Virology News and Research

Latest Virology News and Research

Researchers identify four substances that inhibit SARS-CoV-2 replication in cells

Researchers from the German Center for Infection Research at Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin and the University of Bonn have examined the way in which SARS-CoV-2 reprograms the metabolism of the host cell in order to gain an overall advantage.

21 Jun 2021

Previous SARS-CoV-2 infection, vaccines provide protection against gamma variant, study finds

In early January 2021, travelers returning to Tokyo, Japan, from Amazonas, Brazil, were screened for COVID-19 at the airport. A few days later, the National Institute of Infectious Disease of Japan announced that the travelers had returned with a new variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

18 Jun 2021

New computational technique greatly increases the resolution of atomic force microscopy

Scientists at Weill Cornell Medicine have developed a computational technique that greatly increases the resolution of atomic force microscopy, a specialized type of microscope that "feels" the atoms at a surface.

17 Jun 2021

Research identifies missed COVID-19 cases by retrospective testing of throat swabs

Research published today in the Journal of General Virology has identified missed cases of SARS-CoV-2 by retrospective testing of throat swabs.

16 Jun 2021

Rapidly evolving SARS-Cov-2 strains may give rise to escape variants

The number of COVID-19 variants is growing rapidly, so much that the scale and scope of mutation may pose a threat to the continuing successful use of the current vaccines and therapies.

16 Jun 2021

Researchers develop new imaging technique for studying nanoscale coronavirus-host interactions

Lei S. Qi of Stanford University, California, and colleagues published research showing a potential framework to better characterize coronaviruses' biology. While most high-resolution imaging techniques show the life cycle of coronaviruses, identifying viral or host proteins and genomes remains poorly understood. Their results use multi-color super-resolution imaging allows them to study nanoscopic parts of the coronavirus, including RNA.

14 Jun 2021

Study reports on the immunogenicity of single-shot COVID-19 vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 variants

In the three months since Johnson & Johnson's COVID-19 vaccine received emergency use authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, more than 10 million Americans have received the vaccine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

9 Jun 2021

New technology allows rapid analysis and mapping of new potential virus variants

Variants of viruses, such as that causing COVID-19, can now be quickly studied in the laboratory, even before they emerge in nature and become a major public health challenge.

9 Jun 2021

Seroprevalence study of SARS-CoV-2 infection in domestic cats

To monitor the occurrence of trans-species transmission, researchers from the Institute of Diagnostic Virology, Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut, Germany, conducted a survey of seroprevalence in domestic cats.

7 Jun 2021

SARS-CoV-2 genome analysis reveals new 'Mexican variant'

A research group of the Department of Pharmacy and Biotechnology of the University of Bologna analyzed more than one million SARS-CoV-2 genome sequences.

5 Jun 2021

Analysis: Mounting pressure on China about Covid ‘lab leak’ could backfire

President Joe Biden has ordered U.S. intelligence agencies to determine whether the Covid virus, or a near ancestor, emerged from a cave, a live-animal market, a farm — or a secretive Chinese laboratory.

4 Jun 2021

People who received Pfizer-Biontech vaccine have lower antibody levels targeting the delta variant

Levels of antibodies in the blood of vaccinated people that are able to recognise and fight the new SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant first discovered in India (B.1.617.2) are on average lower than those against previously circulating variants in the UK, according to new laboratory data from the Francis Crick Institute and the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) UCLH Biomedical Research Centre, published today (Thursday) as a Research letter in The Lancet.

4 Jun 2021

New study sheds light on why many COVID-19 patients suffer from hypoxia

A new study published in the journal Stem Cell Reports by University of Alberta researchers is shedding light on why many COVID-19 patients, even those not in hospital, are suffering from hypoxia--a potentially dangerous condition in which there is decreased oxygenation in the body's tissues.

2 Jun 2021

COVID-19 had claimed more than 3 million lives worldwide in 2020

By the end of 2020, COVID-19 had claimed the lives of more than three million people worldwide, representing 1.2 million more deaths than officially reported earlier, says a newly released report by the World Health Organization (WHO).

31 May 2021

Person infected with SARS-CoV-2 can transmit infection to three to five other people

What started as the preliminary analysis of routine laboratory data has since evolved into the largest-ever study of viral load levels in patients with SARS-CoV-2.

25 May 2021

Discovery of novel SARS-related coronaviruses in bats

In a recent study published on the bioRxiv* server, Peng Zhou, Zheng-Li Shi and colleagues at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, with collaboration from scientists at the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences in China, have identified a new lineage of SARS-related coronaviruses that utilize bat angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptors for cell entry, which is the same receptor used by SARS-CoV-2 to infect host cells.

25 May 2021

Researchers speculate the low prevalence of COVID-19 in Japan

Protective immune memory--through B cells, which make antibodies, and/or T cells, which in the case of CD8+ T cells can kill virus-infected cells--can be induced by identical but also by related viruses.

20 May 2021

To the bat cave: In search of covid’s origins, scientists reignite polarizing debate on Wuhan ‘lab leak’

Once dismissed as a conspiracy theory, the idea that the covid virus escaped from a Chinese lab is gaining high-profile attention. As it does, reputations of renowned scientists are at risk — and so is their personal safety.

19 May 2021

New coronavirus variants can be effectively eliminated by disinfection, thorough hand washing

The researchers found that the variants have a similar surface stability as the wild type virus under laboratory conditions, but can be effectively eliminated by disinfection and thorough hand washing, heat or alcohol treatment.

18 May 2021

Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines induce robust T cell response against SARS-CoV-2 variants

Researchers in the United States have conducted a study showing the efficacy of the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines at eliciting a robust T cell response against variants of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) – the agent that causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

16 May 2021