Virus News and Research

Latest Virus News and Research

SARS-CoV-2 readily infects human intestinal cells in a laboratory model

A new Dutch study available on bioRxiv uses differentiated human small intestinal organoids in vitro to demonstrate that intestinal epithelium supports the replication of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and elicits a strong generic immune response.

27 Apr 2020

Researchers develop new ICU ventilator prototype to fight against COVID-19

Researchers and technicians from the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid and the University Hospital Gregorio Marañón have designed and developed a new ventilator prototype for Intensive Care Units in the fight against the health crisis caused by COVID-19.

27 Apr 2020

Researchers harness the power of AI to accelerate drug discovery

As the COVID-19 crisis continues to develop, researchers around the world are attempting to find the most effective treatment to combat the poorly understood virus behind this disease.

27 Apr 2020

Consumer beware: Coronavirus antibody tests are still a work in progress

After hearing for months about serious access issues involving tests that diagnose COVID-19 based on swabs from the nose or throat, Americans are being inundated with reports about promising new tests that look for signs of infection in the blood.

27 Apr 2020

SARS-CoV-2 spike protein discovery could pave way for COVID-19 vaccine

Researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati, have made an important discovery about a viral fusion protein found on the surface of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) that could help researchers develop a vaccine.

27 Apr 2020

Research provides insights into how Zika virus can spread through sexual contact

Zika virus is capable of replicating and spreading infectious particles within the outermost cells lining the vaginal tract, according to new research. The findings provide the first molecular-level insights into how the virus can move from person to person through sexual contact.

27 Apr 2020

Patients with aggressive form of skin cancer can benefit from new type of immunotherapy

In what is believed to be a first-of-its-kind study to evaluate the safety of a type of immunotherapy before surgery in patients with an aggressive form of skin cancer, researchers report that the treatment eliminated pathologic evidence of cancer in nearly half of the study participants undergoing surgery.

27 Apr 2020

Study can lead the way to new treatment methods for hepatitis C in infants

Only about five per cent of the babies born to mothers with hepatitis C are themselves infected by the disease.

27 Apr 2020

Scientists decode herpes simplex virus 1

Until now, scientists had assumed that there are about 80 so-called open reading frames (ORFs) in the genome of herpes simplex virus 1 (HSV-1).

27 Apr 2020

Study highlights the importance of malaria control in pregnant African women during COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic is forcing national governments around the world to take actions they never dreamed they would take.

27 Apr 2020

A novel approach to reuse medical devices during COVID-19

Shortages of medical supplies such as ventilators, face shields and masks has been a recurring problem during the COVID-19 pandemic and production has struggled to keep up.

27 Apr 2020

Researchers re-purpose cancer-fighting artificial antibodies for COVID-19

Researcher Paula Bates, John Trent, and Don Miller developed a therapeutic drug that could potentially block the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic. Their research was initially aimed at helping patients suffering from multiple types of cancer.

27 Apr 2020

Rice University looks to ‘trap and zap’ SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater

A team of researchers from Rice University has won a National Science Foundation (NSF) RAPID grant to adapt their wastewater nanotechnology project to help trap and inactivate the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), (which causes COVID-19 disease), in wastewater. This could help public health officials deal with the threat of disease transmission through wastewater.

27 Apr 2020

Recombinant protein produces neutralizing COVID-19 antibodies in primate model

A new study reports the induction of high levels of neutralizing antibodies to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the virus causing the current pandemic of COVID-19. This promising finding was reported on the preprint server bioRxiv on April 2020.

26 Apr 2020

Is the BCG vaccine really protective against COVID-19?

A new paper published on the preprint server medRxiv in April 2020 challenges the hypothesis that BCG vaccination confers some degree of protection against the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which causes the pneumonic illness COVID-19.

26 Apr 2020

Oncologist and mum-to-be chronicles COVID-19 experiences

Writing in the latest issue of JAMA Oncology researcher Coral Olazagasti along with her Dr. Nagashree Seetharamu from Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra, Northwell Health, Hempstead, New York, spoke about her experience being pregnant during the present COVID-19 pandemic. Olazagasti’s chronicle is titled “Facing a pandemic while pregnant.”

26 Apr 2020

Women more concerned about COVID 19

Studies have revealed that men seem to be more at risk of getting severe effects of the COVID-19 infection compared to women. Studies also show that women seem to be worrying more about getting infected than men. Both these findings may be related to each other.

26 Apr 2020

Mapping complex peripheral immune response to severe COVID-19

In a recent article publicly available at medRxiv, researchers from Stanford have presented a single-cell atlas of the peripheral immune response to coronavirus disease (COVID-19), highlighting pertinent immunological features associated with the severe forms of the disease.

26 Apr 2020

New approach to predicting the number of asymptomatic COVID-19 cases

Researchers in China have proposed a machine-based learning approach that predicts the transmission of COVID-19 and estimates the number of asymptomatic cases more accurately than classic virus transmission models.

26 Apr 2020

A new test for rapid large-scale testing of COVID-19

OU Medicine, the OU Health Sciences Center and the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation collaborated to create a new test for COVID-19 using technology and reagents from Fluidigm Corporation, an innovative biotechnology tools provider

25 Apr 2020