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New drug regimen is safe and effective in children with cystic fibrosis

An international, open-label Phase 3 study, co-led by Susanna McColley, MD, from Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago, found that a regimen of three drugs (elexacaftor/tezacaftor/ivacaftor) that targets the genetic cause of cystic fibrosis was safe and effective in 6-11-year-olds with at least one copy of F508del mutation in the CFTR gene, which is estimated to represent almost 90 percent of the cystic fibrosis population in the United States.

19 Mar 2021

Rare pulmonary disease discovered in rural Alberta

A rare pulmonary disease that is linked to bats has made Alberta home, according to new research led by provincial lab scientists.

19 Mar 2021

Mass vaccination needed to protect against future resurgences of COVID-19

The first long-term seroprevalence study of residents in Wuhan, China, has found that 6.9% of people in the city had antibodies against COVID-19 in April 2020, and 82% of these people had an asymptomatic infection.

19 Mar 2021

Do Artemisia annua L. compounds have SARS-CoV-2 antiviral potential?

Caused by SARS-CoV-2, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has led to over 121.2 million cases and over 2.6 million deaths worldwide. An interesting new study examines the potential antiviral activity of compounds present in the plant Artemisia annua L.

18 Mar 2021

COVID-19 is more difficult to diagnose in children and adolescents, finds study

The ongoing pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), has spread to over 192 countries and territories, causing an enormous loss of lives and economic devastation.

17 Mar 2021

New technique could enable real-time distribution monitoring of ticks that carry Lyme disease

The findings of a recent analysis conducted by the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen), an affiliate of City of Hope, suggest that ecosystems suitable for harboring ticks that carry debilitating Lyme disease could be more widespread than previously thought in California, Oregon and Washington.

17 Mar 2021

Study of post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection shows persistent symptoms 8 months

Researchers from the US recently studied the prevalence of PASC in a well-characterized cohort of patients to gain insights into the period following acute SARS-CoV-2 infection. The research is posted online to the preprint server medRxiv.

15 Mar 2021

A year into the pandemic, three huge losses in one family

In the year since the World Health Organization declared a global pandemic, millions of families have endured the excruciating rise and fall of the U.S. outbreak — waves of sickness that leave untold wounds long after hospitalizations ebb and infections subside.

15 Mar 2021

Research looks at inflammatory nature of lipid nanoparticle component in mRNA vaccines

In a recent bioRxiv preprint research paper, Botond Z. Igyártó and colleagues from Thomas Jefferson University demonstrated the inflammatory nature of the lipid nanoparticles (LNPs).

15 Mar 2021

SARS-CoV-2 is extremely sensitive to type I IFN pre-treatment, study finds

Researchers have found that SARS-CoV-2 is extremely sensitive to type I IFN pre-treatment. Therefore, strategies such as focusing on limiting the production of IFN, rather than its function, could restrict the mechanism of SARS-CoV-2 that increases its viral load with delayed or absent symptoms.

12 Mar 2021

Mosquito protein study could lead to therapeutics against deadly viruses

The mosquito protein AEG12 strongly inhibits the family of viruses that cause yellow fever, dengue, West Nile, and Zika and weakly inhibits coronaviruses, according to scientists at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and their collaborators.

10 Mar 2021

Low doses of aspirin may have a potential beneficial effect on COVID-19

Aspirin is an established, safe, and low-cost medication in long-standing common use in prevention and treatment of cardiovascular diseases, and in the past a pain relief and fever reducing medication.

10 Mar 2021

For Covid ‘long haulers,’ battling for disability benefits adds aggravation to exhaustion

Rickie Andersen took a brief break from work in March after she fell ill. Her cough, fever and chills were typical covid-19 symptoms, but coronavirus tests were so scarce she could not obtain one to confirm the diagnosis.

10 Mar 2021

mRNA COVID-19 vaccines show high efficacy in pregnancy and lactation

A reassuring study reports the immunogenicity and lack of reactogenicity of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccine when given to this group of subjects. This will contribute to the sum of knowledge about the implications of vaccination in this high-risk cohort.

10 Mar 2021

Buck scientists develop a predictive model to help identify people at risk for severe COVID-19

Researchers at the Buck Institute analyzed data from the COVID-19 Symptom Tracker app used by 3 million people in the United Kingdom, adding the use of immunosuppressant medication, use of a mobility aid, shortness of breath, fever, and fatigue to the list of symptoms and comorbidities that increase the risk for severe COVID-19.

9 Mar 2021

A genetic variant of TMPRSS2 may confer protection against severe COVID-19

Among a large sample of COVID-19 patients, researchers found that a genetic variant – caused by an amino acid substitution from valine to methionine – is associated with a reduced chance of severe disease.

9 Mar 2021

Researchers examine susceptibility of raccoons and striped skunks to SARS-CoV-2 infection

Researchers from the University of Georgia, USA, have found some members of the superfamily Musteloidea – the group that includes badgers and weasels – appear to not only have no effects of the virus, but do little in spreading it.

9 Mar 2021

Optimized SARS-CoV-2 vaccine candidate could be less reactogenic, say researchers

A new study, released as a preprint on the bioRxiv* server, reports an optimized coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccine candidate, which, claim the researchers, may be less likely to produce reactions like fevers. It may also have increased protective potential against the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the pathogen that causes COVID-19.

9 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