3 Burst results for "Matthew Freeman"
KQED Radio
"matthew freeman" Discussed on KQED Radio
"To join us to talk about Reflections about that experience and give us an update. He's an associate professor in microbiology and immunology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore. Welcome back. Thank you for having me again listening to those clips of yourself eight months ago. What's the difference between where you were then and compared to today? Well, I thought I was very tired of that moment. Eight months ago, I didn't realize how much more tired I could possibly get. But I think that what it reflects is that this obviously we all are going through this remarkable pandemic over the last year at the time it months ago, we knew that was this was going to spread. This was going to be a very big deal around the world. I certainly don't I don't think anyone could predicted the numbers of cases that we are seeing right now. It's still in the midst of it. Like you say the virus you work on is now out in the real world, and there are still record numbers of cases and deaths. How does it feel for you to be a corona virus researcher right now. I think it feels for all of us that we We have a very important role in this especially all of the labs that it worked on Coronaviruses. Previously. The driving force in my lab over the last year has been working with companies and developing therapeutics that they've developed or we're working with them on and get them into the people in the community as fast as possible. And so we have. Ah, we have a remarkable um, role to play because of our expertise in this field. It certainly is exhausting Entire ng. I'm a really a basic science scientist at heart. I never thought I would do anything that would affect any human really directly from the lab. So to be able to play a part of this is really quite rewarding and really drives the research. I'm Ira Plato and this is science Friday from W. N. Y C studios. The speed that scientists have had to work has been astonishing, right? I mean in the clip, one of the researchers described approaching the work like a marathon rather than a sprint. Do you agree that this is this is a marathon and you create a balance between the two. There is absolutely no balance. Unfortunately, at the beginning of this week, certainly we were all calling it. It's a marathon and sprint pace and that hasn't slowed down our lab and everyone else's lab in this field is that are working on these. This virus are working at an amazing pace. To try to understand the virus. Better develop therapeutics, get clinical trials run and then out into the population so we can get approvals. It just hasn't slowed down. I don't know when it will. But in our lab, it certainly is not. How are you viewing the second year of the pandemic? I think I look at it two ways. I'm quite optimistic about all of the vaccine that has been really rapidly developed through. All of these companies were working with Novavax on their vaccine directly. Seeing that out in trials and the two vaccines that have anyway, approval already in a year. That is incredibly remarkable. I know we keep saying that, and I don't think the general public really realizes. What a scientific endeavor has been to really develop these fast on do safely. The other aspect of that was the cases are not slowing down. And so that the scary thing and kind of get sad thing to me really is that we're not protecting ourselves The way we know how to protect socialism thing wearing masks on go seeing the case Numbers increase is really disheartening. So watch this move, not just the United States but around the world. People not doing the things that we know can protect them and getting really just tired of it, which I totally understand, But the case numbers are certainly not slowing down, and it really It saddens me that we're getting better at this yet. You talk about being sad and by this do you take your work home with you? I mean, does it affect you when you leave the lap? Sure. I don't think I'm depressed at home. I certainly am working more now. In the last 12 months that I have ever before, you know, staying up late, Miss some kid bedtimes and dinners. But I have AH, 11 year old. An eight year old Andre wife was also also a physician scientist at Johns Hopkins. So You know, all of this impacts all of our lives, whether it's somebody working in the lab or it's a single mom at home. Trying to, you know, put her kid through virtual school while they work a job. It's everyone is finding their way through this, and I think that you know, we all have a role to play. Whether it's in the lab are, you know otherwise? What do you want us to know about your work and Cove? It researchers in general, what I want everyone to know is that again. Everyone plays a role in this that we can work as hard as we can in the lab to develop vaccines and anti bodies and drugs. But if everyone out there is not helping themselves by Justin saying, wearing masks, doing the real things that we know our interventions that are non for pharmaceutical interventions that really reduce the risk of being infected. That is where everyone can play a role in this. I also want everyone to know that the vaccines that are rolling out now. Have gone through trials very rapidly, and I know there's some concern in the community that no, that's not normal and maybe they aren't safe. That certainly is not the fact. Not in fact, in any of the things that we have seen both published and unpublished, where all of the rigors of normal scientific research and clinical trials are still there. In these experiments and in these in these in phase 12 and three trials. I want everyone to understand that that these vaccines are safe and that therapeutics are safe and combining those therapeutics with, uh, protecting herself by, you know Following all of the normal public health measures are really how we could get ourselves through this. Thank you very much, Matthew for taking time to be with us today. Thank you very much for having me and good luck in states like Yeah, we'll check in with you along the way. Is that okay? Absolutely. Thank you. Matthew Freeman is an associate professor in microbiology and Immunology, University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore. We have to take a break. And when we come back a conversation with an astrophysicist, Dr obvious Loeb, who believes evidence for intelligent life has visited our solar system. Stay with us. We'll be right.
KQED Radio
"matthew freeman" Discussed on KQED Radio
"These rivers. We measured About a quarter is covered by this very thin layer of sediment that it's like, overlaying the ice. And did you notice that there was more sediment clumping in these rivers? PhD students out working with special Lightman. He's always been interested in settlements and he wanted to know like how much settlement is transporting these rivers. And so we went up to Greenland and we measured how much water's flowing and we took samples of the settlement. And then when we came back to Rutgers, Sasha took his samples, and he analyzed like the size of the settlement particles, and he came up with something super fascinating. It turns out that the settlement grain size he measured was too small to be deposited in the channels. It shouldn't be any settlement in those channels. At all. So we basically found more settlement in those channels Flood plains Then we would expect so. Then in your study, you came up with an idea for the causes while these sentiments and it was bacteria, exactly, I know e I don't know about you, but certainly I didn't think there were these significant biology on the surface of the ice sheet. But people have discovered algae on the ice sheet. There is terms like bile. Logical darkening of the ice sheet. The fact that biological activity on the ice sheet like materia algae can cost the ice sheet starts to become darker, which means it will absorb more of the solar radiation coming in. That means. If you have more solar radiation being absorbed, instead of reflecting back to space, you can have more melting. More water flowing onto the oceans and Risk of more sea level rise. So we remember all of that research and were like, Hey, wait a minute. Could it be that it's actually bacteria, algae and stuff like that? That is making the settlement larger than the mineral grains because what we measure which just the size of the minerals But then we realized these bacteria can actually clump it together. So it's becomes these larger Granules and those Granules fall apart when you go to the light taken to the lab in New Jersey, the transport from brain lynching New Jersey. They don't survive that you have the bacteria that's clumping up these sediments and like kind of maybe clogging up the rivers are just finding their ways in there more so than how does all that add up? Tombo Act the melting of the ice sheet? Cause the particles are larger. They're less likely to move away but flushed away by the water. It stays there, and it makes the channels appear darker, right? And that means it's absorb more solar radiation belts more Yeah. So what are the ways Convict area effect the ice Another term for is called cryo Connect. Creo Kaneda. Okay, maybe a little bit like a science fiction movie. It's just a mix of dust and mineral particles. Organic matter. And it's clumped together. When I go on the part of the issue that's melting every summer, which is called the ablation Zone. It's wife spread like it's on the surface. It's so dark compared to the ice that it melt down, right. You get sort of a hole that melts down. So what do you see all over? It's not this like. Clean ice surface. No, it's like a perforated surface with these crying tonight, Holes everywhere, says Carioca night that is just melted down into the ice roughly like a feet or so and that there's the dynamics to that, too. That's certainly influenced by by weather conditions. They tend to Um, form if you have strong solar radiation, and then if you have windy, overcast day they will sort of erode out. So there is a connection between Crying tonight on the surface and the streams so that it comes from the surface to the strings. There's another layer that's added on top of all this, which is climate change. How does climate change play a role in all of this? Because it's changing so fast in Greenland and green. Let's really been warming a lot over the last decades. The Arctic as a whole is warming at least twice the rate as global places. And because organic matter like bacteria, organic matter is going to be sensitive to the environmental conditions around him. You could imagine that you know that could be increased biological activity or depending on what kind of changes you have with respect to cloud cover and ancillary nation so on, it's hard to say exactly how it would change, but it probably would change. Futures unknown, but it's going to change. We know that's the one known. That's the known. Yeah, that's all the time we have. So thanks so much for joining us. Thank you. Also. Renner Mom is an associate professor of geography at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey for science Friday. I'm Alexa Lynn. Way enter the second year of the covert pandemic. Our first conversation on this program about the coronavirus happened this week one year ago, and during those early days we checked in with Corona virus researchers in three different labs. Scientists who had been studying Corona viruses for years wanted to know what the pandemic was like for them, working in a bio safety lab and have their lives and research had been impacted. Hear interviews we recorded eight months ago in May 2020. I mean, it really started December 30th. When this first announcement of this pneumonia outbreak and one that point, it was more kind of an excitement because we didn't realize how bad it would be. Then by late January, I think it was clear to us that there was a big problem. We first got this virus starts fully to the first week of February. So February March April, May it's been almost four months of basically nonstop, Billy brutally hard work, but it's really a marathon. But if you start a marathon sprinting you don't ask, so I don't know. I don't know how I'm still alive, but I am Afternoon evening is my Bill three lab time lately? I'm leaving there between like 99 30, usually sending the occasional message my husband promising like, Yeah, I'll be home before bedtime. And he writes back. Yeah, we'll see. Spend most of my day in the lab is really important, Obviously, to be careful to not bring that out of the facility, But now it's everywhere. You can pick it up in the grocery store on the playground. You can get it anywhere. So now I feel most safe within to be a cell three because it's the only place around truly protected against it, because I mean my bubble I got my own airflow might have a filter, so it's It's kind of face, right. I prefer to be right now. It's remarkably watching this virus move around the world when it's the virus that you work on. It's really weird, and we had to have conversations about like, if someone in our lab does become infected. How do we demonstrate that it wasn't from the lab? In a way? Our love is lucky because we were a coronavirus Pathogenesis lab beforehand. I already had to take my temperature every single day. I already had to be concerned about upper and lower respiratory symptoms. So anyone who's trying to rapidly adapt those people I feel really bad for You know, people ask, why don't we have a drug or get anybody for this thing yet? And the reason is because only one lab has really been funded to the Economist research in a large scale in the past 10 years. All of this is stuff that we've been trying to get people to pay attention to. For a while. I think the funny part of this story for me is that as of the end of last year, I didn't have enough money for the lab to continue through 2020 that has changed and we are now. Well funded and we'll be keeping this going for less. My career. I help people have been incredibly supportive. It was really bizarre when I got my first couple of messages coming in through Facebook or something, you know. Thanks for what you're doing. I'm not in the military. This is something I've never thought of. We have another drug that is now entering phase two clinical trials that has just been picked up and Merck. I test that that concerns go B two and sent those data on and this is it's me about heading, make a graph sending it off and then see it in a newspaper. I mean, it's kind of like a dream for a researcher to be able to work at this level with this type of importance. That was from conversations back in May with Matthew Freeman, Lisa Grill in Ski and Andrea Prowse, Ear's and now eight months later, Dr Freeman is here to join us to talk about Reflections about that experience and give us an update. He's an associate professor in microbiology and immunology at the University.
Short Wave
China's Coronavirus Is Spreading. But How?
"Deadly new virus has cropped up in China the dramatic surge in cases of a deadly mystery virus. It's something called a corona virus. The pneumonia like illness originated in central. Insult China there are actually many types of corona viruses. This one causes fever dry. Cough difficulty breathing. Diarrhea and body aches the the number of infected exploded over the weekend. Hundreds of people have been infected Chinese officials taking every precaution to contain the virus and as of Thursday afternoon. We're recording this workers outside of the local hospital in bio suits. Seventeen people have died or good afternoon governor. Jay inslee governor of the state of Washington on top up of all of that. We're here to give a brief into the public regarding the novel. rotavirus on Tuesday officials announced. It's shown up here in the United States. Patient is a man in his thirties. He is in the hospital here behind me and then later in the week. Chinese authorities closed off the city of Wuhan at the center of the outbreak. Nick wants eleven. Million people are being told they can't leave and more. Chinese cities have followed suit. Such a massive operation to restrict people moving on spreading. The disease is unprecedented. So this episode. We'll tell you what officials are saying about the origins of the virus and what we know about the likelihood that it will continue to spread Brett. I'm Mattioli and you're listening to shortwave the daily science podcast from NPR. So we're talking corona virus and here to help us do that is NPR. Reporter Jason Bogin who covers global health and development. Hey Jason Hey Mattia so this thing cropped up about a month ago and this past week China announced more cases and the number of countries where it's been found outside of China continues to grow. Oh and one big thing. We haven't mentioned yet. Is that this weekend. Is the busiest holiday travel season in China. One of the largest travel seasons in the world. Yeah it's like doc Thanksgiving and fourth of July all combined into one. Hundreds of millions of people typically travel for the Lunar New Year which is January twenty fifth man. Ah brings up something about virus. Does it spread easily amongst people who are on trains. We don't exactly know the Chinese government has said it appears to be respiratory Tori. But they haven't been able to confirm that that is exactly the route of transmission at the moment and how communicable is how likely it is if people are sitting next next which other on buses and planes and trains that it could spread right. Okay so let's back up and explain what we do know. Starting with where it started the city city of Wuhan in central China yet so all indications are pointing to this wholesale meat market in Wuhan. It's a place where they have live. Animals that are slaughtered. There's also fish that are sold there as well as meet and the idea is that the corona virus and seems to be what have hap has happened jumped from one of fold animals in the market over to humans. And at this point we don't know exactly what animal that is. We don't as one of the big questions that still out there. If you remember SARS that big outbreak started in two thousand two was really big in two thousand and three. It's called Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome now is also corona virus. Chris and it spread all over the world. Almost eight hundred people were killed before eventually stamped out and health officials in China say that this current virus doesn't look his deadliest that but it's still really serious for SARS. It was these palm. Civic cats that were being sold in AL markets in China and once that was identified identified then the Chinese government banned the sale of civic cats. That's Matthew Freeman urologist at the University of Maryland. School of Medicine Right. Okay so I wanNA talk a little bit about how a virus like this can jump from animal to human because it's not often explained super clearly. Yeah so a key. Part of that jump is when a virus mutates and and when people talk about mutations and viruses. What they're talking about is something that actually happens? Naturally when a virus replicates right so viruses loved to make lots of little copies of themselves elves and when they do they can make little mistakes during that and knows can change who or what the virus can infect. That's right and Matthew Freeman that Corologis. He thinks that SARS actually started out in bats and it mutated jumped over two those civic cats and then eventually got into people all and here's how he described it as these viruses replicate in these in bats day mutate a bit and if the wrong bat and the wrong other animal become in contact potentially usually when they're caught in the wild whether they're brought onto farms than it can jump into that species and often times. What we found is that the virus needs a little bit more mutational events to happen where can replicate in this intermediate animal before it can jump into people so in the case of SARS it started in bats takes a little bit jumps into cats mutates more jumps into humans right and there are other types of corona viruses that exist in birds in rodents are in camels. But in this case it's proving difficult to figure out what the exact animal source is this corona virus right which brings us back to that market in and Wuhan where they think it all started yet. We spoke to this Guy Kevin Olive oil. WHO's the VP research at the public health? Nonprofit it's called ECO health alliance as been to a lot of markets like this one in in Southeast Asia and he said they can have a wide variety of animals some of them while domestic and it creates a kind of melting pot. Where it's possible for these viruses to jump between species when the animals are alive in the market? They're stressed out. There's a lot of contact with feces and saliva and in terms of butchering the animals. With blood you know. It's pretty chaotic. It's not ed clean as you would think and There's a lot of contact with animals and animal fluids and body parts and so you can imagine in that Type of environment. Yeah it's really hard to zero in on one particular animal as a source You know in this instance. There's some question about how careful the Chinese government has been among in dealing with this way. Once they found out that there was this big problem they went in and cleaned everything. Up in some of the researchers are a little bit Upset set that a lot of potentially useful evidence got destroyed in this effort to just clean up this market right. They kind of reacted quickly and now makes it harder to trace that. Yes now the scientist just because they did that clean up. The sizes are playing catch up there sampling animals and other markets. Trying to see if they have the virus and in the meantime there could potentially still be animals most spreading this type of virus in other markets in China right and then of course beyond that they're saying it's now spreading not just from animals to humans but from one human human to another. Do we have any other clues about that. Human to human spread. That's happening. This is one of the big questions that still out there. What is the human to human spread doesn't have have to be really close? Contact is spreading through the air. We talk to this epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and tropical medicine. David Heymann. He says one clue is that there seems to be many clusters of infected people who all belong to the same family and they've had intense contact with an infected person it. It doesn't seem that the current virus spreads very easily face to face with a cough or a sneeze but even said we still don't know what sheriff the infections happen through. These family. Clusters this case in Washington state. That patient says he didn't visit any of these markets. He doesn't recall coming into contact with anyone who was was sick rain and also brings up another thing. That's kind of concerning which is that at least fifteen. Healthcare workers in the city of Wuhan a reportedly among people who've been inspected and that's always an evil omen within emerging infection because health workers. See a disease may think it's a common pneumonia. They're not as careful. They should be in washing their hands or in patient care and as a result they then get infected and then it spreads within the hospital or can spread to their families and then into the community so so hell in the concern. Is that those workers who may not know that they're actually infected with the virus and feel healthy actually are this phenomenon known as super spreaders people who end up actually infecting a lot of other people. And we've seen this in the SARS outbreak there. There were some super spreaders. There are some key people who ended up spreading the virus to a lot of other people and in that really contributed to the spread of SARS globally. So the question is are there super spreaders with this virus. We don't really know that yet. Gotcha and in the meantime when the CDC announced it confirmed that there's that American patient it also so announced screening at certain airports here in the states right and as we talked about airports We should mention screenings were implemented during the SARS outbreak. They didn't have much of an impact on containing SARS that said the. CDC screening is happening now at airports in La San Francisco New York Atlanta Atlanta Chicago and basically passengers off a plane with a fever or they seem to have cold like symptoms. They're going to be taken aside for health screening testing now You know even the best case that's GonNa take our Z.. Samples getting sent back to the CDC in Atlanta. So if you're flying for me you're going to be routed into one of these airports where they're are able to check you and see if you're showing signs of having this disease. Gotcha okay so Jason. Yeah this is obviously getting a lot of attention get right now now what our public health officials and journalists like yourself the most worried about look the the worst case scenario is an airborne flu that spreads rapidly around the world has maybe a long incubation period. gets out there and then kills lots of people. Yeah that's not really what we're seeing at the moment went But it is still concerning because you are getting spread that we don't know exactly how it's happening so that's what's most concerning installment that we don't know how it's spreading and we don't no the underlying number of people who've been infected or how long that incubation period which could mean we've got a whole slew of them coming down the fire shirt okay Jason Boban update you're welcome will link to NPR's reporting on corona virus in the notes of this episode which was produced by Brett. bachman edited by Andrea Andrea. Kasich in fact checked by Emily von.