3 . Driven by her passion for providing quality healthcare, a Latvian woman has won over the hearts of the elderly residing in the nursing home she oversees.

It is incredibly rare to find a Caucasian woman working as the director of a nursing home in Shanghai. But the fact that Anastasija Puzankova can even converse in Liantang, a Chinese dialect spoken only by residents in a small town in southwestern Shanghai, makes her one of a kind.

“I had always wondered how the elderly were getting along with others, or if they were well cared for. I realized that I could better serve them and understand their concerns if I spoke their dialect.” says the 35-year-old, who also speaks Russian, English, Latvian, French and Spanish.

Puzankova chose to study Sinology(汉学) out of her curiosity about China at the University of Latvia in 2003. The next year, she traveled to Shanghai as part of an exchange program and then she spent the next 10 years studying law at Fudan University, graduating with a master's degree in 2014.

Despite her qualifications, in 2018, Puzankova joined Haiyang Group, a Shanghai-based company that operates the nursing home, as an executive assistant. During that period, she performed so well in her nursing and management training that she was appointed the director of the home after just one year.

A caregiver, surnamed Cai, says the atmosphere at the home has changed since Puzankova took charge. “She makes life in the nursing home uplifting and purposeful.” says Cai.

“She throws monthly birthday parties for the elderly, creates a festive mood in the home for every traditional festival and frequently organizes handicrafts classes and activities to stimulate the minds of the residents.”

When family visits and group activities were delayed during the novel coronavirus outbreak, Puzankova came up with a similar idea at the home, purchasing vegetable seeds and growing them in the field near the nursing home so that the residents can observe the plants growing from their windows.

“Just watching the plants grow can lift their spirits. We can also serve these organic vegetables to them.” she explains.

Puzankova says, “I simply like communicating with people, understanding their personalities and offering help when they are in need. Making an elderly person happy isn't hard. It just takes a little time, love and thought.”

4 . Gene therapy (基因治疗) is a revolutionary new technique for treating people with health problems. Up until very recently, the most commonly available methods for treating patients were either through drugs or operations. Gene therapy provides a third option for treatment by transforming or replacing cells with new genetic materials and instructions. Scientists can be very precise in the kinds of changes they make in patients.

Gene therapy works by using a delivery system, such as a virus, to enter a patient's body. Once inside the body, the virus combines with a host cell and delivers the new DNA. The proteins then begin to repair the affected cells. New techniques have focused on removing cells from the patients and transforming them outside the body before reintroducing them to the patients.

The two types of gene therapy are called somatic and germline. Somatic therapy refers to changing or replacing a body cell. In this case, the treatment is restricted to the patient only. This will not affect the patient's future children because the patient's germ (生殖) cells are unaffected. In germline therapy, the patient germ cells are treated, which may affect the patient's future generation.This is highly controversial (有争议的) because it is not clear exactly how this might affect them and further generations. For this reason, many countries have passed laws that prohibit this kind of treatment.

Despite the promise of gene therapy, there are still many barriers that need to be overcome before it comes into widespread use. One of the issues is that the use of viruses to deliver DNA may actually cause unexpected problems in patients if the virus grows and attacks the body. Another problem is the nature of many diseases is very complex and spread throughout multiple genes. The use of gene therapy to change a single gene in the body would probably not be sufficient as a cure. Finally, the costs of gene therapy are high. Some gene therapy procedures may cost over$1 million to undertake and require specialized doctors and equipment.

5 . After persuading most of his patients, his wife and son to go back to France following the lockdown of Wuhan, Philippe Klein, a French doctor, decided to stay in the epicenter during the COVID-19 outbreak.

"I am a doctor, so I have to do my job and do my______," said Klein, a general practitioner at Wuhan Union Hospital in Hubei province.

Before authorities in Wuhan______the city, suspending all outbound flights and trains in late January to______the highly infectious disease, Klein had______about 500 foreigners living in Wuhan, most of them French.

Following the outbreak, he closed his______at the hospital to reduce the chances of infection for his patients. Instead, he began to give______and treatment at patients' homes.

But while he continued to see his patients, Klein found some had fever and he might be______with the virus, so he decided to send his wife and son back to France.

"When I came back home after seeing patients, I didn't feel very comfortable. I really did not want to put my family______, so I asked my wife to leave Wuhan on the second plane organized by the French government," he said. "My son was crying when we______, but it was better for them to leave Wuhan and let me do my job. Also they were very proud because I was doing my duty here."

In addition to his sense of duty as a doctor, he said he also chose to stay because of his deep______for the people and the city, where he has lived for six years.

“People in Wuhan are very friendly to French, and here I feel like a star sometimes,” he said.

____the lockdown of a vast city with 11 million people, which is rare in human history, has made a big______on Klein. He said he is touched by the______Wuhan residents have made to contain the outbreak.

“The last month was the craziest month in my______life,” he said. “and I would like to say to the people of Wuhan and to the Chinese people that they are going to overcome this epidemic. And their sacrifice, their courage, their unity, will______. It will be an example to the world to make such a sacrifice to protect the rest of the world.”

6 . When Republic of Korea(ROK) President Moon Jae-in said on Feb 3, "China's difficulty is also ours" to raise his nation's awareness of the outbreak of the novel coronavirus(COVID-19) in China, China was facing the difficult period of controlling the spread of the virus nationwide.     1    

Now it is the ROK that seems to be at the critical juncture of how China was then, as the country has the highest number of people infected with the virus outside of China; 1,261 as of Wednesday.

    2     That the organizing committee for the Olympic Games in Tokyo has for the first time noted that whether the Games will be held as scheduled in the summer depends on how well the epidemic(传染病) is controlled in the next three months indicates that the country is at a crossroad in its efforts to contain the spread of the virus.

The ROK and Japan's advanced medical systems, solid economic foundations and unity of their people in the fight against the virus will prove indispensable to defeating the virus.     3    

Before vaccines are developed, it is good to see that the two countries have already heeded China's lessons and experience in dealing with the epidemic and they are trying to limit population mobility.     4    

Given the three economies' collective importance to the global supply chain, other countries should also prepare for the epidemic's likely aftermath on the world economy, and consider what they can do to support the three countries in their struggle.

    5    

7 . Even though vaccination (接种疫苗) is a powerful defense against disease, some voices are against it. In a recent letter, the American Medical Association (AMA) urged big social media including Amazon, Facebook and Google to take action to defend medical science on their platforms.

It said that vaccine -preventable diseases that do harm to the public health like measles (麻疹) are on the rise. Measles cases worldwide jumped more than 30% in 2017 compared to 2016, with the largest increases seen among nations in the Americas, Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean. Vaccine-preventable diseases are increasing largely because many people are unwilling to get vaccinated. And some of these people even encourage others to refuse vaccination. So this year, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the anti-vaccination movement a top 10-health threat.

“Vaccination is one of the most cost-effective ways of avoiding disease—it currently prevents 2-3 million deaths a year, and a further 1.5 million could be avoided if global coverage of vaccinations improved,” WHO said.

A research article published in 1998 in a medical journal suggested a link between a vaccine and the development of autism (孤独症) in young children. Although the research has been suspected and many other studies have proved that vaccinations do not cause autism, the article is still impressing people strongly today. Another reason for the growth in the anti-vaccination movement is widespread misinformation on social media, which can turn people against vaccination.” If a concerned parent consistently sees information in their Newsfeed that casts doubt on the safety of vaccines, it could cause them to disregard the advice of their children’s physicians and public health experts and refuse to follow the recommended vaccination schedule. So access to true information about vaccine safety is badly needed.

9 . Close your eyes for a minute and imagine what life would be like if you had a hundred dollars less. Also imagine what it would be like spending the rest of your life with your eyes closed. Imagine having to read this page, not with your eyes but with your finger-tips.

With existing medical knowledge and skills, two-thirds of the world's 42 million, blind should not have to suffer. Unfortunately, rich countries possess most of this knowledge, while developing countries do not.

ORBIS is an international non-profit organization which operates the world's only flying teaching eye hospital. ORBIS intends to help fight blindness worldwide. Inside a DC-8 aircraft, there is a fully-equipped teaching hospital with television studio and classroom. Doctors are taught the latest techniques of bringing sight back to people there. Project ORBIS also aims at promoting peaceful cooperation among countries.

ORBIS tries to help developing countries by providing training during three-week medical programs. ORBIS has taught sight-saving techniques to over 3,000 doctors and nurses, who continue to cure tens of thousands of blind people every year. ORBIS has conducted 17 plan programs in China so far. For the seven to ten million blind in China ORBIS is planning to do more for them. At the moment an ORBIS is working on a long-term plan to develop a training center and to provide eye care service to Shanxi Province. ORBIS needs your help to continue their work and free people from blindness.

For just US$38, you can help one person see; for $380 you can bring sight to 10 people; $1,300 helps teach a doctor new skills; and for $13,000 you can provide a training program for a group of doctors who can make thousands of blind people see again. Your money can open their eyes to the world. Please help ORBIS improve the quality of life for so many people less fortunate than ourselves.

10 . Artificial intelligence (AI人工智能) technology may soon be a useful tool for doctors. It may help them better understand and treat diseases like breast cancer in ways that were never before possible.

Rishi Rawat teaches AI at the University of Southern California’s (USC) Clinical Science Center in Los Angeles. He is part of a team of scientists who are researching how AI and machine learning can more easily recognize cancerous growths in the breast. Rawat provides information about cancer cells to a computer. He says this data helps the machine learn. “You can put the data into them and they will learn the patterns and the pattern recognition that’s important to making decisions.”

David Agus is another USC researcher. He believes that “machines are not going to take the place of doctors.” “Computers will not treat patients, but they will help make certain decisions and look for things that the human brain can’t recognize these patterns by itself.”

Once a cancerous growth is removed, doctors still have to treat the patient to reduce the risk of cancer returning. The form of treatment depends on the kind of cancer. Currently, researchers take a thin piece of tissue (组织), put it on a small piece of glass and add color to better see the cells. That process could take days or even longer. Scientists say artificial intelligence can do something better than just count cells. Through machine learning, it can recognize complex patterns, or structures, and learn how the cells are organized.

The hope is that machines will soon be able to make a quick identification of cancer that is free of human mistakes. The University of Southern California researchers are now only studying breast cancer. But doctors predict artificial intelligence will one day make a difference in all forms of cancer.