The novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 is a newly emerging virus. The antibody response in infected patient remains largely unknown, and the clinical values of antibody testing have not been fully demonstrated.

Methods

A total of 173 patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection were enrolled. Their serial plasma samples (n=535) collected during the hospitalization were tested for total antibodies (Ab), IgM and IgG against SARS-CoV-2. The dynamics of antibodies with the disease progress was analyzed.

April 1, 2020

It was supposed to be an exciting time of next-gen science, where CRISPR gene editing was being used in the first series of human trials in the hope this tech could help cure a range of diseases.

But one of its proponents, CRISPR Therapeutics, has, alongside a growing number of biopharmas, admitted the spreading COVID-19 pandemic is starting to see it be “adversely affected.”

In a Securities and Exchange Commission filing Tuesday, the biotech said: “We are conducting a number of clinical trials for product candidates in the fields of severe hemoglobinopathies and immuno-oncology in geographies which are affected by the coronavirus pandemic.

La communauté scientifique est en ordre de bataille pour lutter contre le SARS-CoV-2 et mettre au point un traitement ou un vaccin. Quelles sont les voies les plus prometteuses?

Circa 2015. The nature publishing has since been pulled down, but I am looking for it. I think I downloaded the pdf.

Infectious-disease researcher at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, last week (November 9) published a study on his team’s efforts to engineer a virus with the surface protein of the SHC014 coronavirus, found in horseshoe bats in China, and the backbone of one that causes human-like severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in mice. The hybrid virus could infect human airway cells and caused disease in mice, according to the team’s results, which were published in Nature Medicine.

Update (March 11, 2020): On social media and news outlets, a theory has circulated that the coronavirus at the root of the COVID-19 outbreak originated in a research lab. Scientists say there is no evidence that the SARS-CoV-2 virus escaped from a lab.

CINCINNATI — Infectious disease scientists report early development of a potential universal vaccine for Ebola viruses that preclinical tests show might neutralize all four species of these deadly viruses infecting people in recent outbreaks, mainly in Africa.

Scientists at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center report their preclinical results in the Journal of Virology, published by the American Society for Microbiology.

Although still in early preclinical testing, researchers report that their data indicate that the prospective vaccine has potential to be a stand-alone protection from Ebola. It also could broaden and extend the durability of protective immunity induced by current live vaccines already being tested in clinical trials against individual Ebola virus species, said Karnail Singh, PhD, the study’s co-principal investigator in the Division of Infectious Diseases.

Nobody can be “completely certain” that it is possible to find a vaccine for Covid-19, but the prospects are “very good”, according to a scientist who is leading a team attempting to develop one.

Sarah Gilbert, Professor of Vaccinology at Oxford University, said they hope to begin clinical trials towards the end of next week.

And she said that alongside these trials, preparations need to be made to manufacture the vaccine in large amounts.