Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences on Tuesday said that its scientists have developed a nanotechnology-based vaccine that inoculated lab mice against Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS).
The MERS-related coronavirus kills 40 percent of the people it infects and developing a vaccine against it is deemed a high priority by the WHO, the institute said.
The virus was discovered in 2015, when it leaped species from camels to people, it said.
Using concepts similar to the development of an Ebola vaccine, the research team designed a nanoparticle to imitate the shape of the coronavirus as a substitute for deactivated viruses that vaccines typically use, institute associate research fellow Jack Hu (胡哲銘) said.
Nanotechnology was used in lieu of conventional vaccine manufacturing methodologies, because MERS is too lethal for most labs to handle and working on the actual virus would have had a disturbing resemblance to research for biological warfare, Hu said.
The team found that T cells in mice were stimulated by the nanoparticles, while those that received the inoculation had a 100 percent survival rate, he said.
The team is to continue its collaboration with international partners to go forward with primate trials, with clinical trials and approval for market release estimated to take three and seven years respectively, the researchers said.
The technology could also be used to research vaccines for flu and Zika viruses, as well as cancer, they said.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,