{"content":[{"text":"existing ones in the hope of quickly finding something \n that can slow down the global scourge. \n “There are hundreds and hundreds of new \n technologies. Our job is to comb through those as \n quickly as possible,’’ says Rick Bright, director of the \n U.S. Biomedical Advanced Research and \n Development Authority, a branch of the Department \n of Health and Human Services. “The ultimate goal is \n to get as many ideas going” as they can. \n No one is more aware of that urgency than \n Baric, who stands out as a leader in the campaign. \n Suddenly at the center of the action, he seems uneasy \n in the limelight, preferring to focus on his work in his \n office piled high with research papers, virology books \n and framed patents he hasn’t gotten around to hanging \n up. \n His warnings about the dangers of \n coronaviruses were first proven on the mark when \n SARS, or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, swept \n through China and other countries in 2002 and 2003, \n eventually killing almost 800. The virus originated in \n bats and is thought to have passed through palm civets \n on its way to people. \n By 2012, a deadly pathogen from camels, \n Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), began \n killing people in the region. Eventually, more than 850 \n died. \n In 2015, Baric and his colleagues were able to \n show that SARS-like viruses in Chinese horseshoe \n bats posed a particular threat to cause a new outbreak. \n The virus spike in the bat coronavirus was unusually \n adaptable, allowing it to recognize receptors in \n multiple species, including human lung cells. \n Over the last five years, Baric, working closely \n with Vanderbilt University infectious-disease \n specialist Mark Denison, tested almost 200,000 drugs \n against SARS, MERS and other bat coronavirus \n strains. He found at least two dozen that appeared to \n hinder the virus. \n Among the most promising was Gilead’s \n remdesivir, a drug that fared poorly when used against \n a recent Ebola outbreak in Africa. In the lab, it worked \n against numerous coronavirus strains, including SARS \n and other bat coronaviruses that are similar to the new \n strain. Every coronavirus it was tested on, “it had high \n potency and efficacy,” Denison says. \n That work was fortuitous. In early January, \n Baric got an urgent call from an infectious-disease \n colleague to send his unpublished data on remdesivir \n to colleagues in China who were dealing with a then-","bbox":{"left":0.058987,"top":0.046094,"width":0.42902199999999996,"height":0.870567}},{"text":"mysterious outbreak. Baric says he “was shocked” to \n see how fast the coronavirus was spreading. \n Since then, work at his lab has been virtually \n nonstop. Each scientist puts in from one to six hours \n inside two different clean rooms equipped to handle \n the virus. The lab’s workday begins at 6 a.m. and \n often goes until 11 p.m. Individual sessions are short \n for safety and practical reasons—researchers aren’t \n permitted to eat, drink or visit the bathroom once \n inside the lab. Everyone has to pass an FBI \n background check and undergo months of safety \n training. \n Scrubbing up and gowning takes 15 minutes, a \n laborious process that includes putting on multiple \n layers of Tyvek suits, nitrile gloves and booties, along \n with an air-purifying respirator powered by a battery \n that belts around the waist. Exiting the lab is just as \n exacting and involves researchers spraying themselves \n down repeatedly with 70% alcohol as they take off \n each layer of protective clothing to kill any stray viral \n particles. \n The workload, Baric says, is “overwhelming” \n as companies and researchers around the globe turn to \n his lab for help. He’s narrowed down the search to \n about 100 drugs that are likely to show promise \n against coronaviruses. Even if the Gilead drug works \n —a big if—it would have drawbacks: It can’t be \n offered in pill form, for instance, but must be infused \n in a hospital or doctor’s office. \n More crucially, other drugs may need to \n supplant it to fight even newer coronaviruses. So \n Baric is moving forward to find yet other treatments \n that could succeed against the numerous \n coronaviruses now lurking in bats and other \n mammals, poised to jump to humans at any moment. \n “The goal of our program is to find broad- \n based inhibitors that work against everything in the \n virus family,” Baric says . That makes the challenge \n sound matter of fact, but Baric knows the road ahead \n will be long and hard. “I have a lot people who are \n really tired,” he says. “They are working really hard.”","bbox":{"left":0.511928,"top":0.046094,"width":0.42827799999999994,"height":0.713749}},{"text":"Reference \n https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03- \n 04/this-coronavirus-hunter-is-racing-for- \n answers-in-a-locked-down-lab","bbox":{"left":0.511928,"top":0.786751,"width":0.40880400000000006,"height":0.076627}}],"images_bbox":[],"images_bbox_not_text_overlap":[]}