Disease/Infection News

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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

Proteomics shows SARS-CoV-2 NSP7 and NSP8 forms stable dimeric unit

A new preprint, released on the bioRxiv* preprint server, describes the structure of part of the dynamic protein-RNA complex known as the replication-transcription complex (RTC), which is crucial in the replication of the large ribonucleic acid (RNA) genome of this virus.

9 Mar 2021

Rapid increase of UK SARS-CoV-2 variant found in sewage in England between October 2020 to January 2021

A new study confirms the utility of wastewater surveillance as an important new tool in this regard by showing the presence of the UK SARS-CoV-2 variant in wastewater samples from London early in November, with increasing frequency thereafter.

9 Mar 2021

Ultraviolet light therapy reduces viral load in critically ill COVID-19 patients

Scientists from the United States has recently evaluated the safety and efficacy profiles of ultraviolet-A (UVA) light applied via an endotracheal tube to critically ill COVID-19 patients.

9 Mar 2021

Adjustable tip spacing pipettes – the best ally for repetitive tasks in cancer research

Reproducibility of results and high throughput are crucial goals for many molecular biology labs, but it can be challenging to achieve these together without appropriate instrumentation. This creates a need for reliable instruments to minimize user error and perform accurate measurements consistently for numerous samples.

From INTEGRA Biosciences 9 Mar 2021

Speaking whilst infected with COVID-19 may cause it to spread

News-Medical speaks to Dr. Keiko Ishii about her research efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic and how speaking whilst infected can cause the virus to spread, and why wearing masks is so important.

9 Mar 2021

Nursing homes with largest proportions of non-white residents experience more COVID-19 deaths

Nursing homes with the largest proportions of non-White residents experience 3.3 times more COVID-19 deaths than do nursing homes with the largest proportions of White residents, according to a new study from the University of Chicago.

9 Mar 2021

Transmission risk for schistosomiasis peaks at higher water temperature

About one billion people worldwide are at risk for schistosomiasis -- a debilitating disease caused by parasitic worms that live in fresh water and in intermediate snail hosts.

9 Mar 2021

COVID-19 could spell the end of deregulated competitive public transport in the UK

Research from the University of Kent predicts an end to deregulated competitive pubic transport in the UK as a consequence of Covid-19 social distancing measures leading to drastically reduced ridership, requiring a major rethinking of the provision of public transport.

9 Mar 2021

COVID-19 vaccine candidate approved for human clinical testing

A few days from now the first human will be vaccinated with a Danish vaccine candidate against COVID-19.

9 Mar 2021

Study suggests sewer rats immune to SARS-CoV-2

Although the researchers found that the rats tested negative for the virus, they say it is important to continue monitoring animals for the virus as it mutates, making previously resistant species susceptible to infection.

8 Mar 2021

New, easy-to-perform test can rapidly detect widely circulating SARS-CoV-2 variants

Rutgers researchers have designed a new rapid test that can detect all three of the rapidly spreading variants of the coronavirus in a little over one hour – much shorter than the three to five days required by current tests, which can also be more technically difficult and expensive to perform.

8 Mar 2021

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

Current vaccines and therapies may be less effective at neutralizing new SARS-CoV-2 variants

A new study of the U.K. and South Africa variants of SARS-CoV-2 predicts that current vaccines and certain monoclonal antibodies may be less effective at neutralizing these variants and that the new variants raise the specter that reinfections could be more likely.

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

Inflammation linked to intensity of tobacco smoking among HIV-positive people

Inflammation in the body has been linked to the intensity of tobacco smoking among people with HIV, according to a team of University of Massachusetts Amherst researchers.

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

Disease/Infection News

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

Proteomics shows SARS-CoV-2 NSP7 and NSP8 forms stable dimeric unit

Rapid increase of UK SARS-CoV-2 variant found in sewage in England between October 2020 to January 2021

Ultraviolet light therapy reduces viral load in critically ill COVID-19 patients

Adjustable tip spacing pipettes – the best ally for repetitive tasks in cancer research

Speaking whilst infected with COVID-19 may cause it to spread

Nursing homes with largest proportions of non-white residents experience more COVID-19 deaths

Transmission risk for schistosomiasis peaks at higher water temperature

COVID-19 could spell the end of deregulated competitive public transport in the UK

COVID-19 vaccine candidate approved for human clinical testing

Study suggests sewer rats immune to SARS-CoV-2

New, easy-to-perform test can rapidly detect widely circulating SARS-CoV-2 variants

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

Current vaccines and therapies may be less effective at neutralizing new SARS-CoV-2 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

Inflammation linked to intensity of tobacco smoking among HIV-positive people

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

How the Vutara VXL simplifies single-molecule imaging

How cohesin mechanics and nanotracker tech are redefining DNA research

Todd Bauman and Chris Povich

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