New mRNA vaccine factory is made from shipping containers — Each “BioNTainer” can produce 50 million COVID-19 vaccine doses per year. Kristin Houser for Freethink, January 22nd, 2023

>"German biotech company BioNTech is sending a modular mRNA vaccine factory to Rwanda to allow the country to produce more COVID-19 shots for Africa, in Africa — and perhaps one day help the continent easily vaccinate its citizens against other deadly diseases, too."

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>"This factory consists of two modules, each made from six shipping containers. In the first module, mRNA is produced and purified. In the second, it is made into a vaccine. Local partners can then package the mRNA vaccine into doses."

Today in Pakistan, 3859 mobile teams of para-medical staff will begin a push to immunize 44 million children across 156 districts in a nationwide drive. — Pakistan launches anti-polio drive targeting 44M children

Pakistan has made incredible progress toward eradicating polio. Travel back just 42 years to 1981, and there were an estimated 30,000 cases across the country; by 2021, it was down to 9 cases. Dive into the full data here. https://ourworldindata.org/polio

Globally, the story is even brighter, with total cases having declined by 99.99%. Afghanistan and Pakistan remain the only two countries with active polioviruses circulating. The final push toward eradication has been extremely challenging, but it may come before 2030.

Oh, a paywall, eh? Jump it here: https://archive.ph/loyEU#selection-483.0-488.0

2022 was a breakthrough year for xenotransplantation, a procedure that could be a lifeline for patients in desperate need of a donor. — Here’s What’s Next for Pig Organ Transplants, Emily Mullin for Wired, December 26th, 2022. (Paywall jump in the next comment.)

>"Griffith and the rest of the team at the University of Maryland Medical Center, led by surgeon Muhammad Mohiuddin, were about to conduct the first transplant of a genetically engineered pig heart into a human being. The patient, David Bennett, was too sick to be eligible for a traditional transplant. The Maryland group had been studying cross-species transplantation—a field known as xenotransplantation—for years and undertook the experimental procedure as a last-ditch effort to save Bennett’s life."

Root Source Study: American Journal of Transplantation, First clinical-grade porcine kidney xenotransplant using a human decedent model, First published: 20 January 2022 https://doi.org/10.1111/ajt.16930

From new vaccines to fight malaria to new advancements in cancer treatments, and from a universal flu vaccine to the James Webb Space Telescope — here are "the 10 biggest scientific breakthroughs of 2022 from The Week 🌌

While Elon was busy stuffing Twitter around, a new paper-thin photovoltaic was developed. "These thin-film solar cells are one-hundredth as heavy as conventional solar cells while generating 18 times as much power per kilogram." u/IEEEorg https://spectrum.ieee.org/thin-film-solar-panels ☀️

"MIT researchers have developed what they say is a scalable fabrication technique to produce ultrathin, lightweight solar cells that can be adhered to any surface."

>"The fabric modules had a power density of 370 watts per kilogram and weighed 0.1 kilogram per square meter. Commercial residential silicon solar panels, by contrast, have a power density of 20 W/kg and weigh 10.7 kg/m2"

Root Study: Printed Organic Photovoltaic Modules on Transferable Ultra-thin Substrates as Additive Power Sources, First published: 09 December 2022 https://doi.org/10.1002/smtd.202200940, Small Methods

"An alloy made of almost equal amounts of chromium, cobalt and nickel resists fracturing even at incredibly cold temperatures, which could make it useful for building spacecraft" — Toughest material ever is an alloy of chromium, cobalt and nickel 🧊

Now, presuming you don't have mad bank to flex on a New Scientist subscription, and seeing as how I can't jump the paywall effectively, here's another alternative source.

This Alloy Is The Toughest Known Material on Earth, And It Gets Tougher in The Cold

> "An alloy of chromium, cobalt, and nickel has just given us the highest fracture toughness ever measured in a material on Earth.
It has exceptionally high strength and ductility, leading to what a team of scientists has called "outstanding damage tolerance".
Moreover – and counterintuitively – these properties increase as the material gets colder, suggesting some interesting potential for applications in extreme cryogenic environments."

Also Australian. :)

A personalized Moderna cancer vaccine, combined with collaborator Merck's biggest-selling drug, cut the risk of death or recurrence of the lethal melanoma skin cancer by 44% — Moderna mRNA Melanoma Vaccine Succeeds in Combination With Merck Drug December 13th, 2022 💊

>"The outcome “exceeds our expectations and the threshold for excitement from a randomized phase 2 proof-of-concept trial,” SVB Securities analysts said in a note to clients."

Oh, a paywall, eh? Jump it here: https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.newscientist.com%2Farticle%2F2350806-experimental-crispr-technique-has-promise-against-aggressive-leukaemia%2F

>"A 13-year-old girl whose leukaemia had not responded to other treatments now has no detectable cancer cells after receiving a dose of immune cells that were genetically edited to attack the cancer" — Experimental CRISPR technique has promise against aggressive leukaemia

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>"A teenager with aggressive leukaemia now has no detectable cancer cells after becoming the first person to receive a treatment involving a new kind of CRISPR called base editing. However, it will not be clear for some years whether she will remain free of the condition."