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UM researchers awarded $2.5 million to develop COVID-19 vaccine candidate

Researchers in the Center for Translational Medicine at the University of Montana have been awarded $2.5 million in funding from the National Institutes of Health to identify and advance a COVID-19 vaccine candidate.

24 Apr 2020

Sweden may reach ‘herd immunity’ in weeks as the country resists total lockdown

Herd immunity is a form of indirect protection against infectious diseases where a population develops sufficient immunity to a disease that that infection cannot spread within the group. A population can reach herd immunity if a large proportion has been exposed to the virus. Now, Sweden resisted total lockdown measures, unlike its neighboring countries, while experts believe herd immunity will be achieved in Stockholm within weeks.

24 Apr 2020

KHN’s ‘What the Health?’: Whom do we trust for COVID info?

Congress is approving still more money to address the health and economic fallout of the ongoing novel coronavirus pandemic.

23 Apr 2020

Anti-SARS-CoV-2 / COVID-19 antibody: In stock and new formats

In mid-March, we announced the availability of an anti-coronavirus antibody shown to recognize SARS-CoV-2 (also referred to as 2019-nCoV or COVID-19). The anti-SARS clone, CR3022, was first described in 2006, and in early 2020, researchers showed the clone has high affinity for the then-termed 2019-nCoV. Scientists worldwide are now exploring this antibody as a candidate for mono- as well as combination-therapy development.

From Absolute Antibody Ltd 23 Apr 2020

Using 'own' immune cells to fight infectious diseases including COVID-19

A provocative paper from Duke-NUS Medical School, published in the Journal of Experimental Medicine in March 2020, discusses the possibilities of creating new receptors on a sick person's own immune cells as a means of controlling the infection. This therapy is already being used to treat certain cancers with marked success.

22 Apr 2020

Hyperferritinemia associated with increased illness severity in COVID-19

Yehuda Shoenfeld is the world's leading expert in the research, treatment and prevention of autoimmune diseases.

22 Apr 2020

Study identifies a promising new strategy for combating malaria

Researchers have discovered a promising new strategy for combating malaria, a mosquito-borne parasite that claims nearly a half-million lives each year.

22 Apr 2020

Have we found a new malaria vaccine?

A new study published in the journal Nature in April 2020 reports on a malaria protein antibody that appears to protect resistant children from severe disease, showing promise in the fight against malaria, a new study found. Almost 500,000 people die of malaria every year.

22 Apr 2020

Emergex partners with George Mason University for highly pathogenic RNA virus studies

Emergex Vaccines Holding Limited, a biotechnology company developing CD8+ priming set-point vaccines to prevent serious infectious diseases, today announced that it has entered into an agreement with the George Mason University, based in Virginia, in the United States.

22 Apr 2020

Accelerating Antibody Discovery with Next-Generation Single-Cell Analysis

Accelerating antibody discovery using picodroplet technology for single cell analysis to condense discovery times down to 1-2 days.

From Fluidic Sciences and Sphere Bio 22 Apr 2020

Nanoengineers are using plant virus to develop COVID-19 vaccine

Nanoengineers at the University of California San Diego are working on a COVID-19 vaccine using an unconventional candidate: a plant virus.

22 Apr 2020

Study reveals surprising findings on gene involved in human pregnancy

From an evolutionary perspective, human pregnancy is quite strange, says University at Buffalo biologist Vincent Lynch.

22 Apr 2020

New findings could make immunotherapy treatments effective for more cancer patients

Scientists have developed a new way to map the molecules on tumour cells that flag their presence to the immune system, according to a study published today in eLife.

22 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

Study shows how tumor cells respond to lack of nutrients

Some solid tumors have a very high growth rate, which often leads to a lack of vascularization due to the impossibility to develop, at the same time, the blood vessels that accompany and nourish it.

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

Does high COVID-19 viral load mean more risk of infection?

The risk of getting infected with COVID-19 disease is higher among healthcare workers who are in close contact with infected patients

21 Apr 2020

Antibody detection for COVID-19 - promise and risks

Recently, several research groups emphasized how the pervasive screening for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) antibodies may prove pivotal in determining infection seroprevalence in a given population defining previous exposure, screening health care workers, but also identifying highly reactive individuals that may act as donors for the therapeutic use of their convalescent serum.

20 Apr 2020

Penn Medicine launches convalescent plasma therapy trial for COVID-19 patients

Convalescent plasma therapy for COVID-19 patients -- an experimental approach of giving a transfusion of plasma collected from a donor who has recovered from COVID-19 to a patient with an active infection -- is the focus of a new two-part research initiative at Penn Medicine.

20 Apr 2020

Study adds increasing evidence that autoimmunity plays a role in Parkinson's disease

A new study co-led by scientists at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology adds increasing evidence that Parkinson's disease is partly an autoimmune disease. In fact, the researchers report that signs of autoimmunity can appear in Parkinson's disease patients years before their official diagnosis.

20 Apr 2020