Eugene Consulting Inc.
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COVID-19 Report
AI and Machine Learning Could Be Saviors
https://www.business.com/articles/coronavirus-outbreak-ai-and-ml-saviors/ - March 17,
2020- Scientists, researchers, doctors, and healthcare experts have the option to performpredictive analysis and use this to understand and monitor the COVID-19 pandemic- Unlike a few years ago during the SARS epidemic, it is now possible to quickly
sequence a virus’s genome → took only a month to identify the sequence of the
genome (January 2020)- This technology is also being used to track the spread of diseaseo Microsoft Bing has launched a real-time map of the spread of COVID-19 –showing states related to the several confirmed caseso For this to be useful, a lot of data must be collected and processed- AI and ML companies are looking into building a strong prediction tool for hecoronavirus- Some companies have come up with tools to help healthcare professionals detect
the warning signs of the virus → BlueDot has made an efficient tool based on AI and
ML to predict the outbreak of the virus + identify areas that should be no-travelzones because of the spread of the viruso The tool words by researching and collecting a huge amount of informationo Data is collected from sources such as websites, social media, new articles,
and government reports- There are other AI and ML tools that can identify places where the virus might hitsoon- A professional at Humboldt University is also making predictions on the coronavirus
outbreak and- China has already started using AI-powered robots for coronavirus patients in some
hospitals
o These robots can disinfect themselves and carrying out tasks like delivering
medicines and changing bed sheetso This helped the hospitals care for more patients in less time with their helpo This also eradicated the possibility of cross-infection
https://www.engineering.com/DesignSoftware/DesignSoftwareArticles/ArticleID/20036/
Using-AI-to-Monitor-COVID-19s-Evolution.aspx - March 16, 2020
- Graphen (a startup specializing in AI systems inspired by full brain functionality)
has released its AI gene evolution pathway analysis of COVID-19- The company modeled the spread and severity of COVID-19 by analyzing thevariants of each reported whole genome sequencing from more than 30 countries
and regions to dateo They then used the data to identify the virus’ mutations as they spreadEugene Consulting Inc.
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Their AI-driven analytics visualizes how the virus propagates, mutates, and spreads
through the world
o This gives us a better understanding of the propagation paths of thepandemic
By understanding the mutation of each virus and locating where those variants are
in its nearly 30,000 genetic locations, the virus’ evolution chain and significant
clusters can be identified
o These patterns can then help pharmaceutical companies better identify
targets for drug development, help predict the spreading speed of the virus,
or even help predict the harmfulness of specific variants that may cause
symptoms beyond those observed from the original straino Ex. a virus strain isolated from the confirmed case on January 5 th, 2020 in
Wuhan later appeared in Taiwan, Belgium, Australia, and has since evolved
into the strain of most initial cases in the State of Washington
So far, Graphen’s data has helped to identify 2 super-spreaders (individuals who
infect large amounts of people)

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/magazines/panache/this-tech-firm-used-aimachine-learning-to-predict-coronavirus-outbreak-warned-people-about-dangerzones/articleshow/73697801.cms - January 29, 2020
- BlueDot (A Canadian fim that specializes in infectious disease surveillance) was thefirst to predict an impending outbreak of COVID-19 on December 31, 2019 using an
AI powered system that combs through animal and plant disease networks, news
reports in vernacular websites, government documents, and other online sources- They also used global airline ticketing data to predict that the virus would spread toSeoul, Bangkok, Taipei, and Tokyo, even before any government announcements- ML and natural language processing techniques were also employed to createmodels that process large amounts of data in real time
- Once the system spits our automated results, the findings are analyzed by trained
epidemiologists who draw inferences and attach a risk factor to each caseo This is then turned into a report which is sent to BlueDot’s clients
Virtual Medicine Plays Key Role in Addressing Pandemic
https://www.engineering.com/Hardware/ArticleID/20044/Virtual-Medicine-Plays-KeyRole-in-Addressing-Pandemic.aspx?e_src=relart - March 20, 2020
- Virtual medicine (or telemedicine) is one key technology being used to fight thediseaseo Main reason: can help prevent transmission of the virus between
asymptomatic, mildly symptomatic patients, and healthcare providers orother patients at clinics and hospitals- Virtual medicine can help triage patients, targeting those with evidence of more
severe respiratory infections and remotely coordinate eventual in-person care,allowing for proper isolation procedures to be followedEugene Consulting Inc.
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o Help healthcare workers avoid unnecessary exposure from less acutepatients who can be treated at home
Teledoc is a multinational virtual medicine company based in the U.S – one of thecompanies that have emerged in recent decades advertising an affordable andconvenience alternative to traditional in-person practices
o They have experienced a spoke in patient daily visit volume by 50% during
the second week of MarchPart of the $8 billion in emergency funding passed by the U.S. Congress will go
toward expanding the reach of telehealth coverage to help stem the pandemic
The Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care have announced thattelemedicine will be used broadly going forwardo Italy is relying heavily on it
These services will also help give cognitive-behavioral treatments to people
experiencing mental health conditions brought on by self-isolation
Inovio Pharmaceuticals used the genetic sequence of the virus, posted by Chinesescientists in a public database on January 10th to generate a vaccine candidate
They plugged the viral sequence into their proprietary machine learning system(SynCon) → it took 3 hours to generate a “fully-designed” DNA-based vaccine, called
INO-4800o This is now in a preclinical trial, with animal trials expected to start soono They are making preparations to hold a large phase 2 clinical trial in humans
later this year
Moderna Therapeutics took a similar approach with its modified messenger RNA(mRNA)-based vaccine for COVID-19 which is also in clinical trialo It took the, 2 days to finalize the sequence for their vaccine, mRNA-1273, and23 days for the vaccine to be ready for a clinical trial
Scientists say that there are genetic similarities between SARS-COV-2 and othercoronavirus like SARS and MERSo This makes it easier to potentially repurpose existing drugs to fight the newcoronaviruso This is what Gilead Sciences is doing with remdesivir – an antiviral drugthat was originally developed to treat Ebolda▪ The company has begun 2 large phase 3 clinical studies to determine
its efficacy and dosage – 1 in Chine and the other managed by the
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)
A group of scientists from South Korea and the U.S. are using deep learning toinvestigate the potential for commercially available antiviral drugs to be used totreat COVID-19
o They developed a system called Molecule Transformer-Drug Target
Interaction that's designed to comb through the available literature to
predict drug-target interactions across a range of variableso This found that atazanavir, an anti-viral medication used to treat HIV.AIDs
could be a good candidate for treating COVID-19

Eugene Consulting Inc.
111 St. Clair Ave W
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3 Areas of AI Application
https://syncedreview.com/2020/03/27/un-who-mila-map-the-ai-vs-covid-19-battlefield/- March 27, 2020
- 3 areas of AI application:
1) Medical – individual patient diagnosis and treatment
2) Molecular – drug discovery-related research3) Societal- Most clinical applications of AI during the COVID-19 pandemic response has been in
medical imaging diagnosis- Researchers have found that COVID-19 has particular radiological signatures andimage patterns which can be observed in CT scans- Identifying patterns is a time-consuming task even for experienced radiologistso A quick accurate diagnosis can be a lifesaver- Training data is key to boosting the speed and accuracy of machine learning CT lungscan based diagnosis- COVID-19 cases present a unique respiratory pattern and thus, some studies have
exploited this to develop non-invasive prediction tools that can use for example,
Kinect depth camera streams to identify possible infections- Others have trained Gated Recurrent Unit neural networks to classify abnormal
respiratory patterns → can be a useful non-invasive measurement when screening
at a large scale---

In Spain, 4 robots are automating up to 80,000 COVID-19 tests a day
On March 26, Microsoft, together with top AI universities in the U.S., launched theC3.ai Digital Transformation Institute and issued a call for AI techniques to mitigate
pandemic fallout, with up to $5.8 million in prizes
Computer companies and major cloud providers like AWS, Microsoft’s Azure, andGoogle Cloud Platform also joined a consortium to ensure coronacirus researchers
don't encounter compute limitations
Alibaba, Tencent, and Baidu opened up cloud services in China
Xprize launched the Pandemic Alliance this week to support researchers andprovide them with data from launch partner Anthem

C3.ai Digital Transformatoin Institutehttps://c3dti.ai- Mission: to attract the world’s leading scinetists to join in a coordinated andinnovative effort to advance the digital transformation of business, government, andsociety- In addition to cash awards, C3.ai DTI recipients will be provided with significant
cloud computing, supercomputing, data access, and AI software resources andtechnical support provided by Microsoft and C3.ai

Eugene Consulting Inc.
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M4V 1N5-o Unlimited use of the C3 AI Suite and access to the Microsoft Azure cloud
platform and access to the Blue Waters supercomputer at the National
Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at UIUC
1st call for proposals is open now → deadline is May 1, 2020

Remdesivir may be the most promising COVID019 drug
https://www.drugtargetreview.com/news/58608/remdesivir-most-promising-covid-19drug-say-researchers/ - March 27, 2020
- Researchers suggest that the most effective therapeutic drugs will directly target the
SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19- Other approaches listed in an article published in Antimicrobial Agents andChemotherapy include blocking SARS-CoV-2 from entering cells, disrupting viral
replication, antivirals vaccines and suppressing overactive immune response- The article suggests that SARS-CoV-2 is easily transmissible because Spike (S)proteins in the surface of the virus bind exceptionally efficiently to the angiotensinconverting enzyme 2 (ACE2) on the surfaces of human cells- There is 1 clinical study underway, testing if recombinant ACE2 can act as a decoy,
binding the S proteins and preventing SARS-CoV-2 infecting cells in patients withsevere COVID-19- The article suggests the most promising COVID-19 antivrial is remedesiviro Remedesivir inihibited SARS-CoV-2 replication in laboratory studies and wastested in 1 patient with COVID-19 in US
o The patient’s symptoms improved following intravenous remdesivir
administrationo However, more clinical data is required before the drug can be approved foruse- Tilarone is a broad-spectrum antiviral that may also be active against SARS-CoV-2
o This is used in some countries to treat several viruses like influenza andhepatitis- A further treatment option being explored is a transfusion of blood from a recovered
COVID-19 patient into someone with an active viral infectiono Primarily been used for patients in critical condition due to lack of highquality randomized clinical trial data to back up its efficacy- The expert opinions is that it will take approximately 12-18 months for a vaccine
candidate to get to the market
Stem Cell Therapy being developed in Iran
https://ifpnews.com/iran-scientist-developed-coronavirus-drug - Marhc 28, 2020
- Iranian professor Dr Masoud Soleimani says that what he and his team aredeveloping for treatment of coronavirus is a stem cell “therapy” NOT a drug asclaimed in media report- They are using mesenchymal stem cells to modify the immune response in corona
patients

Eugene Consulting Inc.
111 St. Clair Ave W
Toronto, ON
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Research is being conducted with the support of the health ministry at Shariati and
Masih Daneshvari hospitals and results of the first phase of its clinical trail is to beannounced soon by the health ministry

Russia claims to have developed COVID-19 treatment based on anti-malaria drug
https://www.dailysabah.com/life/health/russia-says-it-developed-covid-19-treatmentbased-on-anti-malaria-drug - March 28, 2020
- On March 28, Russia’s Federal Biomedical Agency said it had developed a drug forthe treatment of COVID-19 using mefloquine – a drug used to prevent or treat
malaria- According to the agency’s statement, the drug prevents virus replication in cells andstops the inflammatory processed caused by the virus
o Wil treat patients with various degrees of the infection- They say that Mefloquine has to be combined with antibiotics for the maximum
effects – increases the concentration of antiviral agents in blood plasma and lungs
Potential COVID-19 therapeutics currently in Development
https://www.europeanpharmaceuticalreview.com/article/115842/potential-covid-19therapeutics-currently-in-development/ - March 26, 2002
- Favilavi – 1st approved coronavirus drug in Chinao Reportedly shown efficacy in treating COVID-19 safely in a clinical trial
involving 70 patients- Inovio Pharmaceuticals plans to begin human clinical trials on their vaccine, INO4800 in Aprilo Results are expected to be available in Septembe 2002
o They aim to produce 1 million doses of the vaccine by the end of 2020 toperform additional clinical trials and/or emergyency use of the vaccine- Regeneron’s potential vaccine REGEN3048 and REGEN3051 will be ready forhuman clinical trials by early summero Large scale manufacture could start by middle of April- Gilead’s Remedesivir (GS-5734) has undergone clinical trials in Chinao Trials are being performed on 761 patients in a randomized, placebocontrolled, double-blind study at multiple hospitals in Wuhan- Moderna’s MRNA-1273 vaccine is undergoing a Phase I clinical study in April withsupport from the US NIH and they are preparing for a Phase II studyo Vaccine targets the Spike )S_ protein of the coronavirus- Roche’s Actemra has been approved in China for the treatment of severe
complications related to coronavirus
o Drug is being evaluated in a clinical trials in China – with 188 coronavirus
patients
o Will go on until May 10- Many clinical trials are underway with Chloroquineo As face and efficacious drug for malaria

Eugene Consulting Inc.
111 St. Clair Ave W
Toronto, ON
M4V 1N5-o Coronavirus patients administered with the Chloroquine Phosphate drug
achieved a better drop in fever and shorter recovery time in clinical trials
being conducted in Chinese hospitals
An intranasal COVID-19 vaccine is being developed by US-based clinical-stage
biopharmaceutical company, Altimmuneo Animal studies are being progressed

Below are other candidates at different stages of the drug development lifecycle

Eugene Consulting Inc.
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While there are many vaccines in the words, it will take some time to establish thecomplete safety and efficacy of the successful candidates

AI Companies who are stepping up to combat COVID-19
https://www.forbes.com/sites/tomtaulli/2020/03/28/ai-artificial-intelligencecompanies-that-are-combating-the-covid-19-pandemic/#34a2afb958f8 - March 28, 2020
- Competitions are being setup to stir innovationo Kaggle’s COVID-19 Open Research Dataset Challenge – in collaboration with
the NIH and White House▪ 1st contest was to help provide better forecasts of the spread of
COVID-19 across the world
o Decentralized Artificial Intelligence Alliance is putting together Covidathon –an AI hackathon to fight the pandemic coordinated by SingularityNET and
Ocean Protocol▪ They have more than 50 companies, labs, and nonprofitso MIT Solve established the Global Health Security & Pandemic Challenge▪ A member of this organization, Ada Health, developed an AI-powered
COVID-19 personalized screening test
• Ada’s core system connects medical knowledge with intelligent
technology to help people actively manage their health andmedical professionals to deliver effective care• #1 medical app for 140 counties• Global launch was in 2016-

AI companies that are eliminating their fees to help
o NVIDIA – providing a free 90 day license for Parabricks – allows for using AI
for genomics purposes

Eugene Consulting Inc.
111 St. Clair Ave W
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Also provides free support from Oracle Cloud Infrastructure and Core
Scientific (a provider of NVIDIA DGX systems and NetApp cloudconnected storage)▪ DataRobot is offering its platform for no charge▪ Run:AI is offering its software for free to help with virtualization
layers for deep learning models▪ DarwinAI has collaborated with the University of Waterloo’s VIP Lab
to develop COVID-Net• A convolutional neural network that detects COVID-19 using
chest radiography• They are now making this technology open source
Biofourmis created a remote monitoring system that has a biosensor for a patient’s
arm and an AI application to help with the diagnosis → to help reduce infection
rates for doctors and medical support personnel
Vital uses AI and Natural Language Processing to manage overloaded hospitals
o Founders are Aaron Patzer (creator of Mint.com) and Justin Schrager (an ER
doctor)o They are now devoting all its resources to create C19check.com – The app,which was built in a partnership with Emory Department of Emergency
Medicine’s Health DesignED Center and the Emory Office of Critical Event
Preparedness and Response, provides guidance to the public for self-triage
before going to the hospitalo So far, it’s been used by 400,000 people
AliveCor launched KardiaMObiole 6L – an AI-enabled platform, which measures
QTc in COVID-19 patientso Helps detect sudden cardiac arrest
CLEW launched the TeleICU, which uses AI to identify respiratory deterioration inadvance
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Using plasma from recovered COVID-19 patients as potential treatment
https://bc.ctvnews.ca/plasma-from-recovered-covid-19-patients-in-canada-could-bestudied-as-potential-treatment-1.4872544 - March 28, 2020
- Researchers in Canada are looking at using blood product from recovered COVID-19
patients as a potential treatment for others who are sick with the virus- Canadian Blood Services are working with a group of clinical investigators who aredesigning a national clinical trials to see if convalescent plasma could help treat
COVD-19 patientso Convalescent plasma = plasma that is collected from patients who haverecovered from a virus → means they have developed antibodies necessary
to fight the viruso In theory, these antibodies could be the basis of a treatment- However, the Canadian Blood Services has stated that there is not yet enough data
to prove it is a successful treatment

Eugene Consulting Inc.
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Dr. Srinivas Murthy, and associate professor at UBC’s Department of Medicine, hasreceived funding from the Canadian Institutes for Health Research for a study on
how best to treat COVID-19
o He has said that while he is involved in a few initiatives to use convalescentplasma, he too states that there is no real science yet to say it is useful▪ Attempts have been made with other diseases but have not shown tobe that effectiveo He goes on to state how sometimes, it could cause significant harmThis method is also being looked at in the U.S.

B.C. Canada experimenting with malaria and Ebola medication for COVID-19
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/malariaa-medication-covid1.5513899 - March 28, 2020
- HIV and malaria medications are being used to treat patients with COVID019 in B.C.
o Hydroxychloroquine and Remdesivir- These drugs are currently being tested on patients inside at least 1 facility in B.C.
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/367/6485/1412 - March 27, 2020
- On March 20, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced a major study tocompare treatment strategies in a streamlined clinical trial design that doctors
around the world can join → SOLIDAIRTY- The study, which could include many thousands of patients in dozens of countries,
has emphasized simplicity so that even hospitals overwhelmed by an onslaught of
COVID-19 patients can participate- WHO’s website will randomize patients to local standard care or one of the 4 drug
regimens, using only ones available at the patients’ hospitalo Physicians record the day the patient left the hospital or died, duration of
hospital stay, and whether the patient required oxygen or ventilation- Design is not blinded – patients will know they received the drug candidate → could
cause placebo effect → doing so in the interest of speed- Agency hopes to start to enroll patients this week
- Rather than developing and testing compounds from scratch, WHO is focused on
repurposing drugs that are already approved for other diseases and have acceptablesafety profileso Also looking at experimental drugs that have preformed well in animalstudies against SARS and MERS
- For the study, WHO chose an antiviral called remdesivir, chloroquine, a combinationof the HIV drugs lopinavir and ritonavir, and that combination plus interferon-beta,
and immune system messenger that can help cripple viruses- In 2017, researchers showed in test tube and animal studies that Remdesivir caninhibit the SARS and MERS viruses

Eugene Consulting Inc.
111 St. Clair Ave W
Toronto, ON
M4V 1N5---o Remdesivir, which is given intravenously, has been used in hundreds of
COVID-19 patients in the US and Europe under the compassionate use, which
requires Gilead to review patinets records
o Some doctors reported anecdotal evidence of benefit, but no hard datao 5 other clinical trials are underway in China and the U.S are testing it andmay have preliminary results soono A coronavirus researcher,Stanley Perlman states that remdesivir may be
more potent if given early but this isa challenge as it is expensive, needs to beadministered intravenously, and 85/100 people with COVID-19 don't need it
Chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine have received attention due to positive resulst
from small studies and an endorsement from President Trumpo The drugs decrease acidity in endosomes, compartments that cells use toingest outside material and that some viruses co-opt during infectiono However, SARS-CoV-2’s uses so-called spike protein to attach to a receptor
on the surface of human cells and studies in cell culture have suggested thatwhile chloroquine can cripple the virus, the doses needed are usually highand could cause severe toxicityo Researchers have tried to drug on other viruses and it has never worked out
in humanso Results from COVID-19 patients are murky▪ No hard evidence thus far▪ French microbiologist Didier Raoult and colleagues published a studyof hydroxychloroquine in 20 COVID-19 patients that concluded thedrug had reduced viral load in nasal swabs BUT trial was not
randomized and it didn't report clinical outcomes such as deathso Hydroxychloroquine can in some cases harm the heart and there are reportsof chloroquine poisoning in people who self-medicatedMany coronavirus researchers are also skeptical of the lopinavir-ritonavir
combinationo When doctors in Wuhan have 199 patients standard care with or without
lopinavir-ritonavir, the outcomes did not differ significantly (reported in The
New England Journal of Medicine)oInterferon-beta may be risky for patients with severe COVID-19
o If given too late, it could lead to worse tissue damage
Some researchers have high hopes for camostat mesylate, a drug licensed in Japanfor pancreatitis
The best way to test the drugs would be to administer it to people in early stages ofthe disease who doctors think ate most likely to get worse