StemCell Therapy

WEST PALM BEACH, FL, Dec. 30, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- USA EQUITIES CORP. (OTCQB: USAQ) (the Company, we, or our) announced today that its revenues for the fourth quarter of 2020 would be approximately $120,000 and that its revenues would exceed $300,000 in the first quarter of 2021.

We introduced our QHSLab, Software as a Service (SaaS) platform, to 159 medical practices in June 2020. Through September, physicians in these practices provided 374 allergy patients with a QHSLab-generated allergen immunotherapy prescription, generating an estimated $664,608 in revenue for these physicians practices. In November, building on the capabilities of our QHSLab, we began shipping allergy diagnostic related products and immunotherapy treatments to these physicians in response to their requests based upon courses of treatment recommended for their patients by QHSLab. Our revenue in the fourth quarter will be $120,000 as a result of these sales. Based upon orders in hand and reasonably anticipated, revenues from our allergy diagnostic test kits and treatment programs should exceed $300,000 in the first quarter of 2021. Revenues from this program should continue to increase thereafter as we increase the number of physicians and medical practices utilizing QHSLab.

Based on our QHSLab allergy treatment systems success, we intend to increase our revenues by charging physicians a monthly subscription fee for the use of QHSLab. USAQ plans to introduce these physicians to additional point of care diagnostic, digital medicine, and treatments that our physician clients can use and prescribe. They will be paid under existing government and private insurance programs, based upon analyses conducted utilizing QHSLab.

The revenues we generated in the fourth quarter of 2020 and anticipated revenue in the first quarter of 2021 far exceed the revenue levels assumed by the equity research firm, Litchfield Hills Research, when it released its first analyst coverage report on USAQ. Litchfield Hills continue to rate our stock as a buy under its three-tiered rating system, with a target price of $5.00 per share.

About USA Equities Corp (OTCQB: USAQ)

On December 20, 2019 USA Equities Corp completed a share exchange whereby it acquired Medical Practice Income, Inc. (MPI). The Company is focused on value-based healthcare solutions, clinical informatics and algorithmic personalized medicine including digital therapeutics, behavior based remote patient monitoring, chronic care and preventive medicine. The Companys products are intended to allow the general practice physician to increase his revenues by cost effectively diagnosing and treating chronic diseases generally referred to specialists. The Companys products and information service portfolio are directed towards prevention, early detection, management, and reversal of cardio-metabolic and other chronic diseases. Our principal objectives are to develop proprietary software tools, devices, and approaches, providing more granular, timely, and specific clinical decision-making information for practicing physicians and other health care providers to address todays obese, diabetic and cardiovascular disease population. The Company is located in West Palm Beach, Florida. For more information, visit http://www.MedicalPracticeIncome.com/discover.

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain matters discussed in this press release are 'forward-looking statements' intended to qualify for the safe harbor from liability established by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. In particular, the Company's statements regarding trends in the marketplace, future revenues, future products and potential future results and acquisitions, are examples of such forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are generally identified by words such as may, could, believes, estimates, targets, expects, or intends and other similar words that express risks and uncertainties. These statements are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties, including, but not limited to, the timing of the introduction of new products, the inherent discrepancy in actual results from estimates, projections and forecasts made by management, regulatory delays, changes in government funding and budgets, and other factors, including general economic conditions, not within the Company's control. The factors discussed herein and expressed from time to time in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission could cause actual results and developments to be materially different from those expressed in or implied by such statements. The forward-looking statements are made only as of the date of this press release and the Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update such forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events or circumstances.

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USA Equities Corp (USAQ), Announces Revenues of $120000 for the 4th Quarter of 2020 and Projects Revenues in excess of $300000 for the 1st Quarter of...

PHOENIX, Dec. 29, 2020 /PRNewswire/ --(OTC-CELZ)Creative Medical Technology Holdings Inc. announced today novel data and patent filing No. 63131261 describing the ability of ImmCelz to reverse liver failure in the carbon tetrachloride preclinical model of hepatocyte necrosis.

These findings are the basis for a patent filing covering various means of generating the ImmCelz product in a hepatoprotective specific manner. The Company has previously reported that ImmCelz is capable of treating animal models of stroke,1 as well as inducing "immunological tolerance" in a model of autoimmune rheumatoid arthritis.2

The work is an extension of previously published findings of Dr. Thomas E. Ichim, in which mesenchymal stem cells were capable of inhibiting progression of liver failure.3

"I am proud of the work the team at Creative Medical Technologies is conducting in advancing the concept of immunologically-mediated regeneration,"said Dr. Ichim, Co-inventor of the patent. "ImmCelz is an advancement on our previous liver failure work due to the fact that we have shown transfer of regenerative activity from the stem cell to the immune cell. Immune cells possess ability to home to injured tissues faster than stem cells due to their smaller size. Additionally, immune cells possess immunological memory, which we believe may be applied to the concept of regeneration."

"While stem cell therapeutics are recognized as the future of medicine, I believe it is important to realize that many activities of stem cells are mediated by changes to the immune system," said Dr. Amit Patel, Board Member of the Company and Co-Inventor of the Patent Application. "ImmCelz represents a fundamental advancement in regenerative medicine in that instead of administering stem cells in the body to induce immune modulation, we actually optimize the immune modulation in the laboratory before injecting immune cells into the patient."

Being at the forefront in identifying novel regenerative treatment options, the Company possesses numerous issued patents in the area of cellular therapy, including patent no. 10,842,815 covering use of T regulatory cells for spinal disc regeneration, patent no. 9,598,673 covering stem cell therapy for disc regeneration, patent no. 10,792,310 covering regeneration of ovaries using endothelial progenitor cells and mesenchymal stem cells, patent no. 8,372,797 covering use of stem cells for erectile dysfunction, and patent no. 7,569,385 licensed from the University of California covering a novel stem cell type.

"Liver failure represents a significant unmet medical need and I am extremely excited that ImmCelz has the potential to help the numerous patients on the liver transplant waiting list who currently have no other option.

With growing validation and acceptance of such technologies, the company intends to continue to broaden its intellectual property portfolio by compiling research data and filing patents, in order to record early filing dates and increase the likelihood of our receiving patent issue.

We continue to welcome opportunities with collaborators and Key Opinion Leaders as we are dedicated to accelerating the further development of our technology."

About Creative Medical Technology Holdings

Creative Medical Technology Holdings, Inc. is a commercial stage biotechnology company specializing in stem cell technology in the fields of urology, neurology and orthopedics and trades on the OTC under the ticker symbol CELZ. For further information about the company, please visitwww.creativemedicaltechnology.com.

Forward Looking Statements

OTC Markets has not reviewed and does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. This news release may contain forward-looking statements including but not limited to comments regarding the timing and content of upcoming clinical trials and laboratory results, marketing efforts, funding, etc. Forward-looking statements address future events and conditions and, therefore, involve inherent risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those currently anticipated in such statements. See the periodic and other reports filed by Creative Medical Technology Holdings, Inc. with the Securities and Exchange Commission and available on the Commission's website atwww.sec.gov.

Creativemedicaltechnology.comwww.StemSpine.comwww.Caverstem.comwww.Femcelz.com

1 Creative Medical Technology Holdings Identifies Mechanism of Action of ImmCelz Stroke Regenerative Activity (prnewswire.com)2 Creative Medical Technology Holdings Reports Positive Preclinical Data on ImmCelz Immunotherapy Product in Rheumatoid Arthritis Model | BioSpace 3 Human endometrial regenerative cells alleviate carbon tetrachloride-induced acute liver injury in mice | Journal of Translational Medicine | Full Text (biomedcentral.com)

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Creative Medical Technology Holdings Announces Reversion of Liver Failure Using ImmCelz Personalized Cellular Immunotherapy in Preclinical Model -...

Santiago Quirce,1 Enrico Heffler,2 Natalia Nenasheva,3 Pascal Demoly,4 Andrew Menzies-Gow,5 Ana Moreira-Jorge,6 Francis Nissen,7 Nicola A Hanania8

1Department of Allergy, La Paz University Hospital, IdiPAZ and Universidad Autnoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain; 2Personalized Medicine, Asthma and Allergy, Humanitas Clinical and Research Center, IRCCS, Rozzano, MI, Italy; 3Department of Allergology and Immunology of Russian Medical Academy for Continuous Medical Education, Moscow, Russian Federation; 4Department of Pulmonology, Division of Allergy, Hpital Arnaud de Villeneuve, University Hospital of Montpellier, Montpellier, France; 5Department of Respiratory Medicine, Royal Brompton Hospital, London, UK; 6Novartis Farmaceutica, S.A., Barcelona, Spain; 7London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK; 8Section of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA

Correspondence: Santiago QuirceHospital Universitario La Paz, P. La Castellana, 261, Madrid, 28046 SpainEmail squirce@gmail.com

Abstract: The Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA) 2020 defines late-onset asthma (LOA) as one of the clinical phenotypes of asthma wherein patients, particularly women, present with asthma for the first time in adult life, tend to be non-allergic and often require higher doses of inhaled corticosteroids (ICS) or are relatively refractory to corticosteroid treatment. In this review, we examine the published literature improve the understanding of the following aspects of LOA: 1) the age cut-off for its diagnosis; 2) its distinct clinical phenotypes, characteristics and risk factors; and 3) its association with allergic comorbidities and conditions. Overall, our review reveals that clinicians and researchers have used multiple age cut-offs to define LOA, with cut-off ages ranging from > 12 years to 65 years. LOA has also been classified into several distinct phenotypes, some of which drastically differ in their clinical characteristics, course and prognosis. Although LOA has traditionally been considered non-allergic in nature, our review indicates that it is commonly associated with allergic features and comorbidities. Our findings suggest that there is an urgent need for the development of more clear clinical practice guidelines that can provide more clarity on the definition and other aspects of LOA. In addition, the association of LOA and allergy needs to be re-examined to frame a more optimal treatment strategy for patients with LOA.

Keywords: asthma, diagnosis, age of onset, allergy, allergic asthma, asthma phenotypes

This work is published and licensed by Dove Medical Press Limited. The full terms of this license are available at https://www.dovepress.com/terms.php and incorporate the Creative Commons Attribution - Non Commercial (unported, v3.0) License.By accessing the work you hereby accept the Terms. Non-commercial uses of the work are permitted without any further permission from Dove Medical Press Limited, provided the work is properly attributed. For permission for commercial use of this work, please see paragraphs 4.2 and 5 of our Terms.

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Revisiting Late-Onset Asthma: Clinical Characteristics and Association | JAA - Dove Medical Press

On 1 January 2020, I published my very first Ex Machina article of the year. Since it was also the beginning of a new decade, I made my own modest attempt at predicting the technological changes we could hope to expect in the coming years. I wrote about the promise of artificial intelligence, speech recognition and augmented reality, and how they would come together to let us speak to computers in novel ways. I argued that technology would transform our commute, eventually leading to a future of shared autonomous vehicles that would completely eliminate the need to own personal cars, etc. Finally, I spoke of personalized medicine and a future in which treatments could be calibrated to individual requirements, instead of being focused on discovering drugs that need to work on the entire human population.

What I did not predict was that in a couple of months, a global pandemic would bring the entire world to a grinding halt.

Much of what I had thought would happen will likely still come to passalthough in a slightly different way from what I had imagined. Now that companies have realized how easy it is to support working from home, many businesses are re-thinking their investments in commercial real estatecommitting themselves instead to enabling employees to work from wherever they might be at a given point in time.

In addition to all that I had anticipated, I believe this new mindset will eventually contribute to a fundamental alteration of our commute and be another catalyst for some of the urban mobility solutions. I had anticipated. And while autonomous transportation may not become a reality anytime soon, I am excited by the immediate promise that platform solutions of the likes of Beckn have to offer.

I had suggested in my article that computers might soon be able to speak coherently with us, but even I did not imagine wed get there so soon. The remarkable language abilities of OpenAIs Generative Pre-trained Transformer Ver 3 (GPT-3) technology took the world by storm this year. But while initial reports suggested that it would make computer communications indistinguishable from human speech, closer study revealed flaws in its output, as also practical limitations in working with very large data-sets. That said, I was heartened by the emergence of new techniques of artificial intelligence such as few-shot learning, and the promise that it could hold for data-starved countries like India.

But the technology breakthrough that everyone was focused on for all of 2020 was in medicine. On this front, my prediction at the beginning of the year fell well short of the mark. As hopeful as I still am for a future in which medicine will be personalized, the covid pandemic made it clear that there will always be a need for medical solutions that can be rolled out rapidly and at scale to the entire global population.

I am thankful that our investments in genetic technologies, the global interconnectedness of the scientific community and the manufacturing capabilities of pharmaceutical companies came together so well this past year to enable us to produce multiple vaccines for covid-19 in record time. I hope these demonstrations of success encourage us to invest in platform vaccine technologies, so that we are better placed to deal with such challenges that we will, no doubt, continue to face in the future.

But, more than anything else, the pandemic demonstrated the central role that technology now plays in society. From the contact-tracing apps that were all the rage in the early months of the diseases outbreak, to the remote-working solutions that brought us together even though we were far apart, it is clear that all aspect of our lives today are dependent on technology.

Our recent experiences will hopefully serve as the impetus we need to make sure that small businesses and ordinary citizens in this country get greater access to the internet, so that they can all partake in this future.

Early in the lockdown, the department of telecommunications relaxed the work-from-home restrictions that applied to technology companies registered as Other Service Providers (OSP)a relaxation that was made permanent before the end of the year with a radical overhaul of the entire OSP framework. Later in the year, the Union cabinet approved the Prime Minister Wi-Fi Access Network Interface, or PM Wani , a new regulation system for wifi that will encourage the rapid proliferation of digital technologies in India.

As good as these regulatory measures might be, we still need key technology legislation to bring us on par with the rest of the world. It was good to see that despite the constraints imposed by the pandemic, the meetings of the Joint Parliamentary Committee on data protection proceeded apace. Equally interesting was the governments interest in regulating non-personal data, making India the first country to attempt governing the entire data landscape.

As gruesome as the year has been, it has forced us to reconsider our relationship with technologyand to engage with it in different ways.

Rahul Matthan is a partner at Trilegal and also has a podcast by the name Ex Machina. His Twitter handle is @matthan

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The technological transformations that marked 2020 - Mint

NEW YORK, Dec. 29, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Predictive Oncology (NASDAQ: POAI) (the Company), a knowledge-driven company focused on applying artificial intelligence (AI) to personalized medicine and drug discovery, today announced that its Board of Directors has decided to cancel its Special Meeting of Stockholders that was originally scheduled for December 1, 2020. On that date, the meeting was adjourned to December 30, 2020 because a quorum was not reached. As of December 30, 2020, approximately 47% of the outstanding shares as of the record date have been voted, and therefore a quorum has still not been reached. The Board of Directors has determined that it is not practical to incur the expense of adjourning the meeting further to continue to solicit proxies, because approval of the reincorporation proposal would require the affirmative vote of a majority of the Companys outstanding shares (not simply a majority of the shares voted).

The Board notes that, of the shares that were voted at the Special Meeting, nearly 88% of the shares were voted FOR the reincorporation from Delaware to Nevada. In the future, the Board intends to continue to seek stockholder approval for reincorporation, due in part to the oppressive franchise taxes charged by Delaware.

About Predictive Oncology Inc.

Predictive Oncology (NASDAQ: POAI) operates through three segments (Skyline, Helomics and Soluble Biotech), which contain four subsidiaries: Helomics, TumorGenesis, Skyline Medical and Soluble Biotech.

Helomics applies artificial intelligence to its rich data gathered from patient tumors to both personalize cancer therapies for patients and drive the development of new targeted therapies in collaborations with pharmaceutical companies. TumorGenesis Inc. specializes in media that help cancer cells grow and retain their DNA/RNA and proteomic signatures, providing researchers with a tool to expand and study cancer cell types found in tumors of the blood and organ systems of all mammals, including humans. Skyline Medical markets its patented and FDA cleared STREAMWAY System, which automates the collection, measurement and disposal of waste fluid, including blood, irrigation fluid and others, within a medical facility, through both domestic and international divisions. Soluble Biotech is a provider of soluble and stable formulations for proteins including vaccines, antibodies, large and small proteins and protein complexes.

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain matters discussed in this release contain forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements reflect our current expectations and projections about future events and are subject to substantial risks, uncertainties and assumptions about our operations and the investments we make. All statements, other than statements of historical facts, included in this press release regarding our strategy, future operations, future financial position, future revenue and financial performance, projected costs, prospects, plans and objectives of management are forward-looking statements. The words anticipate, believe, estimate, expect, intend, may, plan, would, target and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements, although not all forward-looking statements contain these identifying words. Our actual future performance may materially differ from that contemplated by the forward-looking statements as a result of a variety of factors including, among other things, factors discussed under the heading Risk Factors in our filings with the SEC. Except as expressly required by law, the Company disclaims any intent or obligation to update these forward-looking statements.

Investor Relations Contact:

Hayden IRJames Carbonara(646)-755-7412

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Predictive Oncology Announces Cancellation of Special Meeting in December 2020Reincorporation Proposal Received Overwhelming Support Among Shares...

The "Global Microbiome Sequencing Services Market (2020-2025) by Technology, Application, Research Type, Laboratory Type, End-Users, Geography and the Impact of Covid-19 with Ansoff Analysis" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The Global Microbiome Sequencing Services Market is estimated to be USD 1.02 billion in 2020 and is expected to reach USD 2.31 billion by 2025, growing at a CAGR of 17.8%.

Microbiomes are a group of micro-organisms living on a human body. They live on the skin, eyes, saliva, mouth, and the gastrointestinal tract. The human microbiome contains thousands of bacterial species/microbes in diverse communities, along with their genes, proteins, and metabolites. An imbalance of these microbes can lead to life-threatening diseases. The study of Microbiome sequencing and its techniques relates to the study of the microbial composition of the human gut and to understand the resulting impact on health and disease development.

Microbiome sequencing is usually done to understand this microflora residing on the human body and further study human microbes and their role in related diseases. This study can also be helpful while analyzing the patient's response to a particular treatment. Effective understanding and application of microbiome sequencing services would help in the commercialization of personalized medicine and diet. Hence, the market is extensively driven by research-based communities, especially in the developed economies like the US, which has the presence of NHGRI (National Human Genome Research Institute) supporting the growth of the market.

Due to advancements in technology, there has been a rise in the NGS (Next-Gen Sequencing) to generate microbiome data. Besides, techniques such as novel high-throughput sequencing and new software tools are transforming microbiome studies by providing service at high quality, speed, and high cost. Many companies are additionally concentrating on novel exome sequencing and RNA sequencing applications in niche market segments.

Story continues

Specific factors that have led to the growth of this market are the rising use of microbiome in genomics, along with the reduced cost of sequencing. However, other factors such as the lack of expertise in the data analysis for the microbiomes with advanced tools shall hinder the growth of this market.

Market Dynamics

Drivers

Increased Focus on Human Microbiome Therapy

Reduction in the Cost of Sequencing

Human Microbiome as a New Validated Target for Drug Development

Human Microbiome Used as an Aid for Early Disease Detection and Diagnosis

Increasing Demand for NGS

Restraints

Lack of Skilled Professionals for Microbiome Sequencing Services

Lack of Awareness Among Physicians and Scientist about Advanced Tools for Data Analysis

Barriers in Proving the Causal Link Between Dysbiosis and Disease

Opportunities

Investigational New Drug (IND) Requirements for Fecal Microbiota

Increasing Collaborations Create Growth Opportunities

Increasing Research Investments and Technological Advancements

Why Buy this report?

The report offers a comprehensive evaluation of the Global Microbiome Sequencing Services Market. - The report includes in-depth qualitative analysis, verifiable data from authentic sources and projections about market size. The projections are calculated using proven research methodologies.

The report has been compiled through extensive primary and secondary research. The primary research is done through interviews, surveys and observation of renowned personnel in the industry.

The report includes in-depth market analysis using Porter's 5 force model and the Ansoff Matrix. The impact of Covid-19 on the market is also featured in the report.

The report also contains a competitive analysis using IGR Positioning Quadrants, Infogence's Proprietary competitive positioning tool.

Companies Mentioned

Baseclear B.V.

Clinical-Microbiomics A/S

Molzym GmbH & Co. Kg

Zymo Research Corp.

Rancho Biosciences

Microbiome Therapeutics, LLC.

Microbiome Insights Inc.

Openbiome

Resphera Biosciences, LLC.

MR DNA (Molecular Research LP)

Shanghai Realbio Technology Co., Ltd

Diversigen, Inc.

Merieux Nutrisciences Corporation

Metabiomics Corp.

Second Genome

LOCUS BIOSCIENCES, INC,

BioSpherex LLC

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/6xv3hj

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201229005159/en/

Contacts

ResearchAndMarkets.comLaura Wood, Senior Press Managerpress@researchandmarkets.com For E.S.T Office Hours Call 1-917-300-0470For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call 1-800-526-8630For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900

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Worldwide Industry for Microbiome Sequencing Services to 2025 - Increased Focus on Human Microbiome Therapy is Driving Growth - ResearchAndMarkets.com...

The day comes for all of us, and the day Im speaking of is that day when our once loose jeans and baggy shirt become a bit tighter around the waste. Its at that time we decide to get down to business, hit the gym, and skip the cookie aisle at the supermarket, because the diet starts now.

COVID hits and its not that easy to get our work out on. Still we wake every morning and go for a run, even buy weights, do the research and plan out are meals. After chugging down a protein shake, suddenly losing those extra pounds feels easy. However, then, with the runners high wearing off, a bag of Cheetos, a few beers, and more than one off-day later, and you realize that this is going to be an uphill battle.

Israeli startup Newt and its founder and CEO Gil Kerbs understand the struggle of maintaining a healthy diet and schedule. The company developed an AI-powered platform that uses your daily habits to generate a personalized regiment to keep your nutritional goals on track. Or as Gil puts it Our product interacts with users daily to understand and aggregate all information needed for health / nutrition based decisions, and then provides daily support to start shifting their behavior towards healthier habits.

With the year of COVID coming to a hopeful end, it was definitely a great year for remote technology, from medicine to fitness, the global pandemic did change the way people interact virtually. So how has personalized nutrition gained such popularity? GIl says that It's kind of the 'perfect storm'. We are so focused on our health and wellbeing due to the pandemic - we finally REALLY know that actively staying fit and healthy can help prevent harsh impacts from sickness, such as with COVID. We are also witnessing the rise of AI, allowing for true personalization - a personal fitness coach that is really 'personal', and now with Newt, a personal nutritionist that really tailors everything for you.

Gil explains that he sees preventative care as the future of personalized medicine, not only giving you the 'right' medicine when you need it but rather helping you make the right daily decisions that eventually shape your long term health.

Yeah, this is probably not the first fitness/nutrition app youve heard of, but Newt does things a little different, actually putting your habits in the center to better motivate you. But how is it done? In one word - "behavioral personalization". We are not aiming for a quick perfect, but for the closest to optimal that you can sustain for the long run. Our Behavioral expertise stretches from Prof. Adam Grant (Wharton, world leading motivation expert), and Stanford Mind&Body lab who focus on use of psychology for wellbeing. Our goal is to make not only the best clinical knowledge available, but rather to combine it with cutting edge psychology/behavior knowledge that makes behavior and diet change a real possibility in the long run."

Gils attachment to the subject comes from his years in the medical industry as part of Medtronic China, where he notes that it was very rewarding to help add 1-2 years to people's lives, but I wanted more - 20-30 more years, with better quality - and this could not be done when the patient is already in the OR. So, I got into preventative medicine, and there's nothing bigger for your long term health than your nutrition... All of us at Newt have this motivation - helping people keep healthy, by harnessing the strongest force available to everyone - daily nutrition."

He adds that although intervention healthcare isnt going anywhere and will maintain an important part of medical care but preventative can be better for humanity as a whole, Take cancer - surgery's solution is to take it out or 'kill it' (radiation), but not to solve what caused it, yet. This is a short term solution due to the limitations of our knowledge. Think about it this way - 5 year survival rates for various cancers are still very low, despite utilizing cutting edge technology to treat them. Preventative healthcare is much less 'high-tech', we don't need robots - nor huge amounts of dollars - it's rather cheap - and it really helps dramatically reduce chances of getting sick. The real problem is that it's a marathon, and not just a sprint intervention, making it psychologically harder. That's why we at Newt focus on behavior so much.

Founded in 2019, Newt has received backing from Welltech1 - a wellness microfund, and angel investors. And according to Gil, the company has a few partnerships in the works. Cool idea and all but why the name Newt? We wanted something short that sounds like nutrition, but is also a name of a character. We see Newt as a personal guide for nutrition. It's also a really cute animal, said Kerbs.

Ok, last thing, even though its been a weird year, were sure people will keep in the tradition of failing at their New Years resolutions (myself a victim), so we asked Gil to take from his nutritional expertise and offer some advice: ...In general I'd advise people that next time they 'fail' with a resolution, they should not beat themselves up about it, but rather think how to better approach it next time. Usually, there's a fun, easier way to achieve success and give you great results in the long run.

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After accepting virtual trainers, AI-powered nutrition is the next step in keeping a healthy lifestyle - Geektime

Heres the wild part, the most 2020 thing about 2020: That schismthat conflict between public health and private well-being, between personal liberties and communal gainis as old as pandemics. The germ of the idea was, in fact, the idea of the germ.

In the mid-1800s, physicians and scientists were starting to come around to the long-gestating idea that diseases could be caused by wee, invisible critters that jumped from person to persona contagium animatum, as 16th-century thinkers put it. They didnt know what viruses or bacteria were, but they knew something was carrying illness.

The contagionists had their opposite number: scientists who in 1948 the researcher Edwin Ackerknecht famously called anticontagionists. Oh, they believed that some diseases spread by some agent, person-to-person. Smallpox and syphilis, maybe. Those were contagious. But they werent epidemicsyellow fever, cholera, or the plague, things that seemed to spread seasonally, or in specific places, or only among specific kinds of people. Nobody knew how. They didnt know anything about food- and waterborne pathogens, about differences between viruses and bacteria, about surface-borne fomites that transmitted disease in some cases, while exhaled droplets and aerosols might in others. Absent any of that? Well, maybe it was something atmospherica cloud of illness, a miasma, maybe even the filth of poverty and pre-sanitation cities. (Its telling that scientists are still fighting over the idea of an airborne contagium animatum, even today.)

But the anticontagionists knew one thing for sure. Those big three epidemicswith typhus thrown in sometimes, toowere the things that had, since the 14th century, caused governments to take population-scale measures to control them. That meant quarantines, travel restrictions, business closureswhat today we might call lockdowns. And that made the anticontagionists nuts. They said that lockdowns, then as now, were bad for business; losses incurred as a result outweighed those caused by the epidemic itself. In the midst of the 19th centurys Industrial Revolution, anything that inhibited business was an inhibition of freedom itself. Quarantines meant, to the rapidly growing class of merchants and industrialists, a source of losses, a limitation to expansion, a weapon of bureaucratic control that it was no longer willing to tolerate, Ackerknecht wrote. Contagionism would, through its associations with the old bureaucratic powers, be suspect to all liberals, trying to reduce state interference to a minimum. Anticontagionists were thus not simply scientists, they were reformers, fighting for the freedom of the individual and commerce against the shackles of despotism.

Also, by saying that disease came from lack of sanitation and poor hygiene, the pro-filth contingent was sometimes quietly and sometimes loudly associating disease with ethnicity and socioeconomic status. It was immunological social Darwinism; if poor and nonwhite people got sick first, or more often, that proved to some reformers that those people made bad personal choices (rather than indicating a failure of the systems around them). In that light, identifying filth as the generator of epidemics paved the way for the hygiene movement, showed the moral and physical superiority of unpoor whites, and provided a rationale for slum clearance and residential zoning laws. Squint at redlining and you see not just the geography of racism but also a colonial cordon sanitaire.

To be fair, as one historian notes, the (paltry) science of miasmas did suggest that quarantines would actually make epidemic diseases worse, because they amplified the confinement and lousy conditions that spread the disease. And if you read miasma as the conditions that make a disease spread, well, thats also the point Im trying to make, so yeah. These were good-faith scientific arguments that also happened to be politically motivated economic and philosophical ones, tinged by racism.

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The Error of Fighting a Public Health War With Medical Weapons - WIRED

The Guardian

Republicans say they will reject presidential electors from states where Trump campaign contested results unless audit completedTed Cruz of Texas, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and nine other Republican US senators or senators-elect said on Saturday they will reject presidential electors from states where Donald Trump has contested his defeat by Joe Biden, unless and until [an] emergency 10-day audit of such results is completed.The move is largely symbolic and unlikely to overturn the presidential election. Nonetheless, it adds to a sense of deepening crisis affecting US democracy.Trump has refused to concede, though Biden won more than 7m more votes nationally and took the electoral college by 306-232, a margin Trump called a landslide when he won it over Hillary Clinton in 2016.The Trump campaign has lost the vast majority of more than 50 lawsuits it has mounted in battleground states, alleging electoral fraud, and before the supreme court.On Friday, a federal judge dismissed a suit lodged by a House Republican which attempted to give the vice-president, Mike Pence, who will preside over the certification of the electoral college result on Wednesday, the power to overturn it.Nonetheless, the senators and senators-elect who issued a statement on Saturday followed Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri in committing to challenging the result.Objections are also expected from a majority of House Republicans. Objections must be debated and voted on but as Democrats control the House and the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, and other senior Republicans have voiced opposition, the attempt to disenfranchise a majority of Americans seems doomed to fail.On Saturday, Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said she would vote to certify the results, writing: The oath I took at my swearing-in was to support and defend the constitution of the United States, and that is exactly what I will do. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, a state where Trump has sued, said he would vigorously defend our form of government by opposing this effort to disenfranchise millions of voters in my state and others.But Cruz and Johnson were joined by Senators James Lankford (Oklahoma), Steve Daines (Montana), John Kennedy (Louisiana), Marsha Blackburn (Tennessee) and Mike Braun (Indiana). Senators-elect Cynthia Lummis (Wyoming), Roger Marshall (Kansas), Bill Hagerty (Tennessee) and Tommy Tuberville (Alabama) also signed on.The election of 2020, they said, like the election of 2016, was hard fought and, in many swing states, narrowly decided. The 2020 election, however, featured unprecedented allegations of voter fraud, violations and lax enforcement of election law, and other voting irregularities.No hard evidence for such claims has been presented. Federal officials including former attorney general William Barr and Christopher Krebs, a cyber security chief fired by Trump, have said the election was secure.Regardless, the senators said Congress should immediately appoint an electoral commission, with full investigatory and fact-finding authority, to conduct an emergency 10-day audit of the election returns in the disputed states. Once completed, individual states would evaluate the commissions findings and could convene a special legislative session to certify a change in their vote, if needed.The senators made reference to the contested election of 1876, which ended in the appointment of such a commission.We should follow that precedent, they said. Most well-informed observers would suggest otherwise, given that process put an end to post-civil war Reconstruction and led to the institution of racist Jim Crow laws across the formerly slave-owning south.In August, the Pulitzer-winning historian Eric Foner told the Guardian: The election of 1876 would not have been disputed at all if there hadnt been massive violence in the south to prevent black people from voting and voter suppression like we have today. Now, voter suppression is mostly legal.Presciently, given baseless claims that voting under a pandemic was abused by Democrats, he added: Today, I can certainly see the Trump people challenging these mail-in ballots: Theyre all fraudulent, they shouldnt be counted. Challenging peoples voting.Cruz, like Hawley, is prominent among Republicans expected to run for president in 2024, and thus eager to appeal to supporters loyal to Trump. On Saturday, Christine Pelosi, daughter of House speaker Nancy Pelosi and a member of the Democratic National Committee, referred to the bitter 2016 primary when she tweeted: Ted Cruz is defending Trumps assaults on democracy with more energy than he defended his own family against Trumps assaults on his wife and father.The Democratic strategist Max Burns wrote: The exact same Senate GOP that refused to allow a single witness during President Trumps impeachment trial now wants to call a bunch of witnesses to investigate Joe Bidens 2020 victory.Biden did not immediately comment. In Congress, the Connecticut senator Richard Blumenthal branded the statement pathetic, un-American and an attack on our democracy. Amy Klobuchar, from Minnesota, said Biden will be inaugurated on 20 January, and no publicity stunt will change that.Trump did not immediately comment but his campaign tweeted: THANK YOU! The Arizona congressman Paul Gosar hailed the senators as patriots.But there was also criticism from the right. Joe Walsh, a former congressman who ran against Trump in 2020, wrote: They cite ZERO evidence of voter fraud Donald Trumps single greatest legacy is the destruction of truth.Walsh added: These Republicans know this is bad for the country. But they dont care. They believe its good for them politically. They are placing their own interests before the countrys interests.With unintended irony or simple bad faith the senators and senators-elect said their allegations are not believed just by one individual candidate. Instead, they are widespread. Reuters/Ipsos polling, tragically, shows 39% of Americans believe the election was rigged. That belief is held by Republicans (67%), Democrats (17%), and Independents (31%). Whether or not our elected officials or journalists believe it, that deep distrust of our democratic processes will not magically disappear. It should concern us all. And it poses an ongoing threat to the legitimacy of any subsequent administrations.Marc Elias, a leading Democratic elections lawyer, said of the senators: History will remember and curse them for their cowardice and treachery.

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Moderna, Pfizer vaccine trials were the highest of quality: vaccine expert - Yahoo Money

The Telegraph

Donald Trump was dealt a stinging rebuke by Republican senators last night as Congress overrode his veto of a sweeping defence bill. It was the first time in Mr Trump's four years as president that Congress had blocked his veto power. Many Republican senators joined Democrats in an 81-13 vote to override, well over the two thirds majority required. As a result the annual $740 billion National Defense Authorization Act to fund the military in 2021 will become law. Mr Trump had called the result, which was expected, a "disgraceful act of cowardice" and the Republican leadership in Congress "weak". The bill will provide a three per cent pay raise for US troops and included elements relating to defence policy, troop levels, weapons systems and military construction. Mr Trump had vetoed it, arguing it allowed for the renaming of military bases that honour Confederate generals, and that it limited his ability to bring troops home from Afghanistan and Germany. He also tried to link passage of the bill to measures targeting social media companies. Throughout Mr Trump's term Republican senators had been highly reluctant to break so publicly with him. He had vetoed eight previous bills and none were overridden. But with less than three weeks left in office Mr Trump's influence with Republican senators appeared to have receded markedly. Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate, said: "It's time for us to deliver this bill. It's our chance to remind brave service members and their families that we have their backs." It came as Republicans also faced a deepening split over Mr Trump's last ditch attempt to overturn the US presidential election result. Over 140 Republicans in the House of Representatives may be ready to back a move not to certify the outcome at a joint session of Congress on Jan 6, it emerged. But even with that level of support the attempt to block the result still had no chance of success. Mr McConnell privately urged colleagues to accept the election result, and called his own vote on Jan 6 the "most consequential I have ever cast". In an open letter Ben Sasse, the Republican senator from Nebraska, accused colleagues of "playing with fire". He said: "Lets be clear what is happening here. We have a bunch of ambitious politicians who think theres a quick way to tap into the presidents populist base without doing any real, long-term damage. But theyre wrong. "Adults dont point a loaded gun at the heart of legitimate self-government." The move to oppose the election results was ignited by Josh Hawley, a Republican senator from Missouri. He will object, forcing a two-hour debate, followed by a vote in the Senate, and in the House of Representatives. The session in Congress will take place a day after two run-off races in Georgia, which will determine whether Republicans or Democrats control the Senate. David Perdue, one of two Republican candidates, announced he would spend the final days of the campaign in quarantine after possible exposure to the coronavirus. Meanwhile, it emerged that staffing changes were to be made to the Secret Service's presidential detail when Joe Biden takes office on Jan 20. Mr Biden's camp was said to have expressed concerns that current agents might be politically supportive of Mr Trump. Mr Trump cut short a trip to Florida and headed back to Washington on New Year's Eve. In a New Year video message he hailed "historic victories" on the economy and fighting the pandemic. He said: "We have to be remembered for what's been done." In the final weeks of his term the president was also facing an ongoing battle with Republicans in Congress, including Mr McConnell, after he called for an increase in stimulus cheques to Americans. He also faced growing friction with Iran.

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Celebrate the new year with this New Year's Eve fireworks show in SF - Yahoo News

The Guardian

Republicans say they will reject presidential electors from states where Trump campaign contested results unless audit completedTed Cruz of Texas, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and nine other Republican US senators or senators-elect said on Saturday they will reject presidential electors from states where Donald Trump has contested his defeat by Joe Biden, unless and until [an] emergency 10-day audit of such results is completed.The move is largely symbolic and unlikely to overturn the presidential election. Nonetheless, it adds to a sense of deepening crisis affecting US democracy.Trump has refused to concede, though Biden won more than 7m more votes nationally and took the electoral college by 306-232, a margin Trump called a landslide when he won it over Hillary Clinton in 2016.The Trump campaign has lost the vast majority of more than 50 lawsuits it has mounted in battleground states, alleging electoral fraud, and before the supreme court.On Friday, a federal judge dismissed a suit lodged by a House Republican which attempted to give the vice-president, Mike Pence, who will preside over the certification of the electoral college result on Wednesday, the power to overturn it.Nonetheless, the senators and senators-elect who issued a statement on Saturday followed Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri in committing to challenging the result.Objections are also expected from a majority of House Republicans. Objections must be debated and voted on but as Democrats control the House and the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, and other senior Republicans have voiced opposition, the attempt to disenfranchise a majority of Americans seems doomed to fail.On Saturday, Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said she would vote to certify the results, writing: The oath I took at my swearing-in was to support and defend the constitution of the United States, and that is exactly what I will do. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, a state where Trump has sued, said he would vigorously defend our form of government by opposing this effort to disenfranchise millions of voters in my state and others.But Cruz and Johnson were joined by Senators James Lankford (Oklahoma), Steve Daines (Montana), John Kennedy (Louisiana), Marsha Blackburn (Tennessee) and Mike Braun (Indiana). Senators-elect Cynthia Lummis (Wyoming), Roger Marshall (Kansas), Bill Hagerty (Tennessee) and Tommy Tuberville (Alabama) also signed on.The election of 2020, they said, like the election of 2016, was hard fought and, in many swing states, narrowly decided. The 2020 election, however, featured unprecedented allegations of voter fraud, violations and lax enforcement of election law, and other voting irregularities.No hard evidence for such claims has been presented. Federal officials including former attorney general William Barr and Christopher Krebs, a cyber security chief fired by Trump, have said the election was secure.Regardless, the senators said Congress should immediately appoint an electoral commission, with full investigatory and fact-finding authority, to conduct an emergency 10-day audit of the election returns in the disputed states. Once completed, individual states would evaluate the commissions findings and could convene a special legislative session to certify a change in their vote, if needed.The senators made reference to the contested election of 1876, which ended in the appointment of such a commission.We should follow that precedent, they said. Most well-informed observers would suggest otherwise, given that process put an end to post-civil war Reconstruction and led to the institution of racist Jim Crow laws across the formerly slave-owning south.In August, the Pulitzer-winning historian Eric Foner told the Guardian: The election of 1876 would not have been disputed at all if there hadnt been massive violence in the south to prevent black people from voting and voter suppression like we have today. Now, voter suppression is mostly legal.Presciently, given baseless claims that voting under a pandemic was abused by Democrats, he added: Today, I can certainly see the Trump people challenging these mail-in ballots: Theyre all fraudulent, they shouldnt be counted. Challenging peoples voting.Cruz, like Hawley, is prominent among Republicans expected to run for president in 2024, and thus eager to appeal to supporters loyal to Trump. On Saturday, Christine Pelosi, daughter of House speaker Nancy Pelosi and a member of the Democratic National Committee, referred to the bitter 2016 primary when she tweeted: Ted Cruz is defending Trumps assaults on democracy with more energy than he defended his own family against Trumps assaults on his wife and father.The Democratic strategist Max Burns wrote: The exact same Senate GOP that refused to allow a single witness during President Trumps impeachment trial now wants to call a bunch of witnesses to investigate Joe Bidens 2020 victory.Biden did not immediately comment. In Congress, the Connecticut senator Richard Blumenthal branded the statement pathetic, un-American and an attack on our democracy. Amy Klobuchar, from Minnesota, said Biden will be inaugurated on 20 January, and no publicity stunt will change that.Trump did not immediately comment but his campaign tweeted: THANK YOU! The Arizona congressman Paul Gosar hailed the senators as patriots.But there was also criticism from the right. Joe Walsh, a former congressman who ran against Trump in 2020, wrote: They cite ZERO evidence of voter fraud Donald Trumps single greatest legacy is the destruction of truth.Walsh added: These Republicans know this is bad for the country. But they dont care. They believe its good for them politically. They are placing their own interests before the countrys interests.With unintended irony or simple bad faith the senators and senators-elect said their allegations are not believed just by one individual candidate. Instead, they are widespread. Reuters/Ipsos polling, tragically, shows 39% of Americans believe the election was rigged. That belief is held by Republicans (67%), Democrats (17%), and Independents (31%). Whether or not our elected officials or journalists believe it, that deep distrust of our democratic processes will not magically disappear. It should concern us all. And it poses an ongoing threat to the legitimacy of any subsequent administrations.Marc Elias, a leading Democratic elections lawyer, said of the senators: History will remember and curse them for their cowardice and treachery.

Original post:
The movie industry will strengthen again around April or May: Screenvision CEO - Yahoo Money

The Telegraph

Donald Trump was dealt a stinging rebuke by Republican senators last night as Congress overrode his veto of a sweeping defence bill. It was the first time in Mr Trump's four years as president that Congress had blocked his veto power. Many Republican senators joined Democrats in an 81-13 vote to override, well over the two thirds majority required. As a result the annual $740 billion National Defense Authorization Act to fund the military in 2021 will become law. Mr Trump had called the result, which was expected, a "disgraceful act of cowardice" and the Republican leadership in Congress "weak". The bill will provide a three per cent pay raise for US troops and included elements relating to defence policy, troop levels, weapons systems and military construction. Mr Trump had vetoed it, arguing it allowed for the renaming of military bases that honour Confederate generals, and that it limited his ability to bring troops home from Afghanistan and Germany. He also tried to link passage of the bill to measures targeting social media companies. Throughout Mr Trump's term Republican senators had been highly reluctant to break so publicly with him. He had vetoed eight previous bills and none were overridden. But with less than three weeks left in office Mr Trump's influence with Republican senators appeared to have receded markedly. Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate, said: "It's time for us to deliver this bill. It's our chance to remind brave service members and their families that we have their backs." It came as Republicans also faced a deepening split over Mr Trump's last ditch attempt to overturn the US presidential election result. Over 140 Republicans in the House of Representatives may be ready to back a move not to certify the outcome at a joint session of Congress on Jan 6, it emerged. But even with that level of support the attempt to block the result still had no chance of success. Mr McConnell privately urged colleagues to accept the election result, and called his own vote on Jan 6 the "most consequential I have ever cast". In an open letter Ben Sasse, the Republican senator from Nebraska, accused colleagues of "playing with fire". He said: "Lets be clear what is happening here. We have a bunch of ambitious politicians who think theres a quick way to tap into the presidents populist base without doing any real, long-term damage. But theyre wrong. "Adults dont point a loaded gun at the heart of legitimate self-government." The move to oppose the election results was ignited by Josh Hawley, a Republican senator from Missouri. He will object, forcing a two-hour debate, followed by a vote in the Senate, and in the House of Representatives. The session in Congress will take place a day after two run-off races in Georgia, which will determine whether Republicans or Democrats control the Senate. David Perdue, one of two Republican candidates, announced he would spend the final days of the campaign in quarantine after possible exposure to the coronavirus. Meanwhile, it emerged that staffing changes were to be made to the Secret Service's presidential detail when Joe Biden takes office on Jan 20. Mr Biden's camp was said to have expressed concerns that current agents might be politically supportive of Mr Trump. Mr Trump cut short a trip to Florida and headed back to Washington on New Year's Eve. In a New Year video message he hailed "historic victories" on the economy and fighting the pandemic. He said: "We have to be remembered for what's been done." In the final weeks of his term the president was also facing an ongoing battle with Republicans in Congress, including Mr McConnell, after he called for an increase in stimulus cheques to Americans. He also faced growing friction with Iran.

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Congress overrides Donald Trump's veto of a defense policy bill in the first such rebuke of his presidency - Yahoo News

This article was originally published here

Adv Exp Med Biol. 2021 Jan 1. doi: 10.1007/5584_2020_613. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

COVID-19 is the current day pandemic that has claimed around 1,054,604 lives globally till date. Moreover, the number of deaths is going to increase over the next few months until the pandemic comes to an end, and a second wave has also been reported in few countries. Most interestingly, the death rate among certain populations from the same COVID-19 infection is highly variable. For instance, the European populations show a very high death rate, in contrast to the populations from Chinese ethnicities. Amongst all the closed cases with an outcome (total recovered + total died), the death rate in Italy is 13%, Iran is 6%, China is 5%, Brazil is 3%, The United States of America is 2%, India 2%, Israel is 1% as of October 08, 2020. However, the percentage was higher during the early phase of the pandemic. Moreover, the global death rate amongst all the patients with an outcome is 4%. Here we have reviewed virus-transmitted various respiratory tract infections and postulated a better understanding of SARS-CoV2 using lung stem cell organoids in vitro. Hence, here we propose the strategies of understanding first the infectivity/severity ratio of COVID-19 infections using various ethnicity originated induced pluripotent stem cell-derived lung stem cell organoids in vitro. The greater the infectivity to severity ratio, the better the disease outcome with the value of 1 being the worst disease outcome. This strategy will be useful for understanding the infectivity/severity ratio of virus induced respiratory tract infections for a possible betterment of community-based disease management. Also, such a strategy will be useful for screening the effect of various antiviral drugs/repurposed drugs for their efficacy in vitro.

PMID:33385178 | DOI:10.1007/5584_2020_613

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Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell Derived Human Lung Organoids to Map and Treat the SARS-CoV2 Infections In Vitro - DocWire News

Indore: After being jolted by governments decision to shift State Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation (SOTTO) to Bhopal, Indore Organ Donation Society headed by divisional commissioner and MGM Medical College dean have restarted the organ donation drive in the city as an attempt to bring back the centre in city.

They have asked private hospitals to inform them about the brain stem cell death patients. Moreover, hospitals have also been directed to send monthly data on deaths that took place in the ICU of their hospitals in given format, which mentioned the reason of death, brain stem cell death declaration, and counselling of family members.

We have taken measures to restart organ donation drive in the city, which has hit Covid hurdle. We have asked hospitals to immediately inform about brain stem cell death of patients so that their families can be counselled and lives of others can be saved, MGM Medical College dean Dr Sanjay Dixit said.

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Madhya Pradesh: Organ donation drive pushed further in Indore, hospitals directed to inform about brain stem cell death patients immediately - Free...

Indore:

After being jolted by the governments decision to shift the State Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation (SOTTO) to Bhopal, Indore Organ Donation Society and the appropriate authorities have started initiatives to restart the organ donation drive as an attempt to bring back the centre to the city.

Following the same, Dean and Appropriate Authority of Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Medical College has directed all the private hospitals to necessarily inform about the brain stem cell death patients.

Moreover, hospitals have also been directed to send monthly data on the deaths that take place in the ICU of their hospitals, brain stem cell death declaration, and counselling of the family members.

Instructions have been passed to 35 hospitals of the city including Bombay Hospital, Apollo Hospital, Medanta Hospital, CHL Hospital, Choithram Hospital, and others.

Hospitals have to send the signed scanned copy and soft copy in a given format on the first week of every month so that the authorities can learn about the deaths in ICUs of hospitals and identify the reason as to why brain stem cell death couldnt be identified or informed.

Yes, we have been taking various measures to restart the organ donation drive in the city which has hit a hurdle due to the Covid crisis. We have asked the hospitals to immediately inform about the brain stem cell death of patients so that their families can be counselled and the lives of others could be saved, Dean of MGM Medical College Dr Sanjay Dixit said.

Meanwhile, various organisations and NGOs continued their protest against the government decision of shifting SOTTO to Bhopal from Indore and said that Indore is leading city in Central India and shifting SOTTO would hit Indores ongoing drive for organ donation.

As many as 39 green corridors were formed in the city since 2015 to transport vital organs in the city and to different states to save the lives of many people.

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Indore: In a bid to push organ donation, h ospitals directed to intimate about brain stem cell deaths - Free Press Journal

One hundred lives or more, its hard to say how many people have been saved but one "deadly drug cell" is no longer in operation in Warren, according to police.

Warren Police Commissioner William Dwyer detailed on Wednesday the success by his special investigations unit in taking down key players in a conspiracy that allegedly involved the sale of heroin laced with fentanyl, believed to be responsible for at least three deaths in Warren this past year.

Dwyer stated in a news release that early morning raids were conducted by Warren police units at two locations in Detroit, drugs were seized and arrests were made.

Three Detroit men have been arraigned and are jailed in lieu of bonds of $250,000 to $350,000 including: Jermaine Tate, 38, Nathaniel Clark, 32 and Terry Jamal Gaskins, 34. Each have been charged with conducting criminal enterprise, a drug trafficking organization; three counts of delivery/manufacture of fentanyl, and three counts of conspiracy to conduct the delivery/manufacture of fentanyl.

Also charged in a not-in-custody warrant is Isaac Lee Bannerman, 34, of Detroit.

Each offense is a felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

"These arrests stem from the Warren Police Department's Operation SNOW (Stopping Narcotic Overdoses in Warren)," Dwyer said, of the group that began its investigation in November following the death of a 47-year-old Warren resident.

"We are anticipating more charges and arrests in the near future," Dwyer said. "We believe this group is a cell in a major organization that is providing fentanyl to those addicted not only in Warren but also throughout the rest of Macomb County, as well as Wayne, St. Clair and Lapeer counties."

Among the leaders Dwyer singled out for their tenacity and dedication to the investigation were: Lt. Matthew Dillenbeck, Sgt. Steve Showers; and Detectives Craig Bankowski and Todd Murray.

The investigation is one of many efforts to combat the rising deaths related to drug abuse.

Overdose drug deaths have been a rising problem across the country, Dwyer said. In 2019, there were 72,000 overdose deaths nationwide and in the last year have increased by 13% he said. Michigan averages 26.6 overdose deaths per 100,000 people and deaths from illicit drugs like fentanyl remain higher than death totals for car accidents, gun violence and AIDS, Dwyer said.

Warren Police Commissioner William Dwyer

MACOMB DAILY FILE PHOTO

Fentanyl, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, is a powerful synthetic opioid that is similar to morphine but is 50 to 100 times more potent. It is a prescription drug given to patients for pain, particularly after surgery.

"In Warren alone for the year 2020, we have had 296 overdoses, up from 249 in 2019," Dwyer said. "Sadly, the amount of overdose deaths has increased from 29 reported in 2019 to 55 overdose deaths in 2020. This represents an 89.6% increase."

Applauding the success of the month-long investigation was Warren Mayor Jim Fouts.

"It has been a priority of my administration to work on eliminating drug overdoses and holding those who distribute these toxins throughout our city accountable," Fouts said.

Commissioner Dwyer also applauded Macomb County Assistant Prosecutor Dena Keller for demonstrating "excellent professionalism and dedication in her work assisting the Warren police department in this investigation."

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Macomb County medical board: EMS opioids overdose treatment up during COVID-19

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Deadly drug cell shattered by Warren police narcotics investigation - The Macomb Daily

Jersey City sports suffered a big loss when Ellen Zadroga (pictured here) passed away after a battle with cancer two weeks ago

Jersey City sports suffered a big loss when Ellen Zadroga (pictured here) passed away after a battle with cancer two weeks ago

When long-time Jersey City resident, teacher and athletic advocate Ellen Zadroga was diagnosed with leukemia in 1997, she basically laughed at her doctors.

Her doctors gave her six months to live, said her daughter Kristen Zadroga-Hart, the athletic director at McNair Academic. And that was 23 years ago.

Unfortunately, Ellens time on earth came to an end a few weeks ago, when her suffering finally ended. Ellen died Dec. 19, just two days before her 78th birthday.

For many years, Ellen Zadroga, who was born into the vast and beloved Finn family of Jersey City, was a school teacher at P.S. 8 in Jersey City.

But she was also always involved in athletics.

When she was a teacher at P.S. 8, she started the intramural program there, her daughter Kristen said. She always wanted to get kids involved in sports. It became a big part of our family. She wanted to make sure that it was possible for kids to play sports.

So she did. She campaigned for athletic events and facilities, raising money to help countless organizations in sports.

She was always raising money, her daughter said.

A good portion of Ellens time was her devotion was to her large family.

I think her devotion to her family was her Number One priority, Zadroga-Hart said. But it wasnt just blood relations. If you were her friend, then you were a friend for life. I cant begin to count how many people who told me that my mother changed their lives. They said, Your mother went out of her way to help me. If she could help, she would give whatever they needed.

When Dan Finn, Ellens nephew, was hit by a car in Myrtle Beach, S.C. in 2004, an accident that ended the great St. Peters Prep athletes life, his organs were harvested. Sure enough, his aunt Ellen, who was already diagnosed with leukemia and in dire need of a kidney transplant, was a match with her nephew who had just passed on.

We knew the prognosis was not good with Dan, said Ed Finn, Ellens brother and Dans father. We said to the nurses that if Dan doesnt come out of this, then we wanted a promise to have Ellen get Dans kidneys.

This came after stem cell transplant surgery on Ellen did not succeed.

But Dan Finn gave his aunt the gift of life and Ellen Zadroga most certainly did live life to the fullest every single day after the transplant surgery.

I think she held on because of Danny, Kristen Zadroga-Hart said. She didnt want to waste the gift of life that Danny gave her with his kidney.

I think the relationship between Ellen and myself grew deeper after that, said Ed Finn, a long-time respected teacher and basketball official who runs the Dan Finn Classic every year in honor of his deceased son.

But in the last few months, Ellens health deteriorated. She had to endure the tragic death of her grandson, Richie R.J. Zadroga, in October.

And she eventually passed away, her fight was over a few weeks ago.

When I got the call from Tara [Ellens other daughter] that Ellen had passed, I was extremely sad for about 10 minutes, Ed Finn said. And then I realized how great of a life she had. She never looked away from anyone. If she could help someone, she was always there. I never had to ask her for anything. If there was something I needed, she knew about it before I did.

There arent words to describe the strength she had, Kristen Zadroga-Hart said. She battled leukemia, stem cell transplant, kidney transplant. When she was in so much pain, she never complained. She said that she was happy to live another day. We told her that there were people praying for her and she said that she didnt need the prayers. She said, Pray for everyone around me.

Kristen Zadroga-Hart said that she had an idea of how much her mother was beloved.

But a lot of it was a little overwhelming, Zadroga-Hart said. It was just the amount of people who were saying such great things about her, seeing her former students coming up to me and saying nice things. I think she had a life well lived. And she lived it for others.

From a personal standpoint, I always loved to see the interaction between Ellen and our mutual friend, Ed Faa Ford, when Ellen was an assistant superintendent of schools and part of her responsibility was monitoring the Board of Educations main playing field, namely Caven Point Cochrane Stadium in a complex that now bears the name of Ed Faa Ford.

She had a close relationship with Faa, Kristen Zadroga-Hart said.

That they did and it was a joy to see the two go at it with each other. Maybe that interaction is continuing now somewhere up there. God bless Ellen. She will most certainly be missed by many

Former Lincoln High School standout Frank Darby, a standout wide receiver at Arizona State, has declared his intentions to forego his final year of college eligibility and make himself eligible for the NFL Draft this spring.

Darby battled injuries this season and caught only six passes, one for a touchdown. But Darby shapes up to be a strong mid-round selection in the draft with a strong chance to be playing in the NFL come September

Major correction: Last week, when we listed the top 10 sports stories, we mentioned all the Hudson County sports legends that passed away in 2020.

One glaring omission off the list of great we lost was former New Jersey City University athletic director Alice Schmidt DeFazio.

A member of the Hudson County Sports Hall of Fame, Alice was a great player in her heyday, playing for that great Montclair State College team that featured other Hudson County women and went to the NCAA Final Four.

Alice then became a successful coach on the high school and collegiate level, eventually getting elevated to the position of athletic director at NJCU in 2007. She lost her life to a battle with pancreatic cancer, the same hideous disease that took the life of her Hall of Fame coaching husband Bill in 2010. Alice died last February and certainly deserved her spot of distinction with the list of people we mentioned.

My sincere apologies go out to all members of the Schmidt and DeFazio families for the unfortunate omission

And perhaps the best news of all, Gov. Phil Murphy lifted the ban on indoor sports, so it means that the winter sports seasons can move forward as planned later this month. The seasons will begin with hockey later this week, but basketball practices can begin with the season to tip off by the end of January. Thats exciting news for everyone involved in New Jersey sports. Jim Hague

Jim Hague can be reached via e-mail at OGSMAR@aol.com

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TASTY TIDBITS - The Hudson Reporter

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Discovery could aid early screening, shed light on how Chiari malformation arises

The lowest part of a child's brain is visible below the bottom of the skull in this MRI scan and shows evidence of a Chiari 1 malformation. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have shown that Chiari 1 malformation can be caused by variations in two genes linked to brain development, and that children with large heads are at increased risk of developing the condition.

About one in 100 children has a common brain disorder called Chiari 1 malformation, but most of the time such children grow up normally and no one suspects a problem. But in about one in 10 of those children, the condition causes headaches, neck pain, hearing, vision and balance disturbances, or other neurological symptoms.

In some cases, the disorder may run in families, but scientists have understood little about the genetic alterations that contribute to the condition. In new research, scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have shown that Chiari 1 malformation can be caused by variations in two genes involved in brain development.

The condition occurs when the lowest parts of the brain are found below the base of the skull. The study also revealed that children with unusually large heads are four times more likely to be diagnosed with Chiari 1 malformation than their peers with normal head circumference.

The findings, published Dec. 21 in the American Journal of Human Genetics, could lead to new ways to identify people at risk of developing Chiari 1 malformation before the most serious symptoms arise. It also sheds light on the development of the common but poorly understood condition.

A lot of times people have recurrent headaches, but they dont realize a Chiari malformation is the cause of their headaches, said senior author Gabriel Haller, PhD, an assistant professor of neurosurgery, of neurology and of genetics. And even if they do, not everyone is willing to have brain surgery to fix it. We need better treatments, and the first step to better treatments is a better understanding of the underlying causes.

If people start experiencing severe symptoms like chronic headaches, pain, abnormal sensations or loss of sensation, or weakness, the malformation is treated with surgery to decompress the Chiari malformation.

Theres an increased risk for Chiari malformations within families, which suggests a genetic underpinning, but nobody had really identified a causal gene, Haller said. We were able to identify two causal genes, and we also discovered that people with Chiari have larger head circumference than expected. Its a significant factor, and easy to measure. If you have a child with an enlarged head, it might be worth checking with your pediatrician.

To identify genes that cause Chiari 1 malformation, Haller and colleagues sequenced all the genes of 668 people with the condition, as well as 232 of their relatives. Of these relatives, 76 also had Chiari 1 malformation and 156 were unaffected. The research team included first author Brooke Sadler, PhD, an instructor in pediatrics, and co-authors David D. Limbrick, Jr., MD, PhD, a professor of neurosurgery and director of the Division of Pediatric Neurosurgery, and Christina Gurnett, MD, PhD, a professor of neurologyand director of the Division of Pediatric and Developmental Neurology, among others.

Sequencing revealed that people with Chiari 1 malformation were significantly more likely to carry mutations in a family of genes known as chromodomain genes. Several of the mutations were de novo, meaning the mutation had occurred in the affected person during fetal development and was not present in his or her relatives. In particular, the chromodomain genes CHD3 and CHD8 included numerous variants associated with the malformation.

Further experiments in tiny, transparent zebrafish showed that the gene CHD8 is involved in regulating brain size. When the researchers inactivated one copy of the fishs chd8 gene, the animals developed unusually large brains, with no change in their overall body size.

Chromodomain genes help control access to long stretches of DNA, thereby regulating expression of whole sets of genes. Since appropriate gene expression is crucial for normal brain development, variations in chromodomain genes have been linked to neurodevelopmental conditions such as autism spectrum disorders, developmental delays, and unusually large or small heads.

Its not well known how chromodomain genes function since they have such a wide scope of activity and they are affecting so many things at once, Haller said. But they are very intriguing candidates for molecular studies, to understand how specific mutations lead to autism or developmental delay or, as in many of our Chiari patients, just to increased brain size without cognitive or intellectual symptoms. Wed like to figure out the effects of each of these mutations so that in the future, if we know a child has a specific mutation, well be able to predict whether that variant is going to have a harmful effect and what kind.

The association between chromodomain genes and head size inspired Haller and colleagues to measure the heads of children with Chiari malformations, comparing them to age-matched controls and to population averages provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Children with Chiari tended to have larger than average heads. Those children with the largest heads bigger than 95% of children of the same age were four times more likely to be diagnosed with the malformation.

The findings suggest that children with larger heads or people with other neurodevelopmental disorders linked to chromodomain genes may benefit from screening for Chiari malformation.

A lot of kids that have autism or developmental disorders associated with chromodomain genes may have undiscovered Chiari malformations, Haller said. The only treatment right now is surgery. Discovering the condition early would allow us to watch, knowing the potential for serious symptoms is there, and perform that surgery as soon as its necessary.

Sadler B, Wilborn J, Antunes L, Kuensting T, Hale AT, Gannon SR, McCall K, Cruchaga C, Harms M, Voisin N, Reymond A, Cappuccio G, Burnetti-Pierri N, Tartaglia M, Niceta M, Leoni C, Zampino G, Ashley-Koch A, Urbizu A, Garrett ME, Soldano K, Macaya A, Conrad D, Strahle J, Dobbs MB, Turner TN, Shannon CN, Brockmeyer D, Limbrick DD, Gurnett CA, Haller G. Rare and de novo coding variants in chromodomain genes in Chiari I malformation. American Journal of Human Genetics. Dec. 21, 2020. DOI: 10.1016/j.ajhg.2020.12.001

This study was funded by Sam and Betsy Reeves and the Park-Reeves Syringomyelia Research Consortium; the University of Missouri Spinal Cord Injury Research Program; the Childrens Discovery Institute of St. Louis Childrens Hospital and Washington University; the Washington University Institute of Clinical and Translational Sciences, grant number UL1TR000448 from the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences of the National Institutes of Health (NIH); the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development, award number U54HD087011 to the Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Center at Washington University; the Swiss National Science Foundation, grant number 31003A_182632; and the Jrme Lejeune Foundation.

Washington University School of Medicines 1,500 faculty physicians also are the medical staff of Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Childrens hospitals. The School of Medicine is a leader in medical research, teaching and patient care, ranking among the top 10 medical schools in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. Through its affiliations with Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Childrens hospitals, the School of Medicine is linked to BJC HealthCare.

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Common brain malformation traced to its genetic roots - Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis

Dawn Wells, the actress who radiated all-American wholesomeness, Midwestern practicality and a youthful nave charm as the character Mary Ann on the hit 1960s sitcom Gilligans Island, died on Wednesday at a nursing home in Los Angeles. She was 82.

Her publicist, Harlan Boll, said the cause was related to Covid-19.

Debuting on CBS in 1964, Gilligans Island followed an unlikely septet of day trippers (on a three-hour tour, as the theme song explained) who ended up stranded on a desert island.

There, shipwrecked alongside a movie star (who spent most of her time in evening gowns), a science professor, a pompous, older rich couple, and two wacky crew members was Mary Ann Summers (Ms. Wells), a farm girl from Kansas who had won the trip in a local radio contest.

The character had a relatively scant back story it was said that she worked at the hardware store back home and had a boyfriend but Mary Anns persona alone made her memorable. Gingham blouses, short shorts, double ponytails and perky hair bows were all parts of her signature look.

The first version of the shows theme song mentioned five of the characters and the rest, but the lyrics were soon changed to name the professor (Russell Johnson) and Mary Ann as well. The others in the cast were Bob Denver (Gilligan), Alan Hale Jr. (the Skipper), Jim Backus and Natalie Schafer (as the couple Thurston Howell III and Lovey Howell), and Tina Louise (as the actress, Ginger). Ms. Louise is the last surviving member of the original cast.

That the premise of Gilligans Island was pretty much implausible and its humor simplistic made no difference to the shows millions of fans or its producers, who would discover in the years to come that they had spawned a cultural phenomenon.

Though Gilligans Island lasted only three seasons, canceled in 1967, it hardly slipped from the horizon. Endless reruns ensued, and the cast members had a series of encore performances. Ms. Wells, for one, reprised her role as Mary Ann in three reunion TV movies: Rescue From Gilligans Island (1978), The Castaways on Gilligans Island (1979) and The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligans Island (1981).

In 1982, she did the voices of both her character and Ms. Louises movie star for Gilligans Planet, an animated spinoff series. And she went on to play Mary Ann in episodes of at least four other (unrelated) shows: Alf (1986), Baywatch (1989), Hermans Head (1991) and Meego (1997). Gilligans-themed episodes had a certain camp value.

Even her career as an author related directly to the series. Mary Anns Gilligans Island Cookbook, which included Skippers Coconut Pie, was published in 1993. What Would Mary Ann Do? A Guide to Life, a memoir she wrote with Steve Stinson, appeared in 2014.

Jan. 2, 2021, 5:13 p.m. ET

Mary Anns advice in the book included this thought: Failure builds character. What matters is what you do after you fail. The San Francisco Book Review called the book a worthwhile mix of classic values and sincerity.

Asked decades later about her favorite Gilligans Island episodes, Ms. Wells mentioned And Then There Were None, which included a dream sequence in which she got to do a Cockney accent. She also cited Up at Bat, an episode in which Gilligan imagined that he had turned into Dracula.

I loved being the old hag, she said.

Dawn Elberta Wells was born in Reno, Nev., on Oct. 18, 1938, the only child of Joe Wesley Wells, a real estate developer, and Evelyn (Steinbrenner) Wells. Dawn majored in chemistry at Stephens College in Columbia, Mo., then became interested in drama and went to the University of Washington in Seattle. She graduated in 1960 with a degree in theater arts and design, having taken some time off to win a state beauty title and compete in the 1960 Miss America pageant.

Big deal, she said in a 2016 interview with Forbes, making light of her Miss Nevada win. There were only 10 women in the whole state at the time.

For the Miss America pageant in Atlantic City, her talent performance was a dramatic reading from Sophocles Antigone.

A 1961 episode of the drama The Roaring Twenties was her screen debut. When she was cast on Gilligans Island, she had appeared onscreen only about two dozen times, mostly in prime-time series, including 77 Sunset Strip (multiple episodes), Surfside Six, Hawaiian Eye, Bonanza and Maverick.

After her television career cooled down, Ms. Wells returned to her first love: theater, doing at least 100 productions nationwide. Her last television role was in 2019, as the voice of a supernatural dentist on the animated Netflix series The Epic Tales of Captain Underpants.

Her last onscreen appearance was in a 2018 episode of Kaplans Korner, about actors running an employment agency. Her only soap opera appearance was in a 2016 episode of The Bold and the Beautiful, in which she played a fashion buyer from a wealthy family.

Ms. Wellss marriage in 1962 to Larry Rosen, a talent agent, ended in divorce in 1967, the same year Gilligans Island went off the air. She is survived by a stepsister, Weslee Wells.

Ms. Wells went on to operate charity-oriented businesses. She was a prominent supporter of the Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee, the nations largest natural habitat refuge developed for African and Asian elephants.

She also taught acting, creating the nonprofit Idaho Film and Television Institute while living at her ranch in the Teton Valley. But a screen career was never her childhood dream.

I wanted to be a ballerina, then a chemist, she recalled in the Forbes interview. If I had to do it all over again, Id go into genetic medicine.

Alex Traub contributed reporting.

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Dawn Wells, Mary Ann on Gilligans Island, Dies at 82 - The New York Times

Judith Lightfoot was managing her illness herself, until she couldnt.

It felt like a bad flu. She was sick to her stomach. She couldnt eat.

I was passing out all over the house said Lightfoot, who is the interim chairperson for Rowan Universitys department of internal medicine, chief of infectious disease and department director for internal medicine.

This was early March and Lightfoot, who was well aware of the COVID-19 virus sweeping across the world, spent two months battling back from it. Her expertise in the medical field and as a survivor of the coronavirus has made her a valued source for NJ Advance Media and other news outlets.

Lightfoot, 57, is a doctor of osteopathic medicine, which differs from a medical doctor in philosophy. Doctors of osteopathic medicine treat their patients holistically and believe that the body can heal itself.

She was on an international jazz cruise in January with her husband when she heard a BBC news report about the virus overtaking Wuhan, China. Her alarm level increased when she saw what happened at the nursing home in Washington State.

I was criticized for saying we should wear masks early on, she said.

By late February, she was angering more people at the university when she vocally opposed letting students travel abroad, she said.

I felt people were trying to discount what I was saying, they just didnt know and they didnt want to think it was going to be this serious, Lightfoot said.

She attended a gala at the Borgata on March 7 and remembers telling her husband that she had a headache and wanted to leave after the awards. Within days she couldnt eat, couldnt drive and lost a clothing-size worth of weight.

Im an avid spinner and I could barely walk around the block, she said. I couldnt lift 5 pounds. I had lost so much weight and muscle mass.

Lightfoot is a former ballerina. Growing up in the Washington, D.C. area she wanted to be a professional dancer, but her father told her she needed to find a job that would allow her to support herself. She was drawn to science and inspired by a teacher who told stories about her husbands work for NASA.

There was also a push to increase the number of female engineers. Mechanical and electrical engineering didnt interest her, but genetic engineering did. That led her to osteopathic medicine. Shes been at Rowan University for almost three years.

Lightfoot had developed pneumonia from the coronavirus by the time she went to the hospital on March 18. I didnt want to go to the hospital because COVID was there, she said.

It took until July for her to regain her full strength. Ive seen every bit of this, Lightfoot said. How it robs you.

You have to rest. The breathing was the hardest -- and trying to survive, she said

Now, that the second wave is here, Lightfoot wants people to know that the cases are just as serious as the first round -- and people are still dying.

Not everyone understands the science, she said. Some people think youre not talking about them when it comes to wearing the mask.

One of her patients rented out a movie theater for 20 of his friends and family. Seven of those who went now have COVID-19.

People are under this perception that their circle is safe. We know who weve been around, Lightfoot said. No one is safe.

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Allison Pries may be reached at apries@njadvancemedia.com.

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This doctor survived COVID-19 during the first wave. Shes one of the experts we turn to for advice. - NJ.com