On March 16, a single tweet mobilized an army of over 700 geneticists from 36 countries to battle a tiny virus by trying to understand the role human genetics plays in why some people have no reaction to COVID-19, and others get very sick and die. Goal: aggregate genetic and clinical information on individuals affected by COVID-19, tweeted Andrea Gemma, a geneticist at the Institute for Molecular Medicine in Helsinki, Finland. Just a few weeks later the COVID-19 Host Genetics Initiative was up and running and is now identifying human genes associated with COVID and its symptomsnothing definitive yet, although the possibility of breakthroughs has been substantially improved by the combined DNA-discovery firepower of over 150 labs and biobanks that store and analyze millions of human genomes.
Nor is this pandemic display of raw scientific muscle and intensity of focus unique right now. Pandemic-bound researchers around the world are combining forces for possibly the largest scientific hive-mind effort in history thats converging on a single conundrum. It also arrives as a slew of technologies developed over the past generation are coming online and being applied to the COVID puzzleeverything from CRISPR gene editing and faster and cheaper genetic sequencing to social media and the integration of artificial intelligence and machine learning in bioresearch and health IT.
COVID-19 has ravaged bioscience just like it has cut a destructive and sometimes deadly swath through much of what we used to call normal. Yet even as labs have shuttered, experiments have halted, and droves of scientists and technicians have been laid offand research and clinical attention has been diverted from any disease thats non-COVIDis it possible that some scientific silver linings may emerge out of this tragic Year of the Pandemic?
Could we see a near-future surge of scientific advancement, what Stanford bio-informaticist Carlos Bustamante likened to what happened when we went to the moon? You had all this spillover technology that gave us, say, the Internet, he said. Or is it possible that somewhere, somehow, a new respect for science and evidence will emerge out of COVID-19? Theres kind of a reward system now for people to pay attention to facts, said George Church, Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School, rather than just making stuff up. And that reward is in terms of fewer relatives and friends and colleagues dying.
As the world is teetering and we struggle to absorb a daily barrage of less than sanguine newsnot only about COVID but also in politics, racial relations, and the economy NEO.LIFE asked prominent bioscientists and big thinkers if there might be glimmers of hope that will emerge when the all clear is finally declared.
Im seeing an intensity of purpose like Ive never seen before, said Eric Topol, director and founder of the Scripps Research Translational Institute. Putting this great big brain trust in science on such a seemingly insurmountable problem will change how we do things going forward.
We are seeing biologists working with statisticians, public health experts collaborating with logistics experts, added Katharina Voltz, founder and CEO of OccamzRazor. With the coronavirus, you need the experts on SARS, on spike proteins, on pulmonary diseases, to all come together and collaborate on a shared canvas.
Were asking questions we never asked about, say, the flu, added Carlos Bustamante, attributing this to the rise of the hive mind. For instance, were learning about COVID at a molecular phenotyping detail like weve not done for any other infectious disease. (Molecular refers mostly to genetics, and phenotype to observable traits in a human or other organism.) Its been amazing for this disease how weve accepted that different people respond differently to this infection. That is not true of almost any other large-scale infection we talk about.
We can take heart that for the first time in history we have the computing power to actually make sense of all of this complexity as artificial intelligence and machine learning in biology is moving from hype to reality. One of the trends that were seeing now is the application of machine learning to dissect and extract patterns from a deluge of genomic, proteomic, metabolic data, said Katharina Voltz. We can perform many experiments in silicoon the computerand only run the most important crucial parts of the experimental method in the lab, as a confirmation of our theoretical models.
Machine learning is going to transform how we think in biology, agreed Wayne Koff, CEO, Human Vaccines Project. Its going to generate hypotheses. We will be able to better focus on smaller groups of peoplethe vulnerable groups, the diseased, the elderly, the poor, the newborns, those living in the developing world.
Computers and the Internet are also lifelines for all of us personally needing to stay connected, and as biomedicine tries to navigate a world of shelter-in-place and social distancing. Weve just dragged the country through half a decade of telemedicine in three months, said Carlos Bustamante. Are we going to now give that all up and go back to having to wait in the doctors office with everybody else coughing to see a doctor?
I think this pandemic will be a big moment for biology, said synthetic biologist Pamela Silver, professor of Biochemistry and Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School. Biologys going to fix the COVID problem, but it can also fix a ton of other problems, tooproblems like the environment, food, and other diseases. And the only way were going to get there is with engineering biologymanipulating and improving the biological mechanisms.
One way to accomplish this is what Silver and other synthetic biologists call plug and playthe creation of basic biological components for research and for developing treatments and preventatives like vaccines that have been synthesized in a lab, ready to be deployed, say, when the next virus arrives. Im thinking that as we learn how to manipulate viruses and create methods for booting up responses faster it becomes a kind of plug-and-play system that is nimble, said Silver, and this goes not just for vaccines. It goes for everything, anything. You have a new disease, or any kind of therapeutic, and youre better prepared.
Eric Topol, however, frets about the neglect or lack of emphasis on non COVID-19 diseases. This is a concern and will continue to be for the near future. Katharina Volz added that once this crisis is over, we need to hyper-focus on other diseases, too. You really have to put this same urgency that we have for COVID now and apply it to other diseases that may have a potentially bigger economic and personal impact than COVID, she said, Alzheimers and Parkinsons and many others.
Weve just dragged the country through half a decade of telemedicine in three months.
Scientists also worry about the leadership vacuum they see in the world. I hope, as we go forward, we will get better leadership, said Eric Topol. Weve seen how science can contribute where it was given true authority, so I think thats going to be another path forwardI hopealthough in the U.S. we have horrible tensions between politics and science that shouldnt exist.
No one really knows what biomedicine will look like when this is over. But it is comforting to know that something positive may come out of COVID. As Carlos Bustamante said: I want everything I do to be drafted behind COVID. Im thinking of the mother of all cycling teams. [Cycling teams assign one cyclist to ride first in line so the others can draft behind them, which makes it easier for them to pedal]. And youre drafting behind COVID, and then once youve reached the finish line, you can take that energy and hopefully channel it into other disease areas that can be cured.
More:
After the MadnessPandemic Silver Linings in Bioscience - NEO.LIFE
- 1st draft of a human 'pangenome' published, adding millions of ... - May 17th, 2023
- A Brief Guide to Genomics - National Human Genome Research Institute - May 17th, 2023
- Human genetics - Immunogenetics | Britannica - April 23rd, 2023
- A Troublesome Inheritance - Wikipedia - April 23rd, 2023
- Human - Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - January 29th, 2023
- Human Genetics and Genomics Training Program - Hopkins Medicine - January 4th, 2023
- Genetics vs. Genomics Fact Sheet - Genome.gov - December 18th, 2022
- Human Genetics and Molecular Biology, PhD - Johns Hopkins University - December 18th, 2022
- Race (human categorization) - Wikipedia - December 2nd, 2022
- Human Y-chromosome DNA haplogroup - Wikipedia - November 24th, 2022
- Abstracts | International Congress of Human Genetics 2023 - November 24th, 2022
- Human genetic variation - Wikipedia - November 6th, 2022
- Genetics | The Smithsonian Institution's Human Origins Program - October 29th, 2022
- Fluent BioSciences showcasing breakthrough solutions to enable unprecedented scale, cost-efficiency and access for single-cell RNA sequencing at the... - October 29th, 2022
- Researchers seek to unravel the mystery of susceptibility to drug addiction - Newswise - October 4th, 2022
- NIH initiative to systematically investigate and establish function of every human gene - National Institutes of Health (.gov) - October 4th, 2022
- ANGPTL7, a therapeutic target for increased intraocular pressure and glaucoma | Communications Biology - Nature.com - October 4th, 2022
- Does obesity have more to do with the brain than we initially thought? - Medical News Today - October 4th, 2022
- Who will get the call from Stockholm? It's time for STAT's 2022 Nobel Prize predictions - STAT - October 4th, 2022
- Solving medical mysteries: Physicians and researchers collaborate to study the most challenging cases - AAMC - October 4th, 2022
- Mystery gene matures the skeleton of the cell - EurekAlert - October 4th, 2022
- What Is The Most Important factor Driving The Global Human Genetics Market? - PharmiWeb.com - September 25th, 2022
- How Africa's genetic diversity can be harnessed to close the continent's 'drug and treatment gap' - Genetic Literacy Project - September 25th, 2022
- Ability to move to the pulse of music has genetic link - DTNEXT - September 25th, 2022
- Is the Spike Protein Changing Our Gene Expression? - The Epoch Times - September 25th, 2022
- How prehistoric DNA is helping to unlock the secrets of human evolution - EL PAS USA - September 25th, 2022
- Personalised medicine and the advantages of big data and AI-based diagnostics - Medical Device Network - September 25th, 2022
- Viewpoint: In the post Roe v Wade world, what changes should a biology textbook writer make to address the medical repercussions of Dobbs? - Genetic... - September 25th, 2022
- Bears' ability to regulate insulin narrowed down to eight proteins WSU Insider - WSU News - September 25th, 2022
- Sex, Selection and Biodiversity - Syracuse.edu - Syracuse University - September 25th, 2022
- Was the Russian Flu the first coronavirus pandemic? Find out at next Science Caf - University of Nebraska at Kearney - September 25th, 2022
- University of Chicago South Side Science Fest created to show off the fun, myriad pathways into field. - Chicago Tribune - September 25th, 2022
- The genetics of human personality - PubMed - August 14th, 2022
- Genetics - The Harvey Institute for Human Genetics - GBMC HealthCare in ... - August 14th, 2022
- Degrees of the Future 2022: Genetics - Gizmodo - August 14th, 2022
- U of U Health-Led Research Awarded $28 Million to Explore HIV's Inner Workings and Vulnerabilities - University of Utah Health Care - August 14th, 2022
- Revisiting Companies That Had Their IPO in 2018 - Investment U - August 14th, 2022
- Monkeypox Myth Busting: Here's What You Need to Know - The Mighty - August 14th, 2022
- Relay Therapeutics Reports Second Quarter 2022 Financial Results and Corporate Highlights - Yahoo Finance - August 5th, 2022
- Baylor receives NCI grant to study liver cancer risk and prevention - Baylor College of Medicine News - August 5th, 2022
- Whole Exome Sequencing Market reach a valuation of US$ 4,256.30 Mn, at a CAGR of 19.24% in the Forecast 2030 - BioSpace - August 5th, 2022
- Mendels Genetic Revolution and the Legacy of Scientific Racism - NewsClick - August 5th, 2022
- AMGEN TO ACQUIRE CHEMOCENTRYX FOR $4 BILLION IN CASH - BioSpace - August 5th, 2022
- Cotton Buds Market Value Is Estimated to Reach USD 747.16 BN By 2028, With 3.2% CAGR Credence Research - Digital Journal - August 5th, 2022
- Verve Therapeutics Shares Up 84%; ARKG Offers Exposure - ETFdb.com - July 27th, 2022
- Double up on the guac? Those avocados are good for your heart health - American Heart Association - July 27th, 2022
- Extending the PAX1 spectrum: a dominantly inherited variant causes oculo-auriculo-vertebral syndrome | European Journal of Human Genetics - Nature.com - July 27th, 2022
- Scientists Unravel the Mystery of Junk Genes That Are Key to Brain Development - SciTechDaily - July 27th, 2022
- COVID-19 Can Make the Brain Age by 2 Decades; Here's 1 Way to Reverse Aging - The Epoch Times - July 27th, 2022
- Mice Model Market Forecast to 2028 - COVID-19 Impact and Global Analysis By Type, Service, Technology, Indication, End User, Application, and Mode -... - July 27th, 2022
- Master's Degree in Human Genetics | Human Genetics | Michigan Medicine ... - July 11th, 2022
- Here's how the $100 Human Genome will Change Medicine - BioSpace - July 11th, 2022
- Genomic medicine: the role of the nursing workforce - Nursing Times - July 11th, 2022
- AbbVie Half Breaks Up with Alector on Alzheimer's - BioSpace - July 11th, 2022
- The human identification market size is projected to reach - GlobeNewswire - July 11th, 2022
- Global wheat production can be doubled to feed millions and save land, say scientists - Sky News - July 11th, 2022
- Huntsville native among TIMEs 100 most influential people - WHNT News 19 - July 3rd, 2022
- New hope for IVF patients as global study published in Human Reproduction shows AI can effectively assess genetic integrity of embryos - Yahoo Finance - July 3rd, 2022
- A Week At The Most Secretive Conference On Aging - Forbes - July 3rd, 2022
- Human genetics shape the gut microbiome - PMC - June 13th, 2022
- expert reaction to a conference abstract on retinal screening predicting risk of myocardial infarction - Science Media Centre - June 13th, 2022
- New Comprehensive Map Ties Every Human Gene to Its Function - SciTechDaily - June 13th, 2022
- Buffalo shooters manifesto quoted a university researcher. Thats raising questions about racism in academia - Yahoo News - June 13th, 2022
- Thalidomide could be used as a therapeutic for AVMs - Cosmos - June 13th, 2022
- How Electric Fish Were Able to Evolve Electric Organs - UT News - University of Texas - June 4th, 2022
- Survival of the Best: The Past, Present and Future of Plants - CSRwire.com - June 4th, 2022
- AMGEN ANNOUNCES WEBCAST OF 2022 JEFFERIES HEALTHCARE CONFERENCE | News | wfmz.com - 69News WFMZ-TV - June 4th, 2022
- Experts Discover New Disease Caused by Faulty Genes Affecting the Kidney and Liver: Newcastle University Study - Nature World News - June 4th, 2022
- At-Home Colorectal Cancer Testing and Follow-Up Vary by Ethnicity - Medscape - June 4th, 2022
- Who is your real parent? Our Father on Netflix depicts the dark side of 'secret serial sperm donation'. My birth has a similar origin but with a more... - June 4th, 2022
- Autism and the complete human genome: Q&A with Evan Eichler | Spectrum - Spectrum - May 15th, 2022
- Increased Mutations in Children Can Be Traced Back to Mistakes in Father's Sperm - Neuroscience News - May 15th, 2022
- Not All Is Rosy For The Pink Pigeon - Eurasia Review - May 15th, 2022
- Why haven't we cloned a human yet? - Livescience.com - May 15th, 2022
- Study probes the relationship between genetics, proteins, and disease risk - The Hub at Johns Hopkins - May 15th, 2022
- Singular Genomics Announces Formation of Scientific Advisory Board - BioSpace - May 15th, 2022
- COVID Resistance Might Be Tied To Genetics: Experts - Medical Daily - May 15th, 2022
- Letter: Why no to Roe and abortion - INFORUM - May 15th, 2022
- Gut Microbiome Composition Predictive of Patient Response to Statins - Business Wire - May 15th, 2022
- Finding A Place In Science - Texas A&M Today - Texas A&M University Today - May 15th, 2022