Science is the cornerstone of social progress. From the Blood-drinking Stone Age to the digital age of the Internet of Everything, this earth-shaking change is based on mankind's endless exploration of science and several major scientific breakthroughs.
In 1895, scientist Wilhelm Röntgen discovered X-rays, which were soon used for medical diagnosis;
In 1929, the bacteriologist Fleming discovered penicillin, the first antibiotic discovered by humans, thus opening the prelude to the use of antibiotics to treat diseases and save people.
There are so many such cases, and almost every convenience we see today can be traced back to a single scientific discovery.
Today, human society faces more challenges: the novel coronavirus, global warming, marine pollution, cancer, and more. We need scientists more than ever. We need to support them and encourage scientists to identify problems, ask questions, and find answers. As Carl Sagan said, "Whether we are improving or not depends on whether we have the courage to ask questions and the depth of the answers..."
Fights superbugs
Antibiotic resistance is known to be one of the most pressing public threats worldwide. Multidrug-resistant bacteria have a more colloquial name , superbugs , and up to hundreds of thousands of people die of superbug infections each year.
There are two main ways in which bacteria become resistant to antibiotics. One is natural access, and the other is that human abuse of antibiotics gives bacteria resistance in disguise. The misuse of antibiotics is the main reason, which makes the fight against superbugs more complex and difficult.
Superbugs |tuchong.com
This is not only a scientific problem, but also a business problem. It takes an average of more than a decade to develop a new antibiotic; it only takes two or three years for bacteria to become resistant to antibiotics. This means that developing new antibiotics is costly, but the cost cycle for recovery is short. So, on the one hand, according to estimates by the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations (IFPMA), in the worst case scenario, 10 million people worldwide are expected to die each year from resistant bacteria by 2050; on the other hand, the development of new antibiotics is facing funding shortages and technical bottlenecks.
Dr Mark Springer, head of the World Health Organization's antimicrobial program, once said, "If you look at the timeline for new antibiotic drugs to go on the market, there is a gap of almost 30 years." At the heart of this conundrum is to support and facilitate the research of new antibiotics by pharmaceutical companies and scientists.
In this context, a number of international pharmaceutical companies have jointly established the AMR Action Fund, which provides $1 billion of venture capital for antibiotic research and development under the leadership of IFPMA. They are expected to fund biomedical companies to develop 2-4 antibiotics and provide them to patients over the next 10 years.
Stephan Sieber, a professor of organic chemistry at the Technical University of Munich, is leading his research team against superbugs. For his contributions to the field, Siebel was awarded the Future Insight Price in 2020. (Copy link for more future insights: https://www.emdgroup.com/en/news/future-insight-prize-2020-13-07-2020.html) The award was established by Merck, the world's leading technology company, on the occasion of its 350th anniversary, starting in 2019 and lasting for 35 years. The prize focuses on solving greatest problems in the humanities and promotes groundbreaking, innovative scientific research in the fields of health, nutrition and energy, with a prize of €1 million. In addition, Siebel has received numerous awards, including one of Germany's most important scientific prizes, the Klung-Wilhelmy Prize for Science and the Klaus Grohe Prize for Science, which aims to encourage the development of new drugs.
Stephan Sieber | technical university of Munich
The core strategy of Siebel et al. is to look for potential targets in bacterial metabolism. They need to identify the protein that is essential for the survival of the bacteria, and then manage to destroy it, eventually killing the bacteria. They used a drug called PK150, a modified anti-cancer drug capable of attacking bacteria in two ways at the same time: blocking energy metabolism while destroying cell walls. Simply put, first, the antibiotic can interfere with the energy metabolism of bacteria; second, it increases the activity of signal peptidase, causing bacteria to rupture.
Professor Siebel said that because PK150, both ways of attacking bacteria, worked at the same time, it was difficult for bacteria to become resistant to it because "the probability of two mutations occurring in the right place in the same cell is much lower." ”
At present, PK150 is already in the preclinical research stage. Scientists are testing the effectiveness of antibiotics against other types of bacteria. Such as mycobacteria and gram-negative bacteria.
Convert waste plastics into edible proteins
Among the many pressing issues facing humanity today, two seemingly unrelated areas have been linked by a study by scientists: the degradation of plastics by microorganisms and the production of edible proteins from degraded waste. This technology offers new solutions to the global plastic pollution and food crisis.
Plastic pollution, especially those spilled into aquatic ecosystems, has increased dramatically in recent years and is expected to more than double by 2030, with dire consequences for human health, the global economy, biodiversity and the climate. For humans themselves, the most immediate harm comes from plastic decompositors, which eventually enrich the human body through the food chain, which can lead to hormonal changes, developmental disorders, reproductive abnormalities and cancer. In addition, under the shade of plastic, corals and mangroves in the ocean are inundated by garbage and cannot obtain oxygen and light, which has a serious impact on the stability of marine ecology.
Plastic waste by the sea |tuchong.com
Another issue of great relevance to humanity is the food crisis. The 2020 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the World Food Programme (WFP) for its efforts to fight hunger on a global scale. However, hunger is not really far away from humanity. On the contrary, as humanity faces more and more challenges, food supplies face greater threats. An analysis by WFP shows that if the global average temperature rises by 2 degrees Celsius from pre-industrial levels, it will add 189 million hungry people worldwide. Today, global hunger has worsened dramatically as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, with the State of Food Security and Nutrition of the World report, written by several UN agencies, estimating that about one in ten of the world's population (811 million people) was undernourished the year before (2020).
Scientists are in action.
In July, the 2021 Future Insights Award was awarded to Ting Lu, professor of bioengineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Stephen, associate professor of biological sciences at Michigan Tech Techtmann (copy link read more topics: https://www.emdgroup.com/en/news/future-insight-prize-2021.html) They have created a pioneering technology that degrades plastics with microorganisms and then uses waste to produce protein and fuel. The technology promises to solve both food shortages and increased plastic waste.
2021 Future Insight Price Winners (Stephen Techtmann and Ting Lu)
The technology was originally funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to study improving a way to deconstruct plastic waste into protein powders and lubricants. Under the current process, the researchers dissolved the plastic into an oily compound that was then fed to a community of edible oil bacteria. Bacteria eat "oil" and proliferate in large quantities, producing more bacterial cells, which contain 55% protein. Through this process, plastic-protein conversion is achieved.
Scientists have even envisioned a system that can be applied in reality. People throw plastic waste or inedible biomass into the "trash can", the waste enters the treatment reactor, heats and decomposes, sends it into the edible oil bacterial community, and then the cells are dried and processed to obtain protein powder.
Taking it a step further, researchers are designing bacteria to make the proteins produced richer: containing specific amino acids and unsaturated fatty acids. On the other hand, they used synthetic biology methods to increase probiotics, thereby improving the quality of the "food" produced.
The collaboration between the two winners, Techtmann and Ting Lu, is both accidental and dramatic. Techtmann's research focuses on the biodegradation of plastics, and Ting Lu's expertise lies in the field of engineered probiotics. The two met at a conference a few years ago, when Techtmann was focusing on how to clean up oil spills with bacteria, while Ting Lu was working on genetically modified organisms to enhance human health, such as inhibiting the growth of foodborne pathogens. The two people's fields have combined to form this highly promising technology.
Curiosity is a prerequisite for science
#Always curious#, as Einstein said, "I have no special talents, only intense curiosity." The one who is always curious is the one who is always progressive. "Now, two years after the world entered the covid-19 pandemic, has human curiosity disappeared? Has the pandemic made humanity more closed and conservative? As the world's leading technology company, Merck conducted a questionnaire survey on "curiosity" in China, the United States and Germany, and the statistical results showed the resilience and irrepressible curiosity of human beings under the epidemic.
Similarly, 63 percent of respondents believe the pandemic has changed their daily lives; similarly, 63 percent say they'd rather try something new; 61 percent believe they're more productive; and 74 percent believe there's hope in a crisis.
This survey report may not be consistent with personal perception, but it is consistent with the history of human development. Whether it is war, disease or natural disaster, individuals in it may have depressed and depressed emotions, but they will eventually come out of the haze, which is the logic of human social progress. For example, radar technology and sonar technology, which flourished in World War II, are now widely used in the field of remote sensing and marine exploration; the mRNA vaccine born in the epidemic has become a powerful weapon for human beings to fight infectious diseases...
According to relevant reports, the COVID-19 pandemic has advanced the digitization of the biomedical industry by at least 5 years. This accelerated transformation is critical to improving patient care, cost-effectiveness, transparency, production, and drug development.
Not just scientists, everyone needs to be open, keep a desire to explore the outside world, and be curious. This is a prerequisite for science and a driving force for human progress.