With an aim to protect patients detected with Covid-19 from all over the world, Pfizer and Biontech have entered into a letter of intent to create a potential vaccine for Coronavirus. Under the terms of the agreement, BNT162 – Biontech’s Covid-19 mrna vaccine programme will be fast-tracked and will enter clinical testing towards the end of April 2020.

Testing of the potential covid-19 vaccine – mrna-1273 developed by the National Institutes of Health and biotechnology firm Moderna has started in the USA. If the research proves successful, the company will be able to mass produce the cure only after 12 to 18 months.

The German-biopharmaceutical company Curevac is working on developing an mrna-based vaccine that is strong, effective, safe and quick to produce against Covid-19. For this propose, the company is already in touch with numerous organisations and authorities across the globe.

Pfeiffer Vacuum, in cooperation with The European X-Ray Free-Electron Laser (European XFEL), developed solutions ranging from vacuum pumps to leak detectors to vacuum components for many vacuum applications at the research facility.

A solution jointly developed by Henkel and Covestro is intended to enable the efficient assembly of cylindrical Li-ion battery cells in a plastic cell holder.

By exploiting the power of high-performance computing of the supercomputer Shaheen II, researchers at the King Abdullah University in Saudi Arabia (Kaust) developed a new statistical tool that could reduce the cost and improve the accuracy of analyzing large environmental and climate datasets.

There are currently 445 chimeric antigen receptor (CAR-T cell) therapies under development by companies headquartered across the Asia-Pacific (Apac) region. With research in progress and increased understanding of cancer biology, the new therapies are expected to make the global market more competitive and cost effective, says Global Data.

The aim of the European Plastics Pact is to improve the use of plastics as well as its recycling. Signatories of this pact are expected to develop new techniques and approaches, share knowledge, harmonise guidelines and standards, and reduce current barriers for this purpose.

Engineers at MIT have developed a small, mirrored chip that helps to produce dark-field images, without dedicated expensive components. The chip is slightly larger than a postage stamp and as thin as a credit card. When placed on a microscope’s stage, the chip emits a hollow cone of light that can be used to generate detailed dark-field images of algae, bacteria, and similarly translucent tiny objects.

A collaborative study between the groups of materials scientist Husam Alshareef at Kaust and medical imaging expert Abdulkader A. Alkenawi at King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences reveals a way to remotely charge a battery using a soft, biocompatible material that absorbs sound waves passed through the body.