Supercomputing and Systems Biology: A New Hypothesis for COVID-19

Note: this event is on a WEDNESDAY night.

EVENT DESCRIPTION: COVID-19 is largely known for causing respiratory distress, though people have also experienced a number of unusual symptoms such as heart arrhythmias, loss of smell, and discolored lesions on toes. There is still so much unknown about this disease and many scientists and labs are moving quickly to understand how COVID-19 impacts the body and causes such an unusual constellation of symptoms.

You may have seen in your social media feeds https://tinyurl.com/bradykinin in the past few weeks that a recent paper https://elifesciences.org/articles/59177 has proposed a new hypothesis and may provide some insight. Using the world’s second-fastest computer located at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, more than 40,000 genes from 17,000 genetic samples were analyzed and a new picture is beginning to form: COVID-19 may cause a disruption in the bradykinin system in the body which may then lead to blood and fluid leaking throughout organs and tissues. It’s still a hypothesis, but if it is accurate, this paper suggests that there may be at least 10 potential FDA-approved treatments that could be used to treat numerous COVID-19 symptoms.

At this Science on Tap we will be joined by Dr. Daniel Jacobson https://www.ornl.gov/staff-profile/daniel-jacobson, lead researcher and chief scientist for computational systems biology at ORNL. He will explain the bradykinin hypothesis in simple terms and describe how it could be used in future COVID-19 treatment.

Not only is this an exciting new development for dealing with this pandemic, but it’s an exciting opportunity to learn how science works in real-time.

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Written questions during the event are welcome!

TWO WAYS TO WATCH LIVE:

• Watch the high quality version on Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_nv9xNe1kTMmaX1OKY0Kalg

• If the Zoom webinar is full or if you prefer, visit our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/ScienceOnTapORWA/ at 7pm on Thursday for the Facebook live show (refresh until you see the video post)

COST: Free, with a $5 suggested donation

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WATCH LATER: The event will be recorded and available to watch online later on our Facebook videos page https://www.facebook.com/pg/ScienceOnTapORWA/videos/ and YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/c/ScienceonTapORWA/