Severe Acute Respiratory News and Research

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Two doses of Pfizer-BioNTech SARS-CoV-2 vaccine induce humoral protection against U.K. and S.A. variants

Researchers at the Pitié Salpêtrière Hospital, Department of Virology, Paris, France determined that in BNT162b2-vaccinated participants who received two doses, their sera harbored at least a neutralizing titer against the three SARS-CoV-2 variants.

8 Mar 2021

Worse problems with SARS-CoV-2 variants may be on the way

Researchers at the Department of Integrative Biomedical Sciences, University of Cape Town, South Africa, found evidence of a significant change in the selective forces acting on immunologically important SARS-CoV-2 genes, such as N and S. These likely coincided with the emergence of the 501Y lineages.

8 Mar 2021

How do viruses evolve in bats?

Bats have played a crucial epidemiological role in the evolution of many viruses and house many coronaviruses. Until 2002, coronaviruses had been known to cause mild respiratory ailments in human beings. However, this notion changed in the same year when a bat-borne virus caused the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) pandemic.

8 Mar 2021

Self-assembling nanoparticles an effective vaccine candidate for SARS-CoV-2

The currently developed vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 include the RBD in their immunogen. With a similar objective, a new study developed an RBD protein-based vaccine candidate against the SARS-CoV-2, using self-assembling Helicobacter pylori-bullfrog ferritin nanoparticles as an antigen delivery system. The study is published recently in the journal mBio (by the American Society of Microbiology).

8 Mar 2021

SARS-CoV-2 vaccines modeled on South African variant may offer broad protection against other variants

Researchers in South Africa have submitted evidence that suggests that vaccines modeled on the South African variant of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) would not only be effective on that strain but would also function well against other variants.

8 Mar 2021

Continued vigilance needed as COVID lockdown is relaxed in England, warn researchers

Researchers have reported findings from round nine of the REal-time Assessment of Community Transmission Study (REACT-1) that estimates community prevalence of infections with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in England.

8 Mar 2021

Sniffer dogs could be used to detect SARS-CoV-2 infections, say researchers

Researchers in Germany suggest that sniffer dogs should be considered as an additional screening tool for detecting infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) – the agent that causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

8 Mar 2021

Narrowing down on small molecular inhibitors of SARS-CoV-2 key protease

A recent methodological study by researchers from the University of Luxembourg shows that the combination of virtual screening approaches, molecular dynamics simulations and machine learning can substantially facilitate small molecule screening investigations targeted at key SARS-CoV-2 viral proteins.

8 Mar 2021

Data from Israel’s vaccination program suggests Pizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine induces strong host antibody response

A team of scientists from Israel has recently evaluated the efficacy of an mRNA-based coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccine, BNT162b2, in inducing host humoral immune response. The findings reveal that the vaccine is capable of inducing strong anti-severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) antibody response and that the response varies significantly with age. The study is currently available on the medRxiv* preprint server.

8 Mar 2021

Study rethinks the role of ACE2 in SARS-CoV-2 viral entry

Researchers in the US recently infected a series of human lung and head/neck cancer cell lines with SARS-CoV-2 that expressed varying levels of ACE2 and the TMPRSS2 protease to reassess their role in viral entrance.

8 Mar 2021

Researchers present fragment-based computational design of antibodies that target structured epitopes

A new study describes a novel fragment-based method to design antibody complementarity determining region (CDR) loops.

8 Mar 2021

Impairments in immune response contribute to severe COVID-19

New research by a team of scientists at University Hospital RWTH Aachen in Germany and Erasmus Medical Centre in The Netherlands characterized changes in CD8+ T cells in response to SARS-CoV-2.

8 Mar 2021

Apoptosis is an important mediator of pathogenesis in animal coronavirus infection

A new paper in the journal Life presents an early review of the viral factors involved in initiating and effecting apoptosis within infected cells.

8 Mar 2021

Small negative lifestyle changes during COVID-19 lockdown could accumulate, say researchers

An interesting new study by researchers in Australia, which has been published in the journal PLOS ONE, suggests that lifestyle changes due to pandemic restrictions on outdoor mobility have been small. But they warn that these may accumulate over time.

8 Mar 2021

Novel bioinformatics tool could help improve COVID-19 diagnosis

An interesting new study by researchers at the University of Liverpool, University of Bristol and Public Health England in the UK describes a novel bioinformatics tool used to detect subgenomic messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) sequences from the virus. This may help develop new diagnostic tools and model the transmission of the virus.

8 Mar 2021

How can physicians distinguish between COVID-19 persistence and SARS-CoV-2 reinfection?

One of the most challenging tasks of physicians has been differentiating between persistent COVID-19 and SARS-CoV-2 reinfection. Recently, a team of researchers analyzed SARS-CoV-2 sequences from the publicly available reports on reinfection and persistence. They further characterized the markers of reinfecting sequences and studied the mutation rate in newly evolved persistent variants.

8 Mar 2021

Study analyzes COVID fatality rate using age and GDP as proxies for the quality and abundance of healthcare

The COVID-19 pandemic has claimed over 2.5 million lives globally as of today. The case fatality rate (CFR) is an important parameter in COVID-19 mortality research and is defined as the ratio of the number of infected cases to the death toll number.

7 Mar 2021

Study confirms B.1.1.7 variant of SARS-CoV-2 is more transmissible

A new modeling study published in the journal Science estimates the B.1.1.7 severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) variant is 43% to 90% more transmissible than previous coronavirus variants. The variant was initially found in Southeast England last fall.

7 Mar 2021

Saliva testing has high accuracy in detecting early cases of SARS-CoV-2

New research finds saliva testing has a high sensitivity for detecting severe acute respiratory syndrome 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in both symptomatic and asymptomatic patients.

7 Mar 2021

Children may transmit SARS-CoV-2 at same level as adults, suggests study

Researchers studied SARS-CoV-2 viral loads in over a thousand individuals, including both adults and children. They found the loads to be comparable, suggesting they may play an equal role in COVID-19 transmission.

5 Mar 2021

Severe Acute Respiratory News and Research

Two doses of Pfizer-BioNTech SARS-CoV-2 vaccine induce humoral protection against U.K. and S.A. variants

Worse problems with SARS-CoV-2 variants may be on the way

How do viruses evolve in bats?

Self-assembling nanoparticles an effective vaccine candidate for SARS-CoV-2

SARS-CoV-2 vaccines modeled on South African variant may offer broad protection against other variants

Continued vigilance needed as COVID lockdown is relaxed in England, warn researchers

Sniffer dogs could be used to detect SARS-CoV-2 infections, say researchers

Narrowing down on small molecular inhibitors of SARS-CoV-2 key protease

Data from Israel’s vaccination program suggests Pizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine induces strong host antibody response

Study rethinks the role of ACE2 in SARS-CoV-2 viral entry

Researchers present fragment-based computational design of antibodies that target structured epitopes

Impairments in immune response contribute to severe COVID-19

Apoptosis is an important mediator of pathogenesis in animal coronavirus infection

Small negative lifestyle changes during COVID-19 lockdown could accumulate, say researchers

Novel bioinformatics tool could help improve COVID-19 diagnosis

How can physicians distinguish between COVID-19 persistence and SARS-CoV-2 reinfection?

Study analyzes COVID fatality rate using age and GDP as proxies for the quality and abundance of healthcare

Study confirms B.1.1.7 variant of SARS-CoV-2 is more transmissible

Saliva testing has high accuracy in detecting early cases of SARS-CoV-2

Children may transmit SARS-CoV-2 at same level as adults, suggests study

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