Recruits who have survived COVID-19 are disqualified from joining up.
Category: biotech/medical
“Vaccines have to be given a month or two before infection to provide protection,” McLellan said in the statement. “With antibody therapies, you’re directly giving somebody the protective antibodies and so, immediately after treatment, they should be protected.”
“The antibodies could also be used to treat somebody who is already sick to lessen the severity of the disease,” McLellan added.
“There is still a lot of work to do to try to bring this into the clinic,” Xavier Saelens, a molecular virologist at Ghent University in Belgium and co-author, told the Times. “If it works, llama Winter deserves a statue.”
A team of researchers from Los Alamos National Laboratory, Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS and the Duke Human Vaccine Institute and Department of Surgery has found 14 mutations to the SARS-CoV-2 virus, one of which they suspect might be more easily spread. In the interest of speedy dissemination of findings, the group has uploaded their paper to the bioRxiv preprint server rather than waiting for peer review at another journal.
The work involved analyzing the genomes of the virus found in 6,000 infected people from around the globe. They focused most specifically on the virus genes that are responsible for producing the “spike protein,” which is the mechanism the virus uses to attach to human cells. In so doing, they found 14 mutations, but one they named D614G (also known as G614) stood out because it was found in almost all samples outside of China. It was also particularly notable because it appeared to replace a prior mutation called D614. They also noted that in the original outbreak in China, there were only D614 mutations. It was only after the virus began appearing in Europe that the G614 mutation emerged. They suggest that the fact that the G614 virus took over from the prior mutation could mean it is more easily spread.
If this is viable, this will cut the cost of healthcare dramatically, and improve billions of lives over the centuries.
Despite being fed high-fat diets, a study reveals that by blocking macrophages or inflammatory cells, low-grade inflammation related to obesity could also be controlled. Click the link above to learn more.
“Magufuli, who holds a doctorate in chemistry, said the testers had randomly obtained several non-human samples on animals and fruits which included a sheep, a goat and a pawpaw and the results came out positive. The samples were given human names and ages and were submitted to the country’s National Referral Laboratory to test for coronavirus without the lab technicians knowing the true identity of the samples.”
Tanzania president John Magufuli is under mounting pressure from concerns around coronavirus.
Broad-spectrum antivirals are desirable, particularly in the context of emerging zoonotic infections for which specific interventions do not yet exist. Sheahan et al. tested the potential of a ribonucleoside analog previously shown to be active against other RNA viruses such as influenza and Ebola virus to combat coronaviruses. This drug was effective in cell lines and primary human airway epithelial cultures against multiple coronaviruses including SARS-CoV-2. Mouse models of SARS and MERS demonstrated that early treatment reduced viral replication and damage to the lungs. Mechanistically, this drug is incorporated into the viral RNA, inducing mutations and eventually leading to error catastrophe in the virus. In this manner, inducing catastrophe could help avoid catastrophe by stemming the next pandemic.
Coronaviruses (CoVs) traffic frequently between species resulting in novel disease outbreaks, most recently exemplified by the newly emerged SARS-CoV-2, the causative agent of COVID-19. Here, we show that the ribonucleoside analog β-d-N4-hydroxycytidine (NHC; EIDD-1931) has broad-spectrum antiviral activity against SARS-CoV-2, MERS-CoV, SARS-CoV, and related zoonotic group 2b or 2c bat-CoVs, as well as increased potency against a CoV bearing resistance mutations to the nucleoside analog inhibitor remdesivir. In mice infected with SARS-CoV or MERS-CoV, both prophylactic and therapeutic administration of EIDD-2801, an orally bioavailable NHC prodrug (β-d-N4-hydroxycytidine-5′-isopropyl ester), improved pulmonary function and reduced virus titer and body weight loss. Decreased MERS-CoV yields in vitro and in vivo were associated with increased transition mutation frequency in viral, but not host cell RNA, supporting a mechanism of lethal mutagenesis in CoV.
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) presents with a broad clinical spectrum, varying from asymptomatic infection to severe pneumonitis, leading to acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and death(Guan, et al 2020). Accumulating evidence suggests that in severe COVID-19, an acute hyperinflammatory syndrome characterised by fever, hypoxia and increased serum inflammatory markers, occurring 5–10 days from the first symptoms, is the major driver of morbidity and death(Zhou, et al 2020b). Hyperinflammation is not specific to COVID-19. Similar syndromes were previously described in respiratory disease associated with other coronaviruses, including the severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus (SARS-CoV) in 2003 and Middle East respiratory syndrome-coronavirus (MERS-CoV) in 2012(Castilletti, et al 2005, Tseng, et al 2005).
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I shared about this startup in January, now it’s hitting US Markets. The Israeli startup Sonovia, which sped up efforts to manufacture masks using its anti-pathogen fabric at the start of the coronavirus crisis in Israel, has launched commercial sales.
“When coronavirus started, we were an Israeli startup,” Dr. Jason Migdal, a research scientist with Sonovia, told The Jerusalem Post. “Now, we are a commercial business that is having success internationally.”
Sonovia developed an almost-permanent, ultrasonic, fabric-finishing technology for mechanical impregnation of zinc oxide nanoparticles into textiles.
“The technology is based upon a physical phenomenon called cavitation,” said Migdal. “Sound waves are used to physically infuse desired chemicals onto the structure area of materials, enhancing them with clinically proven antiviral and antibacterial properties.”
As if this contagion movie we are living can not get any more strange. A University of Pittsburgh researcher who claimed to have been on the verge of a significant breakthrough in his research on the coronavirus was killed in what appears to me a murder-suicide…
While police are treating the death as a homicide, they have yet to find any evidence that it was related to his research.
Others believe it is the same Kim saying he only looks different because he has had plastic surgery.
And, to add to the mystery, the claims come as the North Korean leader missed yet another high-profile event.
He was noticeably absent as Russia awarded him a medal to mark the 75th anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany.