesting artemisinin was antagonistic. The effect appeared to inhibit replication and not viral entry into the cell. Based on a single human pharmacokinetic query using artemisinin as a marker molecule, only about 1 g of dried leaves was needed to achieve the measured IC90. Early studies had shown that artemisinin and A. annua also quell inflammation markers, e.g. the same markers observed in the cytokine storm characteristic of covid-19, and blunt fibrosis that may improve outcomes for covid long haulers. Together the results suggested that A. annua dried leaves may offer a cost effective therapeutic option for treating covid-19.
MS Nair, Y. Huang, DA Fidock, SJ Polyak, J Wagoner, MJ Towler, PJ Weathers. Artemisia annua L. extracts inhibit in vitro replication of SARS-CoV-2 and two of its variants. Journal of Ethnopharmacology, 28: 274, 2021.
Please use the following link to read this publication: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.01.08.425825v2.full
Dr. Leonard Hayflick, Ph.D., Professor of Anatomy, University of California, San Francisco, published the article titled “The greatest risk factor for the leading cause of death is ignored” in the journal Biogerontology.
Leonard Hayflick. The greatest risk factor for the leading cause of death is ignored. Biogerontology, 22:133-141, 2021.
Please use the following link to read the full paper: https://www.aginginterventionfoundation.org/BiogerontologyArticle.pdf
