Chimpanzee News and Research

RSS

AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine trial paused due to suspected adverse reaction

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic is rippling across the globe, with over 27.47 million reported cases. With the vast spread of the virus, scientists are racing to gain the approval of candidate vaccines against the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the causative agent of COVID-19 disease and Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children (MIS-C).

8 Sep 2020

Italy starts human trials of potential COVID-19 vaccine

Rome's Lazzaro Spallanzani Institute, a hospital specializing in infectious diseases will conduct trials on 90 volunteers in the coming weeks, joining a global effort to develop an immune response to the virus.

25 Aug 2020

Single dose nasal vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 shows promise in animal studies

Now researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have worked on developing a candidate vaccine against the infection that could be administered in a single dose via a nasal spray rather than an injection. In their preliminary studies using lab mice, this single dose of the nasal vaccine successfully prevented the infection with the novel coronavirus.

24 Aug 2020

Oxford University and AstraZeneca vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 safe and induces immune response

Promising early stage results from a phase 1/2 clinical trial of the UK's vaccine candidate against SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) are published today in The Lancet.

20 Jul 2020

Silver strands and graying hair are not signs of aging in chimpanzees

Silver strands and graying hair is a sign of aging in humans, but things aren't so simple for our closest ape relatives--the chimpanzee. A new study published today in the journal PLOS ONE by researchers at the George Washington University found graying hair is not indicative of a chimpanzee's age.

15 Jul 2020

Experts discover a rare heart bone in chimpanzees

Experts from the University of Nottingham have discovered that some chimpanzees have a bone in their heart, which could be vital in managing their health and conservation.

10 Jun 2020

Designing a prototype spike protein vaccine for SARS-CoV-2

A recent study published on the preprint server bioRxiv in June 2020 reports the development of a prototype vaccine containing multiple antigenic sites, based on the spike protein of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) that is causing the current COVID-19 pandemic. If successful, this could lead to the development of an effective, non-allergenic vaccine that induces both humoral and cellular immunity.

4 Jun 2020

A vectored vaccine candidate against SARS-CoV-2

The current pandemic of COVID-19 is caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), a betacoronavirus similar to that which caused the SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV earlier. Scientists are pursuing therapeutic drugs and vaccines to counter the relentless spread of the virus, but so far, none has been established to be effective. However, several are in clinical trials in various parts of the world.

2 Jun 2020

Chimpanzee communication provides clues to human speech-rhythm evolution

One of the most promising theories for the evolution of human speech has finally received support from chimpanzee communication, in a study conducted by a group of researchers led by the University of Warwick.

27 May 2020

Oxford University vaccine prevents SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia in rhesus macaques

As the world continues to grapple with the coronavirus pandemic, many scientists, institutions, and pharmaceutical companies are working hard to develop an effective vaccine.

18 May 2020

Study: Regulatory switches involved in knee development also play a role in osteoarthritis

The human knee is a triumph of design. The joint, which evolved fairly rapidly from our common ancestor with the chimpanzee to accommodate our bipedalism, likely contributed to our success as a species.

8 Apr 2020

Study highlights a new way to identify antibiotic resistance genes

Apes in U.S. zoos host bacterial communities in their intestinal tracts that are more similar to those of people who eat a non-Western diet than to the gut makeup of their wild ape cousins, according to a new study from Washington University in St. Louis.

7 Apr 2020

Tiger with SARS-CoV-2 infection demostrates reverse zoonosis

Some viruses come from animals and jump to humans to cause disease. In the case of the novel coronavirus, now known as the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), it is thought to have come from bats, jumped to an intermediate animal host, and then onto humans. But can the virus leap from humans to other animals?

6 Apr 2020

Altruism may begin in infancy

A new study published in February 2020 n the open-access journal Scientific Reports, from the Nature Publishing group, reports that altruism may be born rather than cultivated in human beings. The study was carried out by researchers at the University of Washington's Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences, or I-LABS, and centers around the act of giving food away sacrificially.

4 Feb 2020

GlobalData: China can use the lessons learnt from SARS epidemic to control Wuhan coronavirus

Following the news that cases of people infected with the Wuhan coronavirus rose to more than 270 laboratory-confirmed cases and the virus may spread from human-to-human.

22 Jan 2020

Study on chimpanzees shows maternal presence, maternal social status can impact offspring

The prolonged periods of juvenility and nutritional dependence that are characteristic of human development are thought to facilitate brain and somatic growth in children, as well as provide opportunities to learn and accumulate skills required for a productive adult life. In chimpanzees, the benefits of continuing to associate with mothers after becoming nutritionally independent are less well understood.

7 Jan 2020

Competition between groups has negative effects on wild chimpanzees' reproductive success

Both species, humans and chimpanzees, can be extremely territorial, and territorial disputes between groups can turn violent, with individuals killing each other. In humans, such between-group competition can escalate to war and devastating loss of human life.

3 Jan 2020

Wild polio virus strain 3 finally conquered say scientists

World Polio day is observed on the 24th of October. This year on the day officials announced that one of the three strains of the wild polio virus has been finally wiped out due to persistent vaccination efforts across the globe.

26 Oct 2019

Improved mapping of genomes from 1,000 Swedish individuals

In so-called whole genome sequencing, surveys are made of the total genome of an individual. It is still relatively rare in healthcare today, but it occurs at an increasing rate, for example in order to make an accurate diagnosis in the case of a rare disease.

25 Sep 2019

Study uncovers new DNA sequences in Swedish genomes

People - or more specifically just Swedes - are more like chimpanzees than previously known. This is indicated in a genetic mapping of one thousand Swedish individuals, where new DNA sequences that should be included in the reference genome have been identified.

24 Sep 2019