CLEVELAND, March 31, 2021 /PRNewswire/ --Case Western Reserve University is collaborating with Noodle,a leading online higher education network, to launch an Online Master of Science in Computer Science(MSCS) through the Case School of Engineering.

The program launches in fall 2021 and will complement successful on-campus programs.This is Noodle'ssecond online program launch with Case Western Reserve, following the launch of an Online MBA with a focus in Healthcare Managementthrough the Weatherhead School of Management last December.

The Case School of Engineering's Online Master of Science in Computer Science will give working professionals access to world-class faculty and computer science curriculum, preparing them for success in computer science professions. Students will be exposed to a range of in-demand topics, including algorithms and theory, artificial intelligence, bioinformatics, computer networks and systems, databases and data mining, security and privacy, and software engineering.

"Professional opportunities in computer and data science pervade all sectors, with applications from health care to polymers to clean energy," said Venkataramanan "Ragu" Balakrishnan, the Charles H. Phipps Dean of the Case School of Engineering. "The MSCS online program is intentionally designed to provide Case Western Reserve graduates the expertise needed to take advantage of those opportunities and become leaders in this dynamic field."

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that the demand for computer and data information scientists will rise 31% by 2029, adding 500,000 new jobs by 2029, with the median salary at $94,000 in 2019, the bureau's latest figure.

According to Robert Half Technology's State of Tech Hiring research, Cleveland ranks third in a national survey of cities hiring IT professionals in the second half of 2019.

"For 140 years, Case Western Reserve School of Engineering has had a rich history of scientific innovation," said Noodle CEO John Katzman. "Case Western Reserve's scholastic excellence, coupled with hands-on learning and industry experience has created one of the nation's premier engineering schools. Noodle's network of online programs and innovative partnerships will prepare online MSCS graduates to solve tomorrow's most demanding engineering challenges."

"Case School of Engineering has provided a strong foundation for Cleveland's exploding high- tech economy," says Noodle Chief Strategy Officer Lee Bradshaw. "Its talented graduates and world class research feed the ever increasing demand of the Cleveland Health Tech Corridor, the Midwest's leading health and innovation technology cluster."

About Case Western Reserve University Case Western Reserve University is one of the country's leading private research institutions. Located in Cleveland, we offer a unique combination of forward-thinking educational opportunities in an inspiring cultural setting. Our leading-edge faculty engage in teaching and research in a collaborative, hands-on environment. Our nationally recognized programs include arts and sciences, dental medicine, engineering, law, management, medicine, nursing and social work. About 5,100 undergraduate and 6,700 graduate students comprise our student body. Visitcase.eduto see how Case Western Reserve thinks beyond the possible.

About Noodle Noodle is a network of universities, higher education leaders, providers and students whose mission is to fuel innovation, imagination, agility and efficiency in learning design, marketing, student recruitment, technology, student and faculty support and remote clinical placement. The network's mandate is two-fold: transparency and the transformation of the higher ed landscape into a collaborative, accessible, affordable universe to lower the cost of higher ed. According to HolonIQ's research, Noodle has partnered with as many elite U.S. universities as all other competitors combined since 2019. Please visitwww.noodle.comand follow us on Twitter @NoodleEducationand on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/company/noodleeducation.

Case Western Reserve University Media Contact: Bill Lubinger [emailprotected] 216-368-4443

Noodle Media Contact: Renee Young, VP, Noodle Comms [emailprotected], 914-523-5320

SOURCE Noodle

https://www.noodlepartners.com/

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Case Western Reserve University's School of Engineering to Launch New Online MS in Computer Science with Noodle - PRNewswire

An international team of researchers led by a University of Virginia School of Medicine professor is warning that scientists must better prepare for the next pandemic and has developed a plan to do just that.

Noting the avalanche of scientific data generated in response to COVID-19, UVAs Wladek Minor and colleagues are calling for the creation of an advanced information system to help scientists integrate, monitor and evaluate the vast amounts of data that will be produced as researchers reveal the molecular architecture of the next pathogen posing a big biological threat. This information on the shape,structure and function of a pathogen is essential to the development of medications, vaccines and treatments. For example, the COVID-19 vaccines now available target the spike protein on the surface of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Their heavily cited online resource for COVID-19 demonstrates the usefulness of their approach and can be used as a foundation for the new research strategy, they say. The site includes carefully validated 3-D structural models of numerous proteins related to the SARS-CoV-2 virus, including many potential drug targets.

Structural models and other experimental results produced by various laboratories must follow a standard evaluation procedure to ensure that they are accurate and conform to accepted scientific standards, said Minor, Harrison Distinguished Professor of Molecular Physiology and Biological Physics at UVA. Standardized validation is important for all areas of biomedical sciences, especially for structural models, which are often used as a starting point in subsequent research, such as computer-guided drug docking studies and data mining. Even seemingly insignificant errors can lead such research astray.

One important role of an advanced information system would be to identify structures that can be refined and improved, the researchers say. They were happy to note that inspection of the molecular blueprints produced for components of COVID-19 and deposited in the Protein Data Bank online database suggests that most were very good. Less than 1% needed significant reinterpretation and less than 10% could be optimized by moderate revisions.

Still, good buildings require good blueprints. The same is true with vaccines and disease treatments. Its critical, the researchers say, that the structural and other data for pathogens are as accurate as possible, and that scientists from various fields are speaking the same language when discussing and using them. The proposed advanced information system would help ensure conformity across disciplines.

Almost 100,000 COVID-19-related papers have been published and over a thousand models of macromolecules encoded by SARS-CoV-2 have been experimentally determined in about a year. No single human can possibly digest this volume of information, Minor said. We believe that the most promising solution to information overload and the lack of effective information retrieval is the creation of an advanced information system that is capable of harvesting results from all relevant resources and presenting the information in instructive ways that promote understanding and knowledge.

The researchers acknowledge that implementing their proposal would be a major undertaking. Other resources that sought to offer similar benefits on a smaller scale have already come and gone. Thats why its so important, the scientists say, that we act now. Creating an [advanced information system] will undoubtedly require the collaboration of many scientists who are experts in their respective fields, but it seems to be the only way to prepare biomedical science for the next pandemic, the researchers write in a new scientific paper outlining their proposal.

In the history of humanity, the COVID-19 pandemic is relatively mild by comparison with the bubonic plague (Black Death) that killed a hundred times more people, the researchers conclude. We might not be so lucky next time.

The researchers from UVA, the National Cancer Institute, Poland and Austria have detailed their plan inan article in the scientific journal IUCrJ. The article is featured on the journal cover. The research team consists of Marek Grabowski, Joanna M. Macnar, Marcin Cymborowski, David R. Cooper, Ivan G. Shabalin, Miroslaw Gilski, Dariusz Brzezinski, Marcin Kowiel, Zbigniew Dauter, Bernhard Rupp, Alexander Wlodawer, Mariusz Jaskolski and Minor.

Minor and his longtime collaborator Zbyszek Otwinowski of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center were recently awarded the Tadeusz Sendzimir Applied Sciences Award by the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America for their efforts to develop and promote software for biomedical applications in the structural biology field.

In their paper, the researchers gratefully acknowledged the financial support of the National Institutes of Healths National Institute of General Medical Sciences, grant R01-GM132595; the Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange, grant PN/BEK/2018/1/00058/U/00001; the Polish National Science Center, grant 2020/01/0/NZ1/00134; the Intramural Research Program of the NIH, National Cancer Institute, Center for Cancer Research; FWF (Austrian Science Foundation), grant P 32821; and the Polish National Science Centre, grant 2018/29/B/ST6/01989.

To keep up with the latest medical research news from UVA, subscribe to theMaking of Medicineblog.

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Scientists Urge Swift Action to Prepare for Next Pandemic - University of Virginia

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Two companies, Achilles Therapeutics and Coursera, made their entrance as public companies Wednesday.Shares of Coursera rose as much as 23%, while Achilles dropped below its $18 offer price.

Courseras (ticker: COUR) stock opened at $39 and recently traded at $38, up about 15% from its $33 offer price.

Late Tuesday, the Mountain View, California company sold 15.73 million shares at the top of its $30 to $33 price range, collecting $519 million.

Founded in 2012, Coursera provides an online learning platform, offering about 5,100 courses and specializations to individuals. Students can take classes such as Japanese for Beginners, Predictive Analytics & Data Mining, or Covid-19 Contact Tracing, and they can earn a degree or an online certificate. The company said its platform has attracted more than 77 million learners. Classes are meant to be affordable, with a bachelors or masters degree ranging from $9,000 to $45,000, the prospectus said.

The company, however, isnt profitable, reporting $66.8 million in losses on $293.5 million in revenue for the year ended Dec. 31.

Achilles (ACHL) also made its debut. The biotech raised $175.5 million after selling 9.75 million American depositary shares at $18, the middle of its $17 to $19 price range. Each ADS represents one ordinary share.

The stock opened at $18, but recently changed hands at $17.10, down 5% from its initial public offering price. This makes Achilles a broken deal.

Achilles is developing T-cell therapies to treat cancer. It is conducting two open-label Phase I/IIa trials to evaluate its product candidate, ATL001, for use in advanced non-small cell lung cancer and metastatic or recurrent melanoma.

Achilles isnt profitable and hasnt generated revenue. Losses widened to $33.2 million for the year ended Dec. 31 from about $14 million in 2019, a prospectus said.

Write to editors@barrons.com

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Achilles Therapeutics and Coursera Stock Start Trading. What You Need to Know. - Barron's

You cant fix what you dont measure is a maxim in the business world. And it holds true in the world of public health as well.

Early in the pandemic, the United States struggled to meet the demand to test people for SARS-CoV-2. That failure meant officials didnt know the true number of people who had COVID-19. They were left to respond to the pandemic without knowing how quickly it was spreading and what interventions minimized risks.

Now the U.S. faces a similar issue with a different type of test: genetic sequencing. Unlike a COVID-19 test that diagnoses infection, genetic sequencing decodes the genome of SARS-CoV-2 virus in samples from patients. Knowing the genome sequence helps researchers understand two important things how the virus is mutating into variants and how its traveling from person to person.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, this kind of genomic surveillance was reserved mainly for conducting small studies of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, investigating outbreaks and monitoring influenza strains. As genomic epidemiologists and infectious disease experts, we perform these kinds of tests every day in our labs, working to puzzle out how the coronavirus is evolving and moving through the population.

Particularly now, as new coronavirus variants of concern continue to emerge, genomic surveillance has an important role to play in helping bring the pandemic under control.

Genome sequencing involves deciphering the order of the nucleotide molecules that spell out a particular viruss genetic code. For the coronavirus, that genome contains a string of around 30,000 nucleotides. Each time the virus replicates, errors are made. These mistakes in the genetic code are called mutations.

Most mutations do not significantly change the function of the virus. Others may be important, particularly when they encode vital elements, such as the coronavirus spike protein that acts as a key to enter human cells and cause infection. Spike mutations may influence how infectious the virus is, how severe the infection may become, and how well current vaccines protect against it.

Researchers are particularly on the lookout for any mutations that distinguish virus specimens from others or match known variants.

Scientists can use the genetic sequences to track how the virus is being transmitted in the community and in health care facilities. For example, if two people have viral sequences with zero or very few differences between them, it suggests the virus was transmitted from one to the other, or from a common source. On the other hand, if there are a lot of differences between the sequences, these two individuals did not catch the virus from each other.

This kind of information lets public health officials tailor interventions and recommendations for the public. Genomic surveillance can also be important in health care settings. Our hospital, for example, uses genomic surveillance to detect outbreaks that otherwise are missed by traditional methods.

But how do researchers know if variants are emerging and if people should be concerned?

Take the B.1.1.7 variant, first detected in the United Kingdom, which has strong genomic surveillance in place. Public health investigators discovered that a certain sequence with multiple changes, including the spike protein, was on the rise in the U.K. Even amid a national shutdown, this version of the virus was spreading rapidly, more so than its predecessors.

Scientists looked further into this variants genome to determine how it was overcoming the distancing recommendations and other public health interventions. They found particular mutations in the spike protein with names like 69-70 and N501Y that made it easier for the virus to infect human cells. Preliminary research suggests these mutations translated into a higher rate of transmission, meaning that they spread much more easily from person to person than prior strains.

Vaccine developers and other scientists then used this genetic information to test whether the new variants change how well the vaccines work. Fortunately, preliminary research that has not yet been peer-reviewed found that the B.1.1.7 variant remains susceptible to current vaccines. More worrisome are other variants such as P.1. and B.1.351, first discovered in Brazil and South Africa, respectively, that can evade some antibodies produced by the vaccines.

Detecting variants of concern and developing a public health response to them requires a robust genomic surveillance program. That translates to scientists sequencing virus samples from about 5% of the total number of COVID-19 patients, selected to be representative of the populations most at risk from the disease. Without this genomic information, new variants may spread rampantly and undetected through the country and globally.

So how is the U.S. performing in the area of genomic surveillance? Not very well, and well behind other developed countries, coming in 34th in the number of SARS-CoV-2 genomes sequenced per number of cases. Even within the U.S., there is large variation among states for genomes sequenced per number of cases, ranging from Tennessee at 0.09% to Wyoming at 5.82%.

But this is about to change. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in conjunction with other agencies of the federal government, is partnering with private labs, state and local public health labs, academia and others to increase genomic surveillance capacity in the U.S.

Reaching the new national goal of 5% set by the White House is not as simple as footing a hefty bill for a laboratory to perform the tests, though. Laboratories must collect the samples, often from different sources: public health labs, hospitals, clinics, private testing labs. Once the sequencing test is performed, bioinformaticians use advanced programs to identify important mutations. Next, public health professionals merge the genomic data with the epidemiological data to determine how the virus is spreading. All of this requires investment in training people to perform these tasks as a team.

Ultimately, to be useful, a successful genomic surveillance program must be fast and the data needs to be made publicly available immediately to inform real-time decision-making by public health officials and vaccine manufacturers. Such a program is one of the public health tools that will help bring the current pandemic under control and set up the U.S. to be able to respond to future pandemics.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Alexander Sundermann, MPH, CIC is a Clinical Research Coordinator and Doctor of Public Health (DrPH) student in Epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh. Alex is part the Microbial Genomic Epidemiology Laboratory (MiGEL) that is creating an outbreak detection tool that will enable healthcare systems to detect, intervene, and stop outbreaks from occurring. The tool, Enhanced Detection System for Healthcare Association Transmission (EDS-HAT), combines machine learning with the electronic health record and has success in initial prospective findings. Alex has published manuscripts on novel healthcare-related outbreaks using MiGELs methods. Alex has prior experience as an Infection Preventionist at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center where he also published on various quality improvement projects including mold contaminated linens.

Lee Harrison is Professor of Epidemiology, Medicine, and Infectious Diseases and Microbiology, University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Harrison is an infectious diseases physician whose research focuses on the epidemiology and genomic epidemiology of serious infectious pathogens, including S. pneumoniae, N. meningitidis, C. difficile, influenza and SAR-CoV-2. A current project involves novel genomic and computational methods for early detection of outbreaks of bacterial and viral pathogens in the hospital. This approach uses whole genome sequencing surveillance and data mining of the electronic health record using machine learning to identify serious outbreaks that are missed by traditional hospital epidemiologic methods.

Vaughn Cooper is the EvolvingSTEM Founder and Executive Director and a Professor of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, University of Pittsburgh. He co-founded and is Director of the Center for Evolutionary Biology and Medicine (CEBaM), founded and directs the Microbial Genomics Sequencing center (MiGS) and is the Chair of the Council for Microbial Sciences (COMS) for the American Society of Microbiology. The Cooper laboratory studies how bacterial populations (e.g. Burkholderia, Pseudomonas, Acinetobacter, and multispecies communities) evolve to adapt to new hosts and environments, particularly in biofilms. Other major interests include the evolution of antimicrobial resistance and why genome regions mutate/evolve at different rates.

This article is courtesy of The Conversation.

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Genomic Surveillance: Why We Need to Ramp Up Sequencing to End the Pandemic - Global Biodefense

Data collected by The Block Research shows that bitcoin miners have earned more than $1.5 billion in revenue.

This figure represents the most revenue earned by the mining sector in a given month. Given that several days remain in March, the final figure will exceed the current $1.51 billion number.

The vast majority of the funds earned -- $1.36 billion -- were in the form of per-block subsidies, or the 6.25 BTC earned with the creation of each transaction block. Per the data, miners earned a collected $148 million in fees, which are paid by transactors in an effort to make their transactions more likely to be included in the next block.

March's all-time high figure exceeds February, when miners earned a total of $1.36 billion across the sector. The new performance figures signify that miners have collectively more than $1 billion for three months in a row.

As The Block previously reported, publicly-traded bitcoin mining firms have ridden the recent boom in the price of bitcoin, reflecting the cryptocurrency's volatile performance. These developments come as institutional investors in North America move to expand their footprint in the mining sector.

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Bitcoin miners have earned more than $1.5 billion in revenue for March thus far - The Block Crypto