What's important to know about COVID
Understanding COVID With Margaretta Colangelo
“The COVID-19 pandemic is a complex system involving biology, human behavior, companies, and governments, and it’s influenced by healthcare, economics, governance, and geopolitics.”
and by the next day, over 50 million people in China were in lockdown. This was unprecedented.
Nothing on this scale had ever happened before. Over the next few days,
I became very interested in the scientific literature on COVID-19.” — Margaretta Colangelo
Tom Green, Publisher
Introducing Margaretta Colangelo
The amount, frequency, and quality of COVID research data, papers, studies, information, and news, coming from Margaretta Colangelo is nothing short of extraordinary. Seemingly, not an hour goes by without her posting something very cool to our LinkedIn network. She’s become my go-to source for everything COVID.
I thought she was just a very brainy woman in a high tower using powerful binoculars to survey the worldwide COVID landscape and then reporting on what she saw to the rest of us. I thought she had her minions on lower levels running around doing her research and then handing over their findings to her, which she would then post with us.
I was wrong. Amazingly, she produces every bit of it herself!
The woman must never sleep! I told her that if there was a Nobel Prize for excellence in producing and sharing COVID knowledge, she’d win, hands down. In fact, Stockholm should probably make note of her just in case.
She’s at her best when illuminating the intersection of artificial intelligence and COVID. Fascinating how she takes the different threads of research to create an amazing picture of this super-deadly virus in all of its subtle, killing ways and disguises, and how science, like some great global COVID posse, is chasing it down. Robotics and automation tech have become necessary allies throughout the great chase.
Collectively, her postings are like a new-age version of Paul de Kruif’s Microbe Hunters—remember that classic book? Margaretta’s, however, are not stories written in hindsight; hers are happening in the here and now, and she takes us along on the hunt.
So, who the hell is this tireless brainiac?
Well, Margaretta Colangelo is co-founder and managing director of the Deep Knowledge Group; and in her spare time produces content for her own eponymous website as well.
We first met Margaretta last year when she offered us her article, which became our AI Goes Where AI Has Never Gone Before. It was enormously popular with our readership. We began following her soon thereafter, and she’s sent us a ton of research since.
Insilico’s Brave New World
AI Goes Where AI Has Never Gone Before
Artificial Intelligence (AI)—in a first-ever—has designed and validated a new drug candidate in days.
In her DeepTech article, Where Engineering Meets Deep Science , she describes her first encounter with COVID.
“I remember what I did on Monday January 20th because it was Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Since it was a national holiday, I spent most of the day in a cafe in Honolulu, where I live, reading about the events that were unfolding in China. I remember being stunned by what was happening in Wuhan.
“I remember feeling concerned and uninformed. On January 23rd, China locked down 11.8 million people in Wuhan, and by the next day, over 50 million people in China were in lockdown. This was unprecedented. Nothing on this scale had ever happened before.
“Over the next few days I became very interested in the scientific literature on COVID-19. Since then, I have sifted through COVID-19 research every morning to find the most high-quality and relevant research. I typically read, summarize, and share one or two COVID-19 papers every day. Over the past six months I have shared summaries of about 400 papers.
“In March I shared 70 of my top posts in an article entitled How Scientists Are Using AI and Data Science to Fight COVID-19.
“This article includes stats on COVID-19 research over the past six months. Following the stats are highlights from 40 research papers that I shared in July 2020.”
She had me at “café in Honolulu.” But then again, I’m easy.
Imagine Margaretta in that café reading news reports and wondering what the heck was happening to a city full of people in Wuhan, over five thousand miles distant. Before she exits the café, she’s taken on a mission.
From January onward, she’s been relentlessly cranking out COVID-19 news and tech updates, plus insights into the hunt for a cure; and we’ve been the recipient of some wonderful AI material that neatly intersects with our mission of robotics, automation, and people.
Margaretta’s piece in Forbes (April 2020) Deep Analysis Of Global Pandemic Data Reveals Important Insights outlines a large part of her mission, and why she took it on…and why she persists at it so relentlessly.
“A massive amount of data about the pandemic is generated every day,” she writes. “Although organizations such as WHO, CDC, Johns Hopkins University, and Worldometers are disseminating important statistics daily, the data is not analyzed in an efficient way to provide insights. The COVID-19 pandemic is a complex system involving biology, human behavior, companies, and governments, and it’s influenced by healthcare, economics, governance, and geopolitics.
“Sophisticated analytical methods could help improve economic, societal, and geopolitical stability. Deep Knowledge Group has developed advanced analytical frameworks to analyze this data. The results are presented in the form of open source country rankings to help people and governments make informed decisions that maximize beneficial outcomes for humanity.”
Margaretta feels that she is necessary and that she matters.
Indeed, she’s definitely very necessary; and the work that pours out of her matters a helluva lot to a world scared to death of living in constant fear of plague.
She’s amazing. You should check her out.