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."

Rubella has been eliminated from Singapore. The end of 2022 has become the end of Rubella, sometimes known as (German Measles, Three-Day Measles), in Singapore, as the country has eliminated the disease. Rubella is a highly contagious and vaccine-preventable viral disease that, while relatively mild for most, can cause death or serious birth defects in an unborn baby if the mother contracts the virus while pregnant.

Singapore's success is part of a larger global trend in the fight against the disease, as the number of one-year-olds vaccinated against rebulla improved globally from 21% in 2000 to 66% by 2021.

The good news is that vaccination coverage has improved dramatically in a little over three decades between 1980 and 2022. For many vaccines, the percentage of global one-year-olds immunized against a particular disease improved from 20% to 80%.
Progress forward isn't; however, progress completed, and many children globally still lack access to basic vaccination. Just 35% of global children have been vaccinated against rotavirus and just 47% against pneumonia.

Jabal: the new wheat scientists say can withstand extreme heat and drought — "The variety is a cross between commercial and wild wheats – bred in a bid to develop crops that are more resilient to the climate crisis" 🍞

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"A new drought-tolerant variety of durum wheat has been created as part of an international breeding programme to boost climate resilience in the food system by increasing crop diversity."
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"While it is not yet commercially available, farmers in Morocco will be the first to start growing the new version of durum wheat, which is widely eaten in north Africa and the Middle East, in about three years. Morocco is suffering its worst drought in four decades, and grain production is down by about 70% due to the extremely dry conditions."

Bangladesh attains huge success in reducing infant, maternal mortality — "Bangladesh has achieved a huge success in reducing infant and maternal mortality rates in the last five decades, securing the top position in South Asia."

>"According to the World Bank's estimation, the current infant mortality rate for Bangladesh is 21 deaths per 1000 live births making 85% decline from 1971 as the rate was 141 deaths during Bangladesh's independence.

The country's story has been that of success in the face of adversity and an example of what is possible for improvements in living standards for one of the world's poorest developing countries. The maternal mortality ratio and the child mortality rate have plummeted, while life expectancy has increased dramatically, from 38 years in 1950 to 73 years in 2022, overtaking even the global average. Driving many living standards has been the country's economic growth and a per person (GDP/capita, PPP$ inflation-adjusted) increase from $1,000 in 1950 to $4,990 in 2021.

"Bangladesh has the lowest rate of infant and maternal mortality in south Asia. The maternal mortality rate has fallen from 269 per 100,000 live births in 2009 to 165 per 100,000 today, and child mortality has declined by 63% since the turn of the century."

"It's the eighth-most populated country in the world - millions of lives have been saved." — H/T Future Crunch

Oh a paywall eh? Jump it here: https://archive.ph/WfYQo

Vaccine prompts HIV antibodies in 97 per cent of people in small study — "An experimental HIV vaccine led to antibodies against the virus in 35 out of 36 volunteers, but whether this offers protection against the infection is unclear" 💊

>"A two-dose HIV vaccine generated antibodies against the virus in 35 out of 36 people (97 per cent), with no severe side effects."

"The early-stage trial was designed to demonstrate safety and a proof-of-concept for a relatively novel approach to HIV vaccination. It is unclear whether the vaccine protects against HIV. Based on the antibody levels generated by the two-dose regimen, booster doses are expected to be required."

The good news is that innovations in HIV/AIDS, early intervention, and treatment are helping drive down the prevalence of new infections and deaths while improving the quality of life for millions. Deaths from HIV/AIDs peaked in 2004 at 1.8 million people globally; by 2019, that number has fallen by 52%, to roughly 863,000, and continues to decline slowly. Dive into the full data on the Our World in Data page on HIV/AIDS.

While it's still early days for the development of an effective, inexpensive, and safe vaccine to prevent the spread or decrease the virulence of HIV/AIDS, continued progress and incremental innovation is a promising cause for continued optimism in our global fight against the disease.

Source:

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)

Journal reference:

Leggat, D.J., et al. (2022) Vaccination induces HIV broadly neutralizing antibody precursors in humans. Science. doi.org/10.1126/science.add6502.Journal reference: Science, DOI: 10.1126/science.add6502

Scientists Just Made a Major Stride Toward a Hepatitis C Vaccine, Labs couldn’t figure out the structure of a key part of the virus — until now.

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"The hepatitis c virus, or HCV, causes a chronic liver infection that can lead to permanent liver scarring and, in dire cases, cancer. It affects around 71 million people worldwide and causes approximately 400,000 deaths each year.
>
> While treatments are available for HCV-related infections, they are expensive, hard to access, and do not protect against reinfection. A vaccine that can help prevent HCV infection is a major unmet medical and public health need."

This article was originally published on "The Conversation" by Lisa Eshun-Wilson and Alba Torrents de la Peña at the Scripps Research Institute. Root Source: "Scientists uncovered the structure of the key protein for a future hepatitis C vaccine – here’s how they did it"

Paywall? Jump it here: Vaccine doubles brain tumour survival rate in medical breakthrough
https://archive.ph/ybwbd#selection-1291.0-1291.149

"How can you even be an expert you work like 60-70 hours a week with a family?"

I'm not an expert; I'm a passionate and well-knowledged person on the subject, with a joy for writing and communicating on progress. As I continue in the field, I'm gaining knowledge and working on what I have to say and how I want to say it. I'm slowly building out my position over these years since 2018 and looking forward to the future.

Unless you would like to change to future tone of your engagement, I might excuse myself from further dialogue. At this point, you're not really engaging in good faith, and you're pre-supposing a good deal about people and motives without regard. I don't believe you're approaching me or the subject with respect or an open mind, and looking for malice and a fight, for which I am not.

Happy to hear from you again, mate. Have a great afternoon wherever you are.

Hmm, I believe they are using "fellow" to denote a "fellow" of the progress studies, human progress movement. Although it is still a very unstructured "movement". Aside from that, I'm not formally part of any organisation. Again, not that I wouldn't accept to be, I just am not currently. Hope that helps.

I apologise, but I don't exactly follow your line of questioning. But I've certainly been very open, honest and transparent. I don't think I've "failed to disclose" anything, most especially where there has been a requirement. Last time I checked there is no disclosure requirement for posting on Reddit.

I'm a little disappointed. I've engaged here in good faith, and I don't believe you're owed much more than what you have asked, and not even that really.

Yeah, I've received grant money from Cowen for the book. It's been very helpful, but such a long hard process. What I thought would take 6 months, has taken 2 years.

Where do you see "fellow"?

**Note, replacement comment, my previous comment was auto-removed due to a linking rule.**

Hey, thanks for hanging in there, apologies for the delay.

By way of introduction, "hi, I'm Tony Morley", a Canadian, Australian dual national based in Australia. I'm an independent progress studies communicator, passionate about researching and communicating global living standards. I receive and have not received any external funding for my work, with the exception of funding raised to support a children's book I'm writing, "Human Progress for Beginners." (Rules won't let me link, but you can Google it)

With that being said, I would love to be grant funded to focus on progress studies; I've got some excellent project ideas. For the last two years, I've been working full time 12h/d 5-6d/w building out a major energy project. Any additional time is focused on family, (three little ones under 9), progress studies, research, and communications, with a crushing book deadline due in January 2023. There is no "major or certificate" in progress studies, but it would be brilliant if there were. Hopefully, one doesn't need a "certificate" to research, think and communicate on a subject of deep interest.

You can find me and or my work here,

Facebook: Human Progress Facebook Group (Rules won't let me link)

Twitter: @ tonymmorley (Rules won't let me link)

The Progress Dashboard: A database of progress studies resources:

Some of my latest op-eds can be found here.

1. Turning the tide on hunger

2. 9 astonishing ways that living standards have improved around the world

3. How child mortality fell from 40% to 3.7% in 200 years

4. Reasons to be optimistic in 2022

My principal vocation is in energy project management (10y conventional and 4y renewable), with experience operating across over a dozen countries on three continents, from the Canadian high-arctic to the jungles of Papua New Guinea and the remote desert of Saudi Arabia.

I hope that helps, mate; if you would like to know more, please reach out any time. Have a great day, and thank you kindly for engaging.

I'm not deflecting, I'd just like to give you a complete and transparent response, and I need a smidge more time. Just entering a meeting. Hope that helps mate.