With Laboratories Shut, Coronavirus Forces Scientists to 'Stop Cold'. P2-3

Friday, May 8, 2020 Ramadan 15, 1441 AH Doha today 270 - 360 With laboratories shut, coronavirus COVER STORY forces scientists to ‘stop cold’. P2-3 CUISINE BACK PAGE Namoura is delicious, Greek agronomist sees Ramadan addictive dessert. as a time for recollection. Page 6 Page 16 2 GULF TIMES Friday, May 8, 2020 COMMUNITY COVER STORY Future imperfect Halted research has left scientists wondering about the discoveries that may never be made, the sick people PRAYER TIME who will miss the chance at a breakthrough cure Fajr 3.28am Shorooq (sunrise) 4.54am Zuhr (noon) 11.32am and the careers that may never be launched, Asr (afternoon) 3pm Maghreb (sunset) 6.10pm Isha (night) 7.40pm write Joel Rubin and Amina Khan USEFUL NUMBERS Emergency 999 Worldwide Emergency Number 112 Kahramaa – Electricity and Water 991 Local Directory 180 International Calls Enquires 150 Hamad International Airport 40106666 Labor Department 44508111, 44406537 Mowasalat Taxi 44588888 Qatar Airways 44496000 Hamad Medical Corporation 44392222, 44393333 Qatar General Electricity and Water Corporation 44845555, 44845464 Primary Health Care Corporation 44593333 44593363 Qatar Assistive Technology Centre 44594050 Qatar News Agency 44450205 44450333 Q-Post – General Postal Corporation 44464444 Humanitarian Services Office (Single window facility for the repatriation of bodies) Ministry of Interior 40253371, 40253372, 40253369 Ministry of Health 40253370, 40253364 Hamad Medical Corporation 40253368, 40253365 Qatar Airways 40253374 IN LIMBO: Dr Nader Pouratian, an associate professor of Neurosurgery Brain Research at UCLA, peers out the window of his home in Beverly Hills last month. He developed a device that gives a type of artificial sight to the visually impaired and had implanted the device in the brains of four people. The participants were part of a small clinical trial at UCLA that has been suspended. ote Unquo Our first concern obviously has to be the well- Qu te “You, being of the people we work with. But as a yourself, as much as scientist, it is hard to just stop cold like this anybody in the entire universe, deserve your — Dr Nader Pouratian, neurosurgeon love and affection.” — Buddha r Nader Pouratian treatment available to the visually more than lost income and social implanted matchbook- impaired everywhere. isolation. sized devices into the brains Then the coronavirus came along. The abrupt stoppage of a vast array of four visually impaired Now seven years of work have ground of exploration and experimentation volunteers more than two to a sudden halt. Regular life will resume at universities and other research Dyears ago. someday, but Pouratian’s project may not. institutions has left scientists Community Editor Since then, the participants in the “Our first concern obviously has to wondering about the discoveries that Kamran Rehmat neurosurgeon’s pioneering study have be the well-being of the people we work may never be made, the sick people who visited his UCLA lab each week to let with,” he said. “But as a scientist, it is will miss the chance at a breakthrough e-mail: [email protected] him‘ hone a system that could give them hard to just stop cold like this.” cure and the careers that may never be Telephone: 44466405 a rudimentary form of vision. Pouratian Hardly a facet of life remains launched. Fax: 44350474 hoped to expand his experiment next untouched by the sweeping effort The longer the emergency measures year to include dozens of people around to slow the coronavirus’ spread. remain in place, the more scientists the country, and eventually make the Researchers like Pouratian are facing stand to lose. Cell lines ’specially Friday, May 8, 2020 GULF TIMES 3 COVER STORY COMMUNITY engineered for particular implants. The implants then experiments get older every day. translate the video footage into Distant stars cycle out of view patterns of stimulation that the of even the largest telescopes. brain interprets as flashes of light, Valuable data is lost before it can be allowing the person to discern collected. motion such as whether someone When the orders came down is approaching them or walking to close their laboratories, away. Much work remains to fully scientists scrambled to mothball understand how a brain’s visual their experiments in ways that cortex and the device interact. would maximise their chances of After being designated a being revived. Those who need “breakthrough device” by the only a computer and an Internet Food and Drug Administration, connection to run simulations the invention had been on an or crunch complex numbers expedited track toward regulatory continued their work from home. approval for widespread use. But Now almost everyone is barred now everything is on hold, and the from their labs. Exceptions have company that produced the device been granted to the relatively few is shutting down, an economic scientists who could show they’d casualty of the pandemic. lose irreplaceable work if their There is confusion about research couldn’t continue and other sources of funding as well. those running clinical trials that Government agencies and private provided critical care to patients. groups dole out billions of dollars The rest have relied on skeletal in grant money each year — but it staffs to tend to the animals, cells CAUGHT UNAWARES: Caltech geobiologist Victoria Orphan had just collected rare deep-sea microbes when the usually has to be spent during a and expensive equipment that were coronavirus forced her lab to close. She worries about whether they’ll survive without her. Orphan is seen here at limited period of time and requires suddenly abandoned. Kerckhoff Marine Laboratory, Corona Del Mar, California. researchers to finish projects on a People who were investigating strict schedule. the new coronavirus or possible Orphan had recently returned things left behind. Some of the What tissues could they harvest? Matthew Fenton, director of the treatments for Covid-19, the from a research cruise with a trove high-pressure experiments she Which ones could be preserved, and extramural activities division for disease it causes, were exempt from of deep-sea microbes when word had in mind were moved to the which would have to be discarded? the National Institute of Allergy the shutdown orders. came down that nonessential back burner since they couldn’t be “It was just this overwhelming and Infectious Diseases, said his A hiatus of several weeks isn’t experiments would have to stop. monitored from home, but if the feeling because you’re not sure how agency has been fielding urgent likely to result in irreparable Orphan’s work with microbes are still hearty when the you’re going to make it work,” said questions from anxious researchers harm, said Randy Katz, vice extremophiles — organisms that stay-at-home order ends, she’ll Villeda, who managed to freeze his who fear their end-of-year reports chancellor for research at the survive under extreme conditions give them a try then, she said. most precious samples.” And then, won’t show enough progress. University of California, Berkeley. like high pressure or a complete And Saul Villeda, a of course, you make it work.” “We assure them that that is not If the restrictions stay in place lack of sunlight — could shed neuroscientist and stem cell Researchers running trials on the case at all,” Fenton said. “We’re for months, however, losses will light on the origins of life on Earth biologist at UC San Francisco, said experimental medical treatments there to support them as much as become increasingly difficult to and the potential for life on other his “head is still kind of spinning” have been granted reprieves if we can to get through this.” avoid. worlds, among other things. And after he was told in March that participants in their studies are Perhaps the most vulnerable For example, mice that have been because these microbes live in these all nonessential work would be dependent on the treatments. researchers are those just starting bred to have a particular genetic extreme environments, they’re not suspended within about 72 hours. Pouratian’s work at UCLA did not out in their careers who don’t have condition or disease must begin easy to collect. Orphan didn’t want “It was incredibly fast,” he said. meet this high bar, so it had to shut a track record of success to fall back an experiment at a particular age, to lose them. Villeda’s research on ageing has down. on. For newly minted doctorates, giving scientists a narrow window Handling the delicate microbes turned up compounds in the blood The system to create a type of advancing up the scientific ranks for conducting their experiments. in the oxygen-free conditions of young mice that may help reverse artificial vision, which he helped is a challenge in normal times. “Animals don’t live forever,” Katz they’re used to can be tricky, she cognitive decline in older animals. a medical technology company Now many fear it will be all but said. said, so one of her grad students When the shutdown order came, develop, requires subjects to impossible as their laboratory California’s stay-at-home wrote out detailed instructions for he gathered his team on a video wear special glasses with small work — and the coveted academic order has complicated efforts by a lab manager who is still going on conference to make quick decisions embedded video cameras that publications that should follow — Berkeley scientists to measure the campus to take care of the living no scientist ever wants to consider: connect wirelessly to the brain enters a sort of purgatory it may state’s snowpack at field stations never escape. in the Sierra Nevada, Katz said. UC Berkeley astronomer Alex Filippenko settled in at a Karla Satchell, a microbiologist State officials rely on that data to studying cholera and cancers at determine how much water will remote observing room on campus that connected to one Northwestern University Feinberg be available for drinking and for School of Medicine, said she was irrigating crops.

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