Virus News and Research

Latest Virus News and Research

Experts share contingency plans to address increased COVID-19 cases in urban areas

In "Mobilization and Preparation of a Large Urban Academic Center During the COVID-19 Pandemic,"- published online in the Annals of the American Thoracic Society - experts from Philadelphia's Temple University Hospital share their contingency plans for meeting an increased demand for hospitalization, as well as their protocols and training plans to minimize health care staff exposure to COVID-19 and ensure proper active and reserve staffing.

22 Apr 2020

Convalescent plasma can be donated by COVID-19 survivors at Grifols’ donor centers

Grifols, a global healthcare company with a track record of more than 100 years and a recognized leader in the development and production of plasma-derived medicines, today announced it has begun identifying, screening and selecting volunteer donors who have recovered from COVID-19 to donate their plasma in select U.S. cities.

22 Apr 2020

New database of 14,000 known macrolactones could support drug discovery and research

Researchers from North Carolina State University and Collaborations Pharmaceuticals have created a free-to-use database of 14,000 known macrolactones - large molecules used in drug development - which contains information about the molecular characteristics, chemical diversity and biological activities of this structural class.

22 Apr 2020

Research offers clues to how SARS-CoV-2 gets into respiratory tissue and exploits our defenses

What makes SARS-CoV-2, the virus behind COVID-19, such a threat? A new study, led by Jose Ordovas-Montanes, Ph.D. at Boston Children's Hospital and Alex K. Shalek, Ph.D. at MIT, pinpoints the likely cell types the virus infects.

22 Apr 2020

Nanostics to create new blood test to forecast the severity of COVID-19 in patients

Nanostics Inc., a diagnostic healthcare company that focuses on developing tests to determine a patient's disease risk, announced today plans to develop and validate ClarityDX COVID-19; a simple blood test to predict the severity of COVID-19 disease in patients.

22 Apr 2020

Researchers design UV sterilization stations to kill coronavirus on any surface

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues into its second month across the U.S., supplies of personal protective equipment such as N95 masks and face shields continue to run low at many hospitals.

22 Apr 2020

Is hydroxychloroquine effective against COVID-19?

Following the emergence of a novel coronavirus in Wuhan, China, in the last month of 2019, it has spread globally to produce the first pandemic of the 21st century. The virus, called severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), has already affected over 2.5 million and killed more than 177,000 people as of April 22, 2020.

22 Apr 2020

Researchers are exploring potential therapy for controlling infectious diseases

The engineering of specific virus-targeting receptors onto a patient's own immune cells is now being explored by scientists from Duke-NUS Medical School (Duke-NUS), as a potential therapy for controlling infectious diseases, including the COVID-19-causing virus, SARS-CoV-2.

22 Apr 2020

P-BEST: Fast efficient COVID-19 virus testing before symptoms appear

A highly promising new study published on the preprint server medRxiv in April 2020 reports an efficient new method to conduct high-throughput testing of blood samples for the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) which is causing the rapidly spreading pandemic of COVID-19 disease throughout the world. The method could revolutionize the diagnosis of new cases before they become symptomatic.

22 Apr 2020

Using community memory to figure out the incubation period for COVID-19

The COVID-19 epidemic that began at the end of 2019 in China’s Wuhan city has now spread to over 185 countries and territories, taking over 177,000 lives out of approximately 2.5 million reported cases. Without either a vaccine or a reliable cure at hand, public health authorities are stretched to contain the virus spread.

22 Apr 2020

Online searches predict daily incidence, deaths due to COVID-19 in US

The pandemic COVID-19 has affected more than 825,000 people in the US, but the daily number of new cases and deaths is not precise. A new study published on the preprint server medRxiv in April 2020 reports that Internet search interest could be used as a means to predict the daily incidence of cases in the US, as was proved in China.

21 Apr 2020

A novel non-invasive ventilator for $75

Scientists have developed an easy-to-build, cost-effective, and non-invasive ventilator that works akin to commercial devices.

21 Apr 2020

PiCoVacc vaccine candidate for COVID-19 effective in animal trials

In a new study available on the bioRxiv preprint server, a group of researchers from China report on the pilot-scale production of a purified inactivated severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) virus vaccine candidate (PiCoVacc), shown to induce virus-specific neutralizing antibodies in rats, mice, and non-human primates.

21 Apr 2020

Modeling the spread and influence of COVID-19 in China

The rapid spread of the COVID-19 pandemic led Chinese researchers to model the course of the epidemic early in the year. Their study was published in the Journal of Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

21 Apr 2020

Researchers develop new 3D multicomponent dissolvable vaccine platform

In parallel to their current work on a potential coronavirus vaccine, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine have developed a new vaccine delivery system for vaccines using live or attenuated viral vectors: a finger-tip sized patch that contains 400 tiny needles, each just half of one millimeter.

21 Apr 2020

Immunity to coronavirus infection may help stem the pandemic

The raging coronavirus pandemic is causing immense fear and uncertainty across the world. One of the most distressing aspects of COVID-19 disease is the seemingly large number of unknowns. These include the burning question of immunity. Does a person who was sick with the COVID-19 and then recovered or was infected without symptoms, have immunity against re-infection?

21 Apr 2020

Difference between flu and novel coronavirus disease

Both influenza and COVID-19 disease are caused by infectious respiratory agents and cause symptoms that can look quite similar. Coronaviruses cause both. So, what’s the difference?

21 Apr 2020

USPTO grants patent to TAU scientist for innovative coronavirus vaccine design

Researchers worldwide are racing at breakneck speed to develop potential vaccines and drugs to fight the novel coronavirus, SARS-Cov-2.

21 Apr 2020

New consensus on managing AMI patients during COVID-19 released

The Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions, along with the American College of Cardiology and American College of Emergency Physicians have released a consensus statement that provides recommendations for a systematic approach for the care of patients with an acute myocardial infarction during the coronavirus disease-2019 pandemic.

21 Apr 2020

A new, potential treatment for nonalcoholic steatohepatitis with fibrosis

In the 2020 April 21 issue of Journal of Hepatology, a research group from the Department of Hepatology in Osaka City University Graduate School of Medicine, Japan reported that a new insight into the pathophysiology of human nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) with fibrosis and suggested a possibility of the new therapy using cytoglobin (CYGB) inducer for clinical application.

21 Apr 2020