7 Things to Know about the U.S.’s Capability to Detect Omicron
Kira Peikoff was the editor-in-chief of Leaps.org from 2017 to 2021. As a journalist, her work has appeared in The New York Times, Newsweek, Nautilus, Popular Mechanics, The New York Academy of Sciences, and other outlets. She is also the author of four suspense novels that explore controversial issues arising from scientific innovation: Living Proof, No Time to Die, Die Again Tomorrow, and Mother Knows Best. Peikoff holds a B.A. in Journalism from New York University and an M.S. in Bioethics from Columbia University. She lives in New Jersey with her husband and two young sons. Follow her on Twitter @KiraPeikoff.
If the new variant Omicron isn’t here already – which many experts suspect that it is – it will be soon. While we wait for scientists to conduct the necessary research to characterize its transmissibility, potential fitness at immune evasion, and disease severity, we wanted to give Leaps.org readers a window into how the U.S. is positioned to detect the variant. So we spoke to Kelly Wroblewski, director of infectious diseases at the Association of Public Health Laboratories, a membership organization that represents state and local government health labs in the United States. Here are seven insights she shared.
1) If you test positive for COVID-19 with a standard PCR test, the diagnostic report will not tell you which variant you have. There are no diagnostic tests available for your doctor to order to identify variants. To find out the variant, the specimen must be sent to a commercial, clinical, academic, or public health laboratory for genetic sequencing.
2) Today, the U.S. sequences about 5 to 10 percent of all diagnostic specimens that test positive for SARS-CoV-2 in order to determine which variants are circulating and where. Last week nationally, for example, labs sequenced about 80,000 samples. This represents a massive increase from last year at this time, when labs were only sequencing about 8,000 specimens per week. Currently, 99.5 percent of circulating SARS-CoV-2 virus in the U.S. is the Delta variant.
3) The U.S. is “very well prepared” to detect Omicron, Wroblewski says, “particularly compared to where we were when the Alpha variant, or B117 first emerged.” Of the hunt for Omicron, she adds, “it’s very reminiscent of that time, except we are doing so much more sequencing and we have so much better coverage with our sequencing geographically, and we're doing it in a much more timely way. We have the ability to find emerging variants that are circulating in 0.01 percent of the population.”
4) Deciding which specimens to sample is not totally random. Samples that have more virus are likely to lead to better sequencing results. Labs also look to have a diverse set of representative samples, meaning across geographic regions and across gender, race, ethnicity, and age groups. Clinical diversity is also important, such as including pregnant women, severe in-patient cases, mild cases, etc.
5) Sequencing more is not necessarily better to find Omicron faster. “We will increase the number of sequences to a certain extent,” Wroblewski says. “Where we exhibit some caution is doing that indiscriminately isn’t the most effective use of time and resources. The important thing is to try to find Omicron, and if you increase your testing capacity too much, right now, it's still predominantly Delta in the U.S. by a long shot. So you’re mostly going to sequence Delta and you run the risk of delaying your discovery of Omicron, if you focus solely on increasing sequencing.”
So besides just ramping up the sheer numbers of sequencing, diagnostic labs across the country are now advised to preferentially use a certain PCR test made by Thermo Fisher that can help hasten the detection of Omicron. It turns out that Omicron’s specific mutations in the Spike protein mean that the Spike is not picked up on this PCR test, which yields a type of result called an S-gene target failure. Yet the test will still accurately pick up a COVID-19 diagnosis, because it detects two other gene targets on Omicron that are not mutated. “That S-gene target failure gives you a good indication that you may have Omicron. It’s a good early screen.”
Labs will then still need to sequence the whole genome to confirm it matches the Omicron sequence. “So right now, the new recommendation is to use [the Thermo Fisher test] as much as possible to give us a better chance of detecting Omicron more quickly.”
6) This Thermo Fisher test is “fairly widely used” in the U.S. already, so many labs are already well positioned to make the shift. “In early to mid 2020,” Wroblewski explains, “when the supply chain issue for testing was acute, many public health labs implemented five, six, seven, eight different tests, just so they could get enough supplies to do all the testing. Now that we're in a much better place supply-chain wise, it's very difficult and time consuming and cumbersome to maintain all those different test methods all the time, and many, many labs scaled back to only one or two. And so this [new recommendation] would just be shifting to two for some labs that will be shifting to them.”
7) Once Omicron is found here, labs will be focused on finding as many cases as possible, and the CDC will be conducting a variety of studies to determine the impact of the variant on diagnostics, therapeutics, and vaccines. Epidemiologists at the local, state, and federal level will analyze which populations it is spreading in, as well as the severity of the disease it causes. They will work to sort out different impacts on vaccinated vs. unvaccinated populations. The ultimate goal, Wroblewski concludes, is to “use all of that information to make better public health decisions and inform the public about what’s going on.”
Today’s podcast guest is Rosalind Picard, a researcher, inventor named on over 100 patents, entrepreneur, author, professor and engineer. When it comes to the science related to endowing computer software with emotional intelligence, she wrote the book. It’s published by MIT Press and called Affective Computing.
Dr. Picard is founder and director of the MIT Media Lab’s Affective Computing Research Group. Her research and engineering contributions have been recognized internationally. For example, she received the 2022 International Lombardy Prize for Computer Science Research, considered by many to be the Nobel prize in computer science.
Through her research and companies, Dr. Picard has developed wearable sensors, algorithms and systems for sensing, recognizing and responding to information about human emotion. Her products are focused on using fitness trackers to advance clinical quality treatments for a range of conditions.
Meanwhile, in just the past few years, numerous fitness tracking companies have released products with their own stress sensors and systems. You may have heard about Fitbit’s Stress Management Score, or Whoop’s Stress Monitor – these features and apps measure things like your heart rhythm and a certain type of invisible sweat to identify stress. They’re designed to raise awareness about forms of stress such as anxieties and anger, and suggest strategies like meditation to relax in real time when stress occurs.
But how well do these off-the-shelf gadgets work? There’s no one more knowledgeable and experienced than Rosalind Picard to explain the science behind these stress features, what they do exactly, how they might be able to help us, and their current shortcomings.
Dr. Picard is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, and a popular speaker who’s given over a hundred invited keynote talks and a TED talk with over 2 million views. She holds a Bachelors in Electrical Engineering from Georgia Tech, and Masters and Doctorate degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT. She lives in Newton, Massachusetts with her husband, where they’ve raised three sons.
In our conversation, we discuss stress scores on fitness trackers to improve well-being. She describes the difference between commercial products that might help people become more mindful of their health and products that are FDA approved and really capable of advancing the science. We also talk about several fascinating findings and concepts discovered in Dr. Picard’s lab including the multiple arousal theory, a phenomenon you’ll want to hear about. And we explore the complexity of stress, one reason it’s so tough to measure. For example, many forms of stress are actually good for us. Can fitness trackers tell the difference between stress that’s healthy and unhealthy?
- Dr. Picard’s book, Affective Computing
- Dr. Picard’s bio
- Dr. Picard on Twitter
- Dr. Picard’s company, Empatica - https://www.empatica.com/ - The FDA-cleared Empatica Health Monitoring Platform provides accurate, continuous health insights for researchers and clinicians, collected in the real world
- Empatica Twitter
- Dr. Picard and her team have published hundreds of peer-reviewed articles across AI, Machine Learning, Affective Computing, Digital Health, and Human-computer interaction.
- Dr. Picard’s TED talk
If you look back on the last century of scientific achievements, you might notice that most of the scientists we celebrate are overwhelmingly white, while scientists of color take a backseat. Since the Nobel Prize was introduced in 1901, for example, no black scientists have landed this prestigious award.
The work of black women scientists has gone unrecognized in particular. Their work uncredited and often stolen, black women have nevertheless contributed to some of the most important advancements of the last 100 years, from the polio vaccine to GPS.
Here are five black women who have changed science forever.
Dr. May Edward Chinn
Dr. May Edward Chinn practicing medicine in Harlem
George B. Davis, PhD.
Chinn was born to poor parents in New York City just before the start of the 20th century. Although she showed great promise as a pianist, playing with the legendary musician Paul Robeson throughout the 1920s, she decided to study medicine instead. Chinn, like other black doctors of the time, were barred from studying or practicing in New York hospitals. So Chinn formed a private practice and made house calls, sometimes operating in patients’ living rooms, using an ironing board as a makeshift operating table.
Chinn worked among the city’s poor, and in doing this, started to notice her patients had late-stage cancers that often had gone undetected or untreated for years. To learn more about cancer and its prevention, Chinn begged information off white doctors who were willing to share with her, and even accompanied her patients to other clinic appointments in the city, claiming to be the family physician. Chinn took this information and integrated it into her own practice, creating guidelines for early cancer detection that were revolutionary at the time—for instance, checking patient health histories, checking family histories, performing routine pap smears, and screening patients for cancer even before they showed symptoms. For years, Chinn was the only black female doctor working in Harlem, and she continued to work closely with the poor and advocate for early cancer screenings until she retired at age 81.
Pictorial Press Ltd/Alamy
Alice Ball was a chemist best known for her groundbreaking work on the development of the “Ball Method,” the first successful treatment for those suffering from leprosy during the early 20th century.
In 1916, while she was an undergraduate student at the University of Hawaii, Ball studied the effects of Chaulmoogra oil in treating leprosy. This oil was a well-established therapy in Asian countries, but it had such a foul taste and led to such unpleasant side effects that many patients refused to take it.
So Ball developed a method to isolate and extract the active compounds from Chaulmoogra oil to create an injectable medicine. This marked a significant breakthrough in leprosy treatment and became the standard of care for several decades afterward.
Unfortunately, Ball died before she could publish her results, and credit for this discovery was given to another scientist. One of her colleagues, however, was able to properly credit her in a publication in 1922.
onathan Newton/The Washington Post/Getty
The person who arguably contributed the most to scientific research in the last century, surprisingly, wasn’t even a scientist. Henrietta Lacks was a tobacco farmer and mother of five children who lived in Maryland during the 1940s. In 1951, Lacks visited Johns Hopkins Hospital where doctors found a cancerous tumor on her cervix. Before treating the tumor, the doctor who examined Lacks clipped two small samples of tissue from Lacks’ cervix without her knowledge or consent—something unthinkable today thanks to informed consent practices, but commonplace back then.
As Lacks underwent treatment for her cancer, her tissue samples made their way to the desk of George Otto Gey, a cancer researcher at Johns Hopkins. He noticed that unlike the other cell cultures that came into his lab, Lacks’ cells grew and multiplied instead of dying out. Lacks’ cells were “immortal,” meaning that because of a genetic defect, they were able to reproduce indefinitely as long as certain conditions were kept stable inside the lab.
Gey started shipping Lacks’ cells to other researchers across the globe, and scientists were thrilled to have an unlimited amount of sturdy human cells with which to experiment. Long after Lacks died of cervical cancer in 1951, her cells continued to multiply and scientists continued to use them to develop cancer treatments, to learn more about HIV/AIDS, to pioneer fertility treatments like in vitro fertilization, and to develop the polio vaccine. To this day, Lacks’ cells have saved an estimated 10 million lives, and her family is beginning to get the compensation and recognition that Henrietta deserved.
Dr. Gladys West
Gladys West was a mathematician who helped invent something nearly everyone uses today. West started her career in the 1950s at the Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division in Virginia, and took data from satellites to create a mathematical model of the Earth’s shape and gravitational field. This important work would lay the groundwork for the technology that would later become the Global Positioning System, or GPS. West’s work was not widely recognized until she was honored by the US Air Force in 2018.
Dr. Kizzmekia "Kizzy" Corbett
At just 35 years old, immunologist Kizzmekia “Kizzy” Corbett has already made history. A viral immunologist by training, Corbett studied coronaviruses at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and researched possible vaccines for coronaviruses such as SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) and MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome).At the start of the COVID pandemic, Corbett and her team at the NIH partnered with pharmaceutical giant Moderna to develop an mRNA-based vaccine against the virus. Corbett’s previous work with mRNA and coronaviruses was vital in developing the vaccine, which became one of the first to be authorized for emergency use in the United States. The vaccine, along with others, is responsible for saving an estimated 14 million lives.
Sarah Watts is a health and science writer based in Chicago.
"Kama ""Mwanzilishi wa Uwezo wa Marekani wa Kugundua Omicron"" (Kira Peckhoff) na ""Mkurugenzi wa Leap"" (Leapfrog) kutoka 2017 hadi 2021" Kama mwandishi wa habari, kazi yake imeonekana katika The New York Times, Newsweek, Nautilus, Popular Mechanics, The New York Academy of Sciences, na maduka mengine. Yeye pia ni mwandishi wa riwaya nne za kutisha ambazo zinachunguza masuala ya utata yanayotokana na uvumbuzi wa kisayansi: Living Proof, No Time to Die, Die Again Tomorrow, na Mama Anajua Bora. Peikoff ana shahada ya B.A. Katika Uandishi wa Habari kutoka Chuo Kikuu cha New York na M.S. Bioethics katika Chuo Kikuu cha Columbia Anaishi New Jersey pamoja na mume wake na wana wawili wadogo. Mfuateni kwenye Twitter @KiraPeykoff. Ikiwa aina mpya ya Omicron haipo tayari - ambayo wataalamu wengi wanashuku ni - itakuwa hivi karibuni. """Wakati tunasubiri wanasayansi kufanya utafiti muhimu kuelezea kuambukizwa kwake, uwezo wa kuepuka kinga, na ukali wa ugonjwa, tulitaka kuwapa wasomaji wa Leap.org dirisha la jinsi Marekani iko katika nafasi ya kugundua tofauti hiyo." Kelly Wrobelski, Mkurugenzi wa Magonjwa ya Kuambukiza katika Chama cha Maabara ya Afya ya Umma, ni mmoja wa wataalamu wa afya wa serikali za jimbo na za mitaa nchini Marekani. Hapa kuna mambo saba aliyoyaeleza. Ikiwa utapata COVID-19 kwa mtihani wa kawaida wa PCR, ripoti ya utambuzi haitakwambia ni aina gani ya ugonjwa unao. Hakuna vipimo vya utambuzi vinavyopatikana kwa daktari wako ili kuagiza kutambua tofauti. Ili kujua aina ya virusi hivyo, ni lazima sampuli hiyo itumiwe kwenye maabara ya kibiashara, ya kliniki, ya kitaaluma, au ya afya ya umma ili ifuatwe. Marekani inafuatilia asilimia 5 hadi 10 ya sampuli zote za utambuzi ambazo zinaonyesha SARS-CoV-2 ili kuamua ni aina gani zinazozunguka na wapi. Kwa mfano, wiki iliyopita, maabara nchini Marekani zilifanya uchunguzi wa sampuli 80,000. Hii ni ongezeko kubwa ikilinganishwa na mwaka jana wakati maabara zilikuwa zikichunguza sampuli 8,000 kwa wiki. Kwa sasa, asilimia 99.5 ya virusi vya SARS-CoV-2 vinavyosambaa nchini Marekani ni aina ya Delta. "Wroblewski alisema, ""Mara nyingi, Marekani imejitayarisha vizuri kugundua Omicron, hasa ikilinganishwa na wakati tulipoanza kugundua aina ya Alpha au B117,"" na kuongeza, ""Kutaka Omicron ni sawa na wakati huo, isipokuwa tunafanya utaratibu zaidi na tuna chanjo bora zaidi na utaratibu wetu wa kijiografia, na tunafanya hivyo kwa wakati unaofaa zaidi.""" "Tuna uwezo wa kupata aina mpya za virusi ambazo zinazunguka asilimia 0.01 ya idadi ya watu. "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" Sampuli zilizo na virusi vingi zaidi huenda zikaongoza kwenye matokeo bora ya mpangilio. Maabara pia kuangalia kuwa na seti mbalimbali ya sampuli mwakilishi, maana katika mikoa ya kijiografia na katika jinsia, jamii, ukabila, na makundi ya umri. Tofauti ya kliniki pia ni muhimu, kama vile kujumuisha wanawake wajawazito, kesi kali za wagonjwa wa hospitali, kesi nyepesi, nk. Kwa hivyo, kwa sababu ya kupanua mfululizo wa omicron, hakuna haja ya kupanua mfululizo wa omicron. "Tutaongeza idadi ya mfululizo kwa kiwango fulani", Wroblewski anasema. <unk>Mahali tunapoonyesha tahadhari fulani ni kufanya hivyo bila kuchagua sio matumizi bora zaidi ya wakati na rasilimali. """Kitu muhimu ni kujaribu kupata Omicron, na ikiwa utaongeza uwezo wako wa kupima sana, kwa sasa, bado ni Delta nchini Marekani kwa muda mrefu." "Kwa hivyo, ikiwa utafanya hivyo, utapata hatari ya kuchelewesha ugunduzi wa Omicron, ikiwa utazingatia tu kuongeza mfululizo. ""Kwa hivyo, mbali na kuongeza idadi kubwa ya mfululizo, maabara ya utambuzi nchini kote sasa inashauriwa kutumia upendeleo mtihani fulani wa PCR uliofanywa na Thermo Fisher ambao unaweza kusaidia kuharakisha ugunduzi wa Omicron." "Kama matokeo, ""Omicron"" mutations katika spike protini maana kwamba spike si kuchukuliwa juu ya PCR mtihani, ambayo hutoa aina ya matokeo aitwaye S-gene lengo kushindwa." Hata hivyo, mtihani huo bado utachunguza kwa usahihi ugonjwa wa COVID-19 kwa sababu hugundua lengo lingine la jeni mbili kwenye Omicron ambazo hazijabadilishwa. <unk>Hiyo S-gene lengo kushindwa inakupa dalili nzuri kwamba unaweza kuwa na Omicron. Ni <unk> screen nzuri mapema.<unk> Labs kisha bado haja ya mfululizo genome nzima kuthibitisha inalingana na mfululizo Omicron. "Kwa hivyo sasa, pendekezo jipya ni kutumia [jaribio la Thermo Fisher] kadiri iwezekanavyo kutupa nafasi bora ya kugundua Omicron haraka. "" < p> < p> < p> < p> < p> < p> < p> < p> < p> < p> < p> < p> < p> < p> < p> < p> < p> < p> < p> < p> < p> < p> < p> < p> < p> < p> < p> < p> < p> < p> < p> < p> < p> < p> < p > < p < p> < p > < p < p > < p < p > < p < p < p < p < p < p < p < p < p < p < p < p < p < p < p < p < p < p < p < p < p < p < p < p < p < p < p < p < p < p < p < p < p < p < p < p < p < p < p < p < p < p < p < p < p < p < p < p "Wakati wa mwanzo hadi katikati ya 2020, wakati suala la mlolongo wa usambazaji wa upimaji lilikuwa kali, maabara nyingi za afya ya umma zilianzisha vipimo vitano, sita, saba, nane tofauti, ili tu waweze kupata vifaa vya kutosha kufanya upimaji wote. """ Sasa kwa kuwa tuko katika nafasi bora zaidi ya mnyororo wa usambazaji, ni ngumu sana na inachukua muda na ngumu kudumisha mbinu zote tofauti za kupima wakati wote, na maabara nyingi zimepunguzwa hadi moja au mbili tu. "Hii inamaanisha kwamba ""maabara ya Omicron"" itaanza kugundua kesi nyingi za COVID-19 na CDC itafanya utafiti wa kina juu ya athari za virusi hivyo kwa utambuzi, matibabu na chanjo." Wataalamu wa magonjwa ya kuambukiza katika ngazi ya mitaa, ya jimbo, na ya shirikisho watachambua ni idadi gani ya watu inayosambaa, na vilevile uzito wa ugonjwa unaosababishwa. Watafanya kazi ili kutatua athari tofauti kwa idadi ya watu waliopigwa chanjo dhidi ya wasio chanjo. "Walakini, Wroblewski alisema, ""Tunajaribu kuunda mfumo wa utunzaji wa afya ya umma, na kwa hivyo tunatoa huduma kwa watu wote, na kwa hivyo tunatoa huduma kwa watu wote, na kwa watu wote, kwa njia ya teknolojia, teknolojia na teknolojia.""" "Kama ilivyo kwa sayansi inayohusiana na kuipa programu ya kompyuta akili ya kihisia, aliandika kitabu ""Uwezo wa Kihisabati.""" Ni kuchapishwa na MIT Press na aitwaye Affective Computing. Daktari Picard ni mwanzilishi na mkurugenzi wa MIT Media Lab's Affective Computing Research Group. Maendeleo yake ya utafiti na uhandisi yametambuliwa kimataifa. Kwa mfano, alipokea Tuzo ya Kimataifa ya Lombardy ya Utafiti wa Sayansi ya Kompyuta ya 2022, ambayo wengi huiona kama tuzo ya Nobel katika sayansi ya kompyuta. Kwa njia ya utafiti wake na kampuni, Dk Picard amebuni sensorer, algorithms na mifumo ya kuvaa kwa ajili ya kuhisi, kutambua na kujibu habari kuhusu hisia za binadamu. Bidhaa zake ni ililenga juu ya kutumia fitness trackers kuendeleza matibabu ya ubora wa kliniki kwa ajili ya mbalimbali ya hali. Katika miaka ya hivi karibuni, kampuni nyingi za kufuatilia mazoezi ya mwili zimetoa bidhaa zenye vifaa vyao vya kujizuia. Fitbit's Stress Monitor ni kipimo cha hali ya moyo na aina fulani ya jasho lisiloonekana. Zimeundwa ili kuongeza ufahamu juu ya aina za mafadhaiko kama vile wasiwasi na hasira, na kupendekeza mikakati kama kutafakari kupumzika kwa wakati halisi wakati mafadhaiko hutokea. Lakini vifaa hivyo vya kawaida hufanya kazi vizuri kadiri gani? Hakuna mtu mwenye ujuzi na uzoefu zaidi kuliko Rosalind Picard kuelezea sayansi nyuma ya sifa hizi za mkazo, wanafanya nini hasa, jinsi wanaweza kutusaidia, na mapungufu yao ya sasa. Picard ni mwanachama wa Chuo cha Taifa cha Uhandisi na mwanachama wa Chuo cha Taifa cha Inventors, na msemaji maarufu ambaye ametoa zaidi ya hotuba za msingi za kualikwa na mazungumzo ya TED na maoni zaidi ya milioni 2. Ana shahada ya kwanza katika uhandisi wa umeme kutoka Georgia Tech, na digrii ya uzamili na udaktari katika uhandisi wa umeme na sayansi ya kompyuta kutoka MIT. Anaishi katika Newton, Massachusetts na mumewe, ambapo wamelea wana watatu. Katika mazungumzo yetu, tunazungumzia alama za mkazo kwenye wafuatiliaji wa mazoezi ya mwili ili kuboresha ustawi. "Kama ilivyoelezwa hapo juu, kuna tofauti kati ya bidhaa za kibiashara ambazo zinaweza kusaidia watu kuwa na ufahamu zaidi wa afya yao na bidhaa ambazo zimekubaliwa na FDA na zina uwezo wa kuendeleza sayansi.""" Pia tunazungumza juu ya matokeo kadhaa ya kuvutia na dhana zilizogunduliwa katika maabara ya Dk Picard ikiwa ni pamoja na nadharia ya msisimko mwingi, jambo ambalo utataka kusikia juu yake. Na tunachunguza utata wa mkazo, sababu moja ni vigumu sana kupima. Kwa mfano, aina nyingi za mfadhaiko ni zenye manufaa kwetu. Je, vifaa vya kufuatilia mazoezi ya mwili vinaweza kutofautisha mkazo wenye afya na usio na afya? "Mwanamke huyo pia anaandika katika kitabu chake cha ""Affective Computing"" (Uchumi wa Affective) na ""Affective Computing"" (Uchumi wa Affective) na ""Affective Computing"" (Uchumi wa Affective) na ""Uchumi wa Afya"" (Uchumi wa Afya ya Afya) na ""Uchumi wa Afya ya Afya"" (Uchumi wa Afya ya Afya) na ""Uchumi wa Afya ya Afya"" (Uchumi wa Afya ya Afya) na ""Uchumi wa Afya ya Afya"" (Uchumi wa Afya ya Afya)." """Ukiangalia nyuma karne iliyopita ya mafanikio ya kisayansi, unaweza kuona kwamba wanasayansi wengi tunaowasherehekea ni wazungu, wakati wanasayansi wa rangi wanakaa nyuma." Tangu Nobel Prize ilianzishwa mwaka 1901, hakuna mwanasayansi mweusi aliyepata tuzo hiyo. Kazi ya wanasayansi wa wanawake weusi haijatambuliwa hasa. Wanawake weusi ambao kazi yao haijulikani na mara nyingi kuibiwa, bado wamechangia baadhi ya maendeleo muhimu zaidi ya miaka 100 iliyopita, kutoka chanjo ya polio hadi GPS. Wanawake watano weusi ambao wamebadili sayansi milele May Edward Chinn, Mtaalamu wa Tiba katika Harlem, Marekani Chinn alizaliwa na wazazi maskini huko New York City kabla tu ya kuanza kwa karne ya 20. Ingawa alionyesha ahadi kubwa kama pianist, kucheza na mwanamuziki maarufu Paul Robeson katika miaka ya 1920, aliamua kusoma dawa badala yake. Chinn, kama madaktari wengine weusi wa wakati huo, walikatazwa kusoma au kufanya mazoezi katika hospitali za New York. Kwa hiyo, Chinn alianzisha kliniki ya kibinafsi na kufanya ziara za nyumbani, nyakati nyingine akifanya upasuaji katika vyumba vya kuishi vya wagonjwa, akitumia ubao wa kusugua kama meza ya upasuaji ya muda. Chinn alifanya kazi miongoni mwa maskini wa mji huo, na kwa kufanya hivyo, alianza kuona wagonjwa wake walikuwa na saratani za hatua ya mwisho ambazo mara nyingi hazikuwa zimegunduliwa au kutibiwa kwa miaka. Ili kujifunza zaidi kuhusu kansa na kuzuia, Chinn aliomba habari kutoka kwa madaktari weupe ambao walikuwa tayari kushiriki naye, na hata aliandamana na wagonjwa wake kwenda kwa miadi mingine ya kliniki jijini, akidai kuwa daktari wa familia. Chinn alichukua habari hii na kuunganisha katika mazoezi yake mwenyewe, kuunda miongozo ya kugundua saratani mapema ambayo ilikuwa ya mapinduzi wakati huo - kwa mfano, kuangalia historia ya afya ya mgonjwa, kuangalia historia ya familia, kufanya pap smears ya kawaida, na kupima wagonjwa kwa saratani hata kabla ya kuonyesha dalili. Kwa miaka mingi, Chinn alikuwa daktari mweusi pekee wa wanawake anayefanya kazi huko Harlem, na aliendelea kufanya kazi kwa karibu na maskini na kutetea uchunguzi wa mapema wa saratani hadi alipostaafu akiwa na umri wa miaka 81. "Alice Ball alikuwa mwanakemia maarufu kwa kazi yake ya kuanzisha ""Ball Method,"" matibabu ya kwanza ya mafanikio kwa wale wanaosumbuliwa na ukoma katika karne ya 20." Mwaka 1916 alipokuwa mwanafunzi wa chuo kikuu cha Hawaii, Ball alichunguza athari za mafuta ya chaulmaugra katika kutibu ukoma. Mafuta hayo yalikuwa ya kawaida katika nchi za Asia, lakini yalikuwa na ladha mbaya sana na matokeo mabaya sana hivi kwamba wagonjwa wengi walikataa kuyachukua. Kwa hiyo, Ball alibuni mbinu ya kutenganisha na kutoa kemikali zinazotumiwa katika mafuta ya Chaulmoogra ili kutengeneza dawa inayoweza kutiwa sindano. Hilo liliashiria maendeleo makubwa katika matibabu ya ukoma na likawa kiwango cha utunzaji kwa miongo kadhaa baadaye. Kwa kusikitisha, Ball alikufa kabla ya kuchapisha matokeo yake, na sifa ya ugunduzi huo ilipewa mwanasayansi mwingine. Hata hivyo, mmoja wa wenzake aliweza kumpa sifa sahihi katika chapisho lake mnamo 1922: Onathan Newton, ambaye kwa kweli alichangia zaidi utafiti wa kisayansi katika karne iliyopita, kwa kushangaza, hakuwa hata mwanasayansi. Henrietta Lacks alikuwa mkulima wa tumbaku na mama wa watoto watano ambaye aliishi Maryland wakati wa miaka ya 1940. Mwaka 1951 alipotembelea hospitali ya Johns Hopkins, daktari alimwambia kwamba alikuwa na kansa kwenye shingo ya tumbo la uzazi. Kabla ya kutibu uvimbe huo, daktari aliyemchunguza Lacks alichukua sampuli mbili ndogo za tishu kutoka kwa shingo ya tumbo la uzazi la Lacks bila maarifa yake au idhini yake - kitu kisichoweza kufikiriwa leo kwa sababu ya mazoea ya idhini ya habari, lakini ya kawaida wakati huo. Wakati Lacks alipokuwa akipatiwa matibabu ya kansa, sampuli zake za tishu zilifika kwenye dawati la George Otto Gey, mtafiti wa kansa katika Chuo Kikuu cha Johns Hopkins. Aligundua kwamba tofauti na chembe nyingine zilizopandwa katika maabara yake, chembe za Lacks zilikua na kuongezeka badala ya kufa. Chembe za Lacks zilikuwa "zisizoweza kufa", ikimaanisha kwamba kwa sababu ya kasoro ya urithi, ziliweza kuzaliana kwa muda usiojulikana maadamu hali fulani zilihifadhiwa ndani ya maabara. Gey alianza kusafirisha chembe za Lacks kwa watafiti wengine duniani kote, na wanasayansi walifurahi kuwa na kiasi kisicho na kikomo cha chembe za binadamu zenye nguvu za kufanya majaribio. Baada ya kifo chake cha kansa ya shingo ya tumbo la uzazi mwaka 1951, chembe zake ziliendelea kuongezeka na wanasayansi waliendelea kuzitumia kutengeneza matibabu ya kansa, kujifunza zaidi kuhusu virusi vya Ukimwi, kuanzisha matibabu ya uzazi kama vile in vitro fertilization, na kutengeneza chanjo ya polio. Kwa sasa, seli za Lacks zimeokoa maisha ya watu milioni 10 na familia yake inaanza kupata fidia na utambuzi ambao Henrietta anastahili. Gladys West alikuwa mwanahisabati ambaye alisaidia kuunda kitu ambacho karibu kila mtu anatumia leo. Alianza kazi yake katika 1950s katika Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division huko Virginia, na alichukua data kutoka kwa satelaiti kuunda mfano wa hisabati wa umbo la Dunia na uwanja wa mvuto. Kazi hiyo muhimu iliweka msingi wa teknolojia ambayo baadaye ikawa Mfumo wa Kupata Mahali Ulimwenguni, au GPS. Kazi ya West haikutambuliwa sana hadi alipoheshimiwa na Jeshi la Anga la Marekani mnamo 2018. Kizmik Corbett, ambaye ni mtaalamu wa kinga, amefanya historia ya kwanza ya kuambukizwa virusi vya corona akiwa na umri wa miaka 35. Corbett, ambaye ni mtaalamu wa kinga ya virusi, alisoma virusi vya corona katika Taasisi ya Kitaifa ya Afya (NIH) na kutafiti chanjo zinazowezekana kwa virusi vya corona kama SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) na MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome), na alishirikiana na kampuni kubwa ya dawa Moderna kuunda chanjo ya mRNA dhidi ya virusi hivyo. Kazi ya awali ya Corbett na mRNA na virusi vya corona ilikuwa muhimu katika kuendeleza chanjo hiyo, ambayo ikawa moja ya kwanza kuidhinishwa kwa matumizi ya dharura nchini Marekani. Chanjo hiyo, pamoja na nyingine, ni wajibu wa kuokoa maisha ya takriban watu milioni 14. Sarah Watts ni mwandishi wa afya na sayansi anayeishi Chicago.