Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, March 29th, title: They race against time against the disease
Xinhua News Agency reporter Dong Ruifeng
Overcoming the epidemic is inseparable from technological support. Virus "finding", drug and vaccine research and development, and optimization of prevention and control strategies ... On the other front against the epidemic, tens of millions of science and technology workers are racing against time.
Ask science for methods and answers. They race against time to make the battle "epidemic" more confident.
Bright sword virus: 50 hours military warrant
"It's not so tense in March. Generally, we can sleep at one or two in the morning." Ren Lili said. In the two months before that, she and her team members spent more than 20 overnights.
Lili Ren is a researcher at the Institute of Pathogen Biology, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences. Virus sequencing, reagent development, and serum research, her institute has been a core scientific and technological support force in many fights against the epidemic.
Receiving a carefully delivered virus sample from Wuhan, Ren Lili's team issued a military order: within 50 hours, find out what the suspected pathogen is in the sample!
It's like the soldier heard the Charge. Extracting nucleic acids, "beating" into fragments, adding adapters, and gene sequencing, a capable team of 8 people did not close their eyes for two days and two nights, and came back with the brother unit "back to back" on time.
To ensure that the data is foolproof, Ren Lili adopted the most prudent operational analysis strategy.
As for technology, she is very confident that she is physically exhausting. She boasted that she could "carry" her body, but she saw her colleague rotate for three or four days, and her back hurt so much that she could squat and rest for a while.
"No, you can't fight. We need to bring out scientific data in time to support front-line detection and prevention and control." Ren Lili said.
In the face of the epidemic, it is the common aspiration of the majority of scientific and technological workers to speed up the progress of research and development on the basis of adhering to scientificity and ensuring effectiveness, and strive to achieve breakthroughs as soon as possible, and to produce practical and effective research results as soon as possible.
At the National Engineering Research Center for Emergency Prevention and Control Drug Engineering and Technology, researcher Zhong Wu's lab also kept up. His team has completed the rapid research and development of anti-influenza drugs and the national drug strategic reserve during multiple influenza outbreaks.
About 5,000 potential drugs were selected from more than 50,000 compounds through virtual screening, and in vitro virus activity verification was performed one by one. Since the beginning of January, Zhong Wu's team and the Hu Zhihong team of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences have collaborated in the P3 laboratory. Completed live-toxin evaluation for more than 200 drugs, and recommended more than 20 potentially clinically valuable varieties.
Their data is the first basis for conducting a clinical trial or not, and it is very reliable. If the 3-pass analysis is not enough, do 5 passes.
To get data for a drug, it can take up to 5 days from beginning to end. In order to speed up the progress, Zhong Wu started the "wheel war". After completing a batch of tests in the morning, he will do the second batch in the afternoon and the third batch in the evening, rolling forward.
Mankind's most powerful weapon against disease is science and technology. Mankind's victory over major disasters cannot be separated from scientific development and technological innovation.
Since the outbreak, the national scientific and technological front has actively responded to the call of the Party Central Committee to determine five major directions for clinical treatment and medicine, vaccine research and development, detection technology and products, viral etiology and epidemiology, and animal model construction. Provided strong technical support for winning the tough battle of epidemic prevention and control.
Facing the epidemic: "We cannot step back"
On January 31, Yan Jinghua, a researcher at the Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, sent a circle of friends:
"No new scientific research on emerging infectious diseases has been as stressful as this time! Every day reports progress, and everyone's work progress is measured in hours and minutes. There is no New Year's Eve, first day, no day and night to do experiments. A bunch The young people are working in succession, I feel sorry for them, and thank them! "
This may be the most anxious day for Yan Jinghua since the outbreak. The antibody screening had been smooth before, and the team was still discussing the plan at two o'clock in the morning, thinking that the good news would come out, but I didn't expect to waste a week.
Antibody therapy is to directly inject antibodies that can clear the virus into the human body to passively immunize the body. This aspect can be used for patient treatment, and it can also be used for prevention in healthy people. However, as with antibodies, vaccines often require a longer process.
"Looking at the patients in Wuhan going up by orders of magnitude, I was anxious and wanted to do it quickly." Yan Jinghua's laboratory has not stopped since the first day of the new year. Fail, continue, fail again, continue. As of mid-March, the team has made important progress in both the development of recombinant protein vaccines and therapeutic antibodies, and is making solid preparations for entering clinical trials.
Hard work, hard work, but not a half step back. "We just do infectious diseases, we can't step backward." Yan Jinghua said very simply.
In the fight against this epidemic, Chinese medicine shines. Clinical treatment and scientific research are carried out simultaneously. The clinical diagnosis and treatment data of TCM are transmitted from the isolation ward as soon as possible. Based on this, the characteristics and evolution of TCM syndromes are summarized, the diagnosis and treatment plan is optimized, and subsequent treatment and drug evaluation are further guided.
Behind the epidemic highlights, a set of offline and online integration is required, which requires a compatible TCM clinical information collection system.
"It only takes 5 days from receiving the task to getting the platform online." Said Zhang Junhua, a professor at Tianjin University of Traditional Chinese Medicine. Although he had experience in related system construction, this time was short and demand was high. Zhang Junhua was under great pressure.
It is necessary to collect the symptoms and evaluate the clinical effect; not only to meet the scientific norms, but also to consider the operability of clinical treatment; what indicators are used to evaluate the efficacy of different drugs ... These need to be determined as soon as possible.
Depending on the situation in front of you, the needs are adjusted at any time, and usually calls are late at night. "It's like building a building, but the drawings are constantly changing." Zhang Junhua said, "This kind of task usually takes half a year, but now it doesn't work. You can't drag the hind legs in front of you, and you have to hold it down with a breath. "
The platform is finally online on time! The tongue coating and pulse data in the front came, and the clinical overview of Chinese medicine prevention and treatment was summarized. Zhang Junhua and his colleagues provided strong support for first-line diagnosis and treatment, and developed the first core index set of clinical trials for new coronary pneumonia, which is also used in emergency situations. Evidence-based research in Chinese medicine goes a step further.
Take the initiative to ask for help, claiming to be “not more tired than frontline medical staff”
Take responsibility and fight hard. In this fight against epidemics, the vast number of scientific and technological workers have fully demonstrated the excellent style of hard work and dedication, rigorous and practical professionalism, and provided strong scientific and technological support for winning the battle against epidemic prevention and control.
On the first day of the new year, Liu Hao, a researcher at the Institute of Automation of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, made a phone call to his doctor friend and asked the same question: What kind of robot do you need to respond to the epidemic?
For the past 15 years, Liu Hao has been researching medical robots, hoping that one day there will be no more difficult surgery in the world. "Maybe because of studying this direction, the first thought at the time was how to better protect doctors in this epidemic."
The team from Zhongnanshan, far from Guangzhou, put forward a specific requirement: "We need a robot that can take a swab sample."
Clinical front-line needs are the direction of scientific research! Pharyngeal swab sampling requires gentle movements, special requirements for the strength and accuracy of the robot, and special design. During the Spring Festival holiday, if you ca n’t buy a sampling tool, use an ice cream stick and a cotton swab to test your nasopharynx.
Using one month as two months, under high-intensity pushing, the robot made it. "Can you come to the hospital to debug?" The doctor asked.
"Have hesitated, afraid of family members worrying." Liu Hao admitted, but he still agreed, "Since it has been done, we must make it available to front-line doctors." On February 24, Liu Hao and colleagues flew from Shenyang to Guangzhou for commissioning and running-in. One week later, clinical trials showed that the success rate of robotic swab sampling once was greater than 95%.
Also in Guangzhou, Chen Jiekai, a researcher at the Guangzhou Institute of Biomedicine and Health, Chinese Academy of Sciences, is helping clinicians to answer a question: Why is there a lot of mucus in the alveoli of critically ill patients?
To answer these questions related to the pathogenic mechanism requires not only Chen Jiekai's scientific research accumulation in the field of stem cells, but also a mouse animal model that he urgently cultivated after the outbreak.
Research and development of drugs, vaccines, and mechanisms of disease are inseparable from animal models. Mice are the most in demand. However, mice are not susceptible to the new crown virus, and they need to specifically rewrite genes so that mice can infect and produce the same symptoms as humans.
This is a low-key but important step in scientific research, which is slower and slower. Chen Jiekai led the team into the research, he knew how urgent the time was. 35 days! The technical route led by Chen Jiekai allows a batch of qualified mice to be "topped" in time, and works with brothers to help China break through the bottleneck of drugs and vaccines from laboratory to clinical.
In these 35 days, it is common to stay up all night. When asked about the intensity of the work, Chen Jiekai blurted out: "The frontline medical staff is the hardest, and we are not tired compared to it."
"Do not speak those lofty words." He added, "Only with the victory of the epidemic-resistant scientific research, our relatives and friends, and our society as a whole, can avoid more life risks."