signal boost: SARS as painkiller?

From siderea: https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1662993.html

The COVID-19 virus may be a painkiller, and that might be part of why it spreads effectively: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-10-pain-relief-sars-cov-infection-covid-.html

In his lab, [the author of this study] will be examining neuropilin as a new target for non-opioid pain relief. During the study, Dr. Khanna tested existing small molecule neuropilin inhibitors developed to suppress tumor growth in certain cancers and found they provided the same pain relief as the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein when binding to neuropilin.

"We are moving forward with designing small molecules against neuropilin, particularly natural compounds, that could be important for pain relief," Dr. Khanna said. "We have a pandemic, and we have an opioid epidemic. They're colliding. Our findings have massive implications for both. SARS-CoV-2 is teaching us about viral spread, but COVID-19 has us also looking at neuropilin as a new non-opioid method to fight the opioid epidemic."

A productive day

My to-do list for today was to do some phone banking, and some of my PT exercises.

This afternoon's phone banking session was my most productive yet: I talked to four or five people, and got a few people saying they definitely support Sara Gideon and Joe Biden. Also one who said no to "can we count on your support for Sara?" and when I asked if she would list Gideon as her second choice said she was planning to do that. [1] She was lukewarm about Biden--she'll vote for him but isn't happy that he's the nominee. I said I understood, I was a Warren supporter, but since Biden is the Democratic nominee we need to support him. The other people I talked to included a man who had moved out of state, but said "yes" when I asked if we could count on him to vote for Biden. (This campaign won't be calling him back, because I checked the "moved out of state" button on the phone banking page.) One person was enthusiastic enough about the Democratic ticket that I asked if she'd like to volunteer. She declined because she's working at a food bank and as a guardian ad litem [to represent the interests of minor children in court]. I said that's important work, and thanked her for it.



I did some of the exercises I have flagged as priority, and a few lower-priority ones I hadn't gotten to in a while.

cattitude went to the farmers market this afternoon, and got several nice things, including scallops, which we had for supper tonight. Also, my post-phone banking snack was fresh local raspberries and homemade chocolate cake.

I did a little proofreading/light copyediting for a friend who has applying for an internship; this useful activity didn't require me to hang up rather than leave voicemail for a hundred strangers.

[1] If you live in Massachusetts, vote Yes on ballot question 2. If it passes, Massachusetts will use ranked choice voting, a.k.a. instant runoff, for most elections. Ranked choice means you can vote for a third party candidate without worrying that this will help the candidate you like least. Useful for those of us who agree that both major parties are too conservative and would like to vote Socialist, and equally for someone who dislikes both parties for how much they spend on the military. Maine has had ranked choice for a few years, as has Minneapolis. (For my fannish friends, this is used for the Hugo awards, where it's sometimes called "Australian ballot.") Thanks to julian for pointing out that I'd omitted the footnote.