The ISSP UL’s Deputy Director for Innovation Andris Anspoks participated in a TV program “Nauda runā” (Money Speaks) broadcasted on ReTV and internet portal TVNET. The program was devoted to discussion about the origin of Covid-19, vaccines, medication and future prospects. The program Other participants of the program were Pauls Stradiņš Clinical University Hospital Department of Infection Control and Surveillance Director, infectologist Uga Dumpis and researcher of the Latvian Biomedical Research and Study Center, Chairman of the Scientific Council Jānis Kloviņš.
During the program, Andris Anspoks referred to the research carried out at the ISSP UL’ s Laboratory of Prototyping of Electronic and Photonic Devices, which was established within the scope and with the support of CAMART2 project and has proved to be a successful interdisciplinary and international laboratory. He said "As physicists, technologists who do physical things, we met biologists and realized that we could create common things by speeding up the process. Any medication - medicine or vaccine - must be tested. This is usually done on animals or humans. However, there is a third possibility - to grow the cells of sick and healthy people, which look like the whole organ (so called “organ-on-a-chip”). And that way we can test drugs and vaccines on diseased cells and see how they will affect healthy cells. It’s a way for technology to meet biology, chemistry and medicine.”
Anspoks also addressed the issue of trust in science "The key is to trust science. Scientists are professionals. Academic freedom in science is of the utmost importance. Scientists are free in their expression, and they review each other’s work, argue. It would be strange for people to research something for centuries, and then suddenly someone in "google" finds subversive arguments within ten minutes. The question is what those arguments are and why they are there.” He also added that people had to believe in science as it has made the life we know and enjoy possible.
ReTV is one of the five television channels available free of charge throughout Latvia. ReTV offers news, educational and entertaining content. The goal of the channel ReTV is to become the primary source in the regional news segment, covering news from all regions of Latvia.
The program “Nauda runā” broadcasted on ReTV and the portal TVNET discusses the most topical issues in Latvia. The show is hosted by Professor Arnis Sauka from the Stockholm School of Economics in Riga.
The program available from https://www.tvnet.lv/7342191/cina-pret-covid-19-neviens-medikaments-neaizstas-vakcinas
