news, journals and articles from all over the world.
A consortium of 12 health systems, led by UC San Diego Health, introduces COVID19questions.org, a site where clinicians, researchers, patients and the general public are invited to submit questions that could be answered by COVID-19 patient medical record data from 200+ hospitals.
The number of COVID-19 cases is surging in some regions and retreating in others, making consistent, reliable information and personalized guidance on the pandemic more important than ever.
A multi-layered, virus-specific immune response is important for controlling SARS-CoV-2 during the acute phase of the infection and reducing COVID-19 disease severity, with the bulk of the evidence pointing to a much bigger role for T cells than antibodies.
In a study published today, entitled Mapping Systemic Inflammation and Antibody Responses in Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children (MIS-C), researchers with the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai present the first comprehensive report of a systemic immune profiling of…
Sticky webs of DNA released from immune cells known as neutrophils may cause much of the tissue damage associated with severe COVID-19 infections, according to two new studies published September 14 in the Journal of Experimental Medicine (JEM). The research, conducted by independent groups in Belgium and Brazil, suggests that blocking the release of these DNA webs could be a new therapeutic target for the management of severe forms of COVID-19.
Today, California approved a new voluntary pilot program that uses Apple and Google smartphone technology to help rapidly control COVID-19 outbreaks. The program will launch on the campus of UC San Diego for any students and employees who opt in.
UNC School of Medicine researchers took striking images of the SARS-CoV-2 virus produced by infected respiratory epithelial cells inside human respiratory tract cultures. The New England Journal of Medicine featured this work in its “Images in Medicine” section.
A study released by Houston Methodist Sept. 10 in the Journal of Clinical Investigation takes researchers closer to developing a uniform, universal COVID-19 antibody test. The multicenter collaboration tested alternative ways to measure COVID-19 antibody levels that’s faster, easier and can inexpensively be used on a larger scale to accurately identify potential donors for plasma therapy with the best chance of helping patients infected with SARS-CoV-2.
Using public transportation, visiting a place of worship, or otherwise traveling from the home is associated with a significantly higher likelihood of testing positive with the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, while practicing strict social distancing is associated with a markedly lower likelihood.
The Weizmann Institute of Science and the Israel Institute for Biological Research took a new approach to fighting COVID: tracing the contacts between the virus’s genetic material and the cells’ protein-producing machinery. This could lead to better diagnostics and new treatments, as well as help clarify why COVID is so skilled in the process of infection.
The University of New Hampshire is testing students for the coronavirus in a newly created cutting-edge laboratory located on the Durham campus using self-swabbing home kits developed at UNH. The lab is exclusively testing for COVID-19 and will play a key role in the university’s commitment to extensively monitor the student population and quickly identify and prevent any spread of the virus and help provide a safe environment for students, faculty, staff and the community.
Researchers at ORNL are using neutron scattering at the Spallation Neutron Source to better understand how spike proteins help the COVID-19 virus infect human cells and what drugs could be effective in stopping them.
Researchers in France have discovered that patients suffering from severe COVID-19 show changes in a class of immune cells known as unconventional T cells. The study, published today in the Journal of Experimental Medicine (JEM), suggests that monitoring the activity of these cells in the blood of patients could predict the severity and course of the disease.
Significance of paperThis paper authored by a group of scientists from the Center for Global Infectious Disease Research at Seattle Children’s Research Institute presents a promising concept for disrupting the life cycle of a virus using synthetic lethality. When viruses infect…
The FDA just revoked their EUA for intubation boxes – plastic shields that supposedly protect health care workers from becoming infected with SARS-CoV-2 – due to concerns over aerosol leaks. This study describes a better box, with negative pressure and filtration, that contains airborne virus.
UC San Diego Health will be part of the Phase III national AstraZeneca clinical trial that will recruit up to 30,000 participants at multiple sites across the country to assess the safety and efficacy of a vaccine to prevent COVID-19.
It has been hypothesized that SARS-CoV2 spread among people via droplets that come from the nose and mouth or through contact with contaminated objects and surfaces. Researchers at Rutgers Cancer Institute found that environmental surface testing at the center’s Radiation Oncology Department located within Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital, an RWJBarnabas Health facility, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in the state showed no detectable SARS-CoV2 – the virus that causes COVID-19.
Announcement of University Hospitals plans to participate as a site for the Phase 2/3 global study sponsored by Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE) and BioNTech SE (Nasdaq: BNTX, “BioNTech”) of an investigational vaccine, BNT162b2, against SARS-CoV-2.
Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have developed a vaccine that targets the SARS-CoV-2 virus, can be given in one dose via the nose and is effective in preventing infection in mice susceptible to the novel coronavirus. The investigators next plan to test the vaccine in nonhuman primates and humans to see if it is safe and effective in preventing COVID-19 infection.
In a prospectus review published this week in the Journal of Molecular and Cellular Cardiology, Kirk U. Knowlton MD, from the Intermountain Healthcare Heart Institute in Salt Lake City, examined more than 100 published studies related to COVID-19 and its effects on the heart.
A team led by Anne Rimoin, UCLA Fielding School of Public Health professor of epidemiology, has just launched an epidemiologic study of animal health care and welfare workers who may be at risk from COVID-19.
Scientists at Johns Hopkins Medicine, experimenting with a small number of human cell samples, report that the “hook” of cells used by SARS-CoV-2 to latch onto and infect cells is up to 700 times more prevalent in the olfactory supporting cells lining the inside of the upper part of the nose than in the lining cells of the rest of the nose and windpipe that leads to the lungs. These supporting cells are necessary for the function/development of odor-sensing cells. The findings, from a preliminary study of cells lining both the nose and trachea, could advance the search for the best target for topical or local antiviral drugs to treat COVID-19, and offers further clues into why people with the virus sometimes lose their sense of smell.
A recent study by researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine suggests transmission of COVID-19 through breast milk is not likely. The infectious virus was not detected in 64 samples of breast milk tested.
A drug normally used in rheumatoid arthritis and cancer treatments, tocilizumab, improves hospital survival in critically-ill patients admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU), according to findings published in The Lancet Rheumatology.
Identifying the genetic mechanisms through which the new coronavirus enters and infects cells can help scientists combat COVID-19—and perhaps other emerging viruses.
Researchers at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have invented an emergency ventilator that could help save the lives of patients suffering from COVID-19, the disease caused by novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2.
Telemedicine for epilepsy care is more popular than ever. It has many advantages—but can it sustain itself into the future?
Previously, scientists have determined that entry of SARS-CoV-2 into cells occurs through a receptor on the cell surface, known as ACE2. But the McMaster-Waterloo team has found that the ACE2 receptor is at very low levels in human lung tissue.
Previously, scientists have determined that entry of SARS-CoV-2 into cells occurs through a receptor on the cell surface, known as ACE2. But the McMaster-Waterloo team has found that the ACE2 receptor is at very low levels in human lung tissue.
In the first large, multicenter analysis of its kind, the 40-hospital UPMC health system today reported its findings on clinician-directed retesting of patients for presence of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
The National Institutes of Health will soon launch a phase II clinical trial to evaluate the safety and efficacy of potential new therapeutics for COVID-19, including the use of investigational synthetic monoclonal antibodies. Davey Smith of UC San Diego is the protocol chair and answers questions.
Researchers at Yale University School of Medicine have developed a new mouse model to study SARS-CoV-2 infection and disease and to accelerate testing of novel treatments and vaccines against the novel coronavirus. The study, published today in the Journal of Experimental Medicine (JEM), also suggests that, rather than protecting the lungs, key antiviral signaling proteins may actually cause much of the tissue damage associated with COVID-19.
Johns Hopkins researchers have received $35 million in funding from the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Defense (JPEO-CBRND), on behalf of the Defense Health Agency, for two nationwide clinical trials to test the effectiveness of a convalescent blood plasma outpatient treatment. The treatment is a transfusion of a blood product from COVID-19 survivors that contains antibodies that may help the patient’s immune system fight the virus.
University of Kentucky virologist Rebecca Dutch answers key questions about SARS-CoV-2 and the coronavirus pandemic.
A Nature study authored by a global team of scientists and led by Sumit Chanda, Ph.D., professor at Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute, has identified 21 existing drugs that stop the replication of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
UC San Diego Health and the Altman Clinical and Translational Research Institute will be sites for an accelerated national clinical trial to assess the efficacy and immunogenicity of a vaccine intended to protect against SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.
Recent animal experiments showed that LEAPS COVID 19 conjugates induced faster and much higher than expected antibody responses against a non-mutating region of the virus that causes COVID 19, after only one injection.
In a test of antiviral effectiveness against the virus that causes COVID-19, an extract from edible seaweeds substantially outperformed remdesivir, the current standard antiviral used to combat the disease. The research is the latest example of a decoy strategy researchers at Rensselear Polytechnic Institute are developing against viruses like the novel coronavirus that spawned the current global health crisis.
As we continue to grapple with the global pandemic, rising summer temperatures and wildfire season pose new challenges to our lung health. A team of pulmonologists and researchers at UC San Diego Health offer a wide variety of expertise and…
A new study led by Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Montefiore Health System confirms the findings of the large scale British trial of steroid use for COVID-19 patients and advances the research by answering several key questions: Which patients are most likely to benefit from steroid therapy? Could some of them be harmed? Can other formulations of steroids substitute for the agent studied in the British trial? The research was published today in the Journal of Hospital Medicine.
A study by UCLA researchers shows that in people with mild cases of COVID-19, antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 — the virus that causes the disease — drop sharply over the first three months after infection, decreasing by roughly half every 73 days. If sustained at that rate, the antibodies would disappear within about a year.
Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have created a virus that infects cells and interacts with antibodies just like the COVID-19 virus, but lacks the ability to cause severe disease. This safer virus makes it possible for scientists who do not have access to high-level biosafety facilities to join the effort to find drugs or vaccines for COVID-19.
Researchers at the George Washington University and Albert Einstein College of Medicine published a review in the journal Nitric Oxide suggesting that nitric oxide treatment can be pivotal in the fight against SARS-CoV-2.
With a full campus reopening scheduled for August 19, Tulane University is moving forward with the return of on-ground university operations and academics.
Researchers at The Rockefeller University in New York have developed new tools to rapidly test the ability of antibodies to neutralize SARS-CoV-2, the novel coronavirus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic. The approach, described today in the Journal of Experimental Medicine (JEM), will help researchers understand whether patients are susceptible to reinfection by SARS-CoV-2 and assess the effectiveness of experimental vaccines, as well as develop antibody-based therapies against the disease.
Senior Author: Ash Tewari, MBBS, MCh, Chair of the Department of Urology at the Mount Sinai Health System, Professor, Urology, Oncological Sciences, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai First Author: Dimple Chakravarty, PhD, Assistant Professor, Urology, Icahn School of Medicine…
Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute has received an award from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) to advance promising drug candidates for COVID-19. The research team will test two existing drugs against “mini lungs in a dish” that have been infected with SARS-CoV-2.
Timothy Albertson has received a BARDA grant to lead a new clinical trial at UC Davis Health. The trial evaluates the efficacy, safety and tolerability of an antibody cocktail in hospitalized adult patients with COVID-19.
Research from the Mount Sinai Health System, just posted to pre-print server MedRxiv (https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.14.20151126v1), shows that the vast majority (more than 90%) of infected individuals with mild-to-moderate COVID 19 experience robust IgG antibody responses against the viral spike protein. The researchers also show…
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) announces its most recent awards and appointments for the institution’s physicians, scientists, nurses, and staff.
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