Disease/Infection News

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Discovery of potent neutralizing antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 variants

In a recent study, the researchers identify and characterize mAbs that are effective against the wild-type SARS-CoV-2 strain and B.1.351 variant.

8 Nov 2021

Hemin as a potential therapy for COVID-19

The current study explores the antiviral activity of HO-1 induced by hemin against SARS-CoV-2 and attempts to describe the mechanism of its anti-viral action.

8 Nov 2021

SARS-CoV-2 Nsp1 deletions affect protein stability and translation inhibition

A new study discusses the purification of various Nsp1 proteins isolated from several mutated variants of SARS-CoV-2.

8 Nov 2021

Study compares efficacy of BNT162b2 and CoronaVac as the booster dose for COVID-19 vaccination

A recent study reports the immunogenicity and safety of BNT162b2 and CoronaVac as the third dose in CoronaVac-immunized adults.

8 Nov 2021

Household transmission of SARS-CoV-2 delta variant in England

Researchers from Public Health England have been investigating how one of the most dangerous variants, the Delta variant, spreads within households in England.

8 Nov 2021

What are the anti-COVID drugs currently in development?

The first antiviral drugs effective against COVID-19 were recently approved in the UK and USA. A researcher from the Laboratory of Gene Technology has been exploring what we know so far.

8 Nov 2021

Vaccine effectiveness of BNT162b2 third dose against COVID-19

A group of researchers from Maccabi Healthcare Services performed a retrospective cohort study to determine vaccine effectiveness of a third dose.

8 Nov 2021

Ad26.COV2.S vaccine effectiveness for preventing COVID-19

A group of multi-national researchers has expanded on previous research to conduct a preliminary evaluation of the effectiveness of the Ad26.COV2.S vaccine via HER data.

8 Nov 2021

Study finds SARS-CoV-2 infection of endothelial cells unlikely

Researchers from the University of Queensland have investigated whether infection of endothelial cells with SARS-CoV-2 is possible.

8 Nov 2021

Conspiracists during the COVID-19 pandemic

A researcher from the University of Pennsylvania has commented on how conspiracy theories misrepresent scientific data and advice.

8 Nov 2021

Identification of a candidate effector gene at COVID-19 risk locus

A new study focuses on developing a comprehensive platform to decode the effects of sequence variation identified by GWAS.

8 Nov 2021

COVID-19 vaccination and deaths amongst US veterans

A new study studies the vaccine effectiveness and death in the Veterans Health Administration.

8 Nov 2021

A review of antigen-detecting rapid diagnostic tests for COVID-19

Scientists conducted a systematic review of the use cases and performance of Ag-RDTs for detecting SARS-CoV-2.

8 Nov 2021

Reproduction number of COVID-19 in Africa

Scientists used a SEIR model and a Bayesian inference framework to estimate the basic reproduction number of COVID-19 across Africa.

8 Nov 2021

Study looks at how lupus genetics intersects with COVID-19

The study “Interferon pathway lupus risk alleles modulate risk of death from acute COVID-19” was recently published on the preprint medRxiv* server.

8 Nov 2021

Georgia study finds increase in pediatric COVID-19 cases

Led by Sarita Shah of Emory University, a new study shows low COVID-19 testing in children, suggesting the results are an underestimation of the true burden of disease.

8 Nov 2021

Researchers explain why decaying SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in blood are not a problem after vaccination

A new study published in the preprint bioRxiv* server suggests vaccination helps to inflate the number of somatic hypermutations acquired by B cells. The increase in somatic hypermutations allows for an accumulation of highly matured bone marrow plasma cells.

8 Nov 2021

Pacific oyster shows antiviral activity against human coronavirus HCoV-229E

Not only are Pacific oysters (Crassostrea gigas) a seafood delicacy, but they may also be key for helping scientists figure out how to stop the spread of coronaviruses.

7 Nov 2021

Rapid antibody response induced by mRNA COVID vaccines in mice

A new study posted in the bioRxiv* preprint server used mouse models to investigate how mRNA vaccines elicit a rapid antibody response. Their findings show two different mRNA vaccines successfully boost antibody levels — IL-5, IL-6, and MCP-1 —5 days after administration.

7 Nov 2021

Highly-sensitive PCR-based method to detect SARS-CoV-2 variants

A team of UK-based scientists has recently developed an allele-specific probe polymerase chain reaction method that can accurately detect different variants/lineages of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in respiratory samples. Furthermore, the method can detect viral variants even in samples with low viral RNA or degraded viral RNA. The study is currently available on the medRxiv* preprint server.

7 Nov 2021