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Category: biotech/medical – Page 2,072

The Second Study on Vitamin D and COVID-19 Is Now Out

The first study on vitamin D and COVID-19 was released as a preprint on April 23, and a second study was released as a preprint on April 26. Here’s what we can learn from the second study. The first study, which I reported on a few days ago, focused on disease severity, while the second one, which I’m reporting on here, focused on mortality.

The Results

The electronic health records of 780 laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 cases from the government hospitals of Indonesia between March 2 and April 24 was searched for data on vitamin D status prior to admission, age, sex, preexisting conditions, and mortality. Vitamin D status was classified as normal (≥30 ng/mL), insufficient (21−29 ng/mL), or deficient (≤20 ng/mL).

US invests hundreds of millions to produce Covid-19 vaccines

Jordan says Moderna is able to scale up quicker than traditional manufacturers, as its vaccines are created by manipulating mRNA, the molecule that carries genetic instructions from DNA to a cell’s protein-making ribosome. Moderna manipulates mRNA so that it instructs human cells to produce certain viral proteins; the proteins themselves don’t cause infection, but they do invoke an immune response. “The RNA uses the human body as its bioreactor,” says Jordan, so Moderna itself doesn’t have to manufacture the proteins. “To create a different vaccine candidate [for Moderna] is to trigger a different RNA sequence. We don’t need to build a different cell processing plant,” says Jordan.

The central dogma of molecular biology deals with the detailed residue-by-residue transfer of sequential information. It states that such information cannot be transferred back from protein to either protein or nucleic acid.— Francis Crick.

The dogma is a framework for understanding the transfer of sequence information between information-carrying biopolymers, in the most common or general case, in living organisms. There are 3 major classes of such biopolymers: DNA and RNA (both nucleic acids), and protein. There are 3×3=9 conceivable direct transfers of information that can occur between these. The dogma classes these into 3 groups of 3: three general transfers (believed to occur normally in most cells), three special transfers (known to occur, but only under specific conditions in case of some viruses or in a laboratory), and three unknown transfers (believed never to occur). The general transfers describe the normal flow of biological information: DNA can be copied to DNA (DNA replication), DNA information can be copied into mRNA (transcription), and proteins can be synthesized using the information in mRNA as a template (translation). The special transfers describe: RNA being copied from RNA (RNA replication), DNA being synthesised using an RNA template (reverse transcription), and proteins being synthesised directly from a DNA template without the use of mRNA. The unknown transfers describe: a protein being copied from a protein, synthesis of RNA using the primary structure of a protein as a template, and DNA synthesis using the primary structure of a protein as a template — these are not thought to naturally occur. [6].

The BARDA investments could go to waste, but ramping up Covid-19 vaccine production will help avoid delivery delays if a vaccine is approved.

From DNA to protein — 3D

We can reprogram our DNA. The nucleus of a cell is not read only. It is actually read and write. Basically, the cell is a programmable device, in response to environmental information.

The templates for protein synthesis are RNA (ribonucleic acid) molecules. In particular, a class of RNA molecules called messenger RNA (mRNA) are the information-carrying intermediates in protein synthesis. Other RNA molecules, such as transfer RNA (tRNA) and ribosomal RNA (rRNA), are part of the protein-synthesizing machinery. All forms of cellular RNA are synthesized by RNA polymerases that take instructions from DNA templates. This process of transcription is followed by translation, the synthesis of proteins according to instructions given by mRNA templates.

The flow of information is dependent on the genetic code, which defines the relation between the sequence of bases in DNA (or its mRNA transcript) and the sequence of amino acids in a protein.

We can send therapeutic messages to the DNA inside the stem cells’ nucleus. DNA sends the information (in the form of nerve impulses) to the RNA molecules called messenger RNA. The transfer RNA synthesizes proteins to carry out the instructions given by messenger RNA templates for the stem cells to become new neurons and cells to replace the neurons and cells that were damaged or destroyed.

This 3D animation shows how proteins are made in the cell from the information in the DNA code.

Continue reading “From DNA to protein — 3D” | >

Arthritis drug shows ‘significant’ promise in severe COVID-19 cases: study

The arthritis drug tocilizumab has shown early promise in preventing extreme inflammation in gravely ill COVID-19 patients, according to a French clinical study.

The treatment, which suppresses the body’s natural , was found to reduce “significantly” the number of deaths or life support interventions compared with a control group of patients.

The study, carried out by the Paris university hospital trust (AP-HP), looked at 129 people hospitalised with moderate or severe viral pneumonia, which occurs in 5–10 percent of COVID-19 patients.

Live Science’s Weekly Coronavirus update with health reporter, Nicoletta Lanese

We are going over the latest news, as well as any breakthrough findings on the virus. In today’s updates, we’ll discuss Remdesivir, elevated risk of severe infection in men, COVID toes, UK vaccine trial as well as answer your questions from the comments below.

Numbers update
:04 Remdesivir
:10 Gender differences with COVID-19
:14 Covid Toes
:16 Rare inflammatory syndrome in children.
:18 UK Vaccine trial
:19 Pete the Cat
:20 How Are people carriers without symptoms?
:25 Could COVID-19 vaccine lead to common cold vaccine?
:27 How to clean groceries after shopping?
:29 Do postmenopausal women suffer infections as bad as men?
:32 How are people in the hospital being treated for COVID-19?
:34 How successful is plasma therapy?
:36 How is COVID-19 data being collected?
:39 Can you get reinfected after recovering from the virus?
:42 How long does immunity last (if immune at all)?
:45 Can the virus enter the body thru the eyes/ears.

What if immunity to covid-19 doesn’t last?

Starting in the fall of 2016 and continuing into 2018, researchers at Columbia University in Manhattan began collecting nasal swabs from 191 children, teachers, and emergency workers, asking them to record when they sneezed or had sore throats. The point was to create a map of common respiratory viruses and their symptoms, and how long people who recovered stayed immune to each one.

The research included four coronaviruses, HKU1, NL63, OC42, and C229E, which circulate widely every year but don’t get much attention because they only cause common colds. But now that a new coronavirus in the same broad family, SARS-CoV-2, has the world on lockdown, information about the mild viruses is among our clues to how the pandemic might unfold.

What the Columbia researchers now describe in a preliminary report is cause for concern. They found that people frequently got reinfected with the same coronavirus, even in the same year, and sometimes more than once. Over a year and a half, a dozen of the volunteers tested positive two or three times for the same virus, in one case with just four weeks between positive results.

The US already has the technology to test millions of people a day

There is widespread agreement that the only way to safely reopen the economy is through a massive increase in testing. The US needs to test millions of people per day to effectively track and then contain the covid-19 pandemic.

This is a tall order. The country tested only around 210,000 people per day last week, and the pace is not increasing fast enough to get to millions quickly.

The urgency to do better is overwhelmingly bipartisan, with the most recent legislation adding $25 billion for testing a few days ago. Fears are growing, however, that testing might not scale in time to make a difference. As Senators Lamar Alexander and Roy Blunt wrote last week, “We have been talking with experts across the government and the private sector to find anyone who believes that current technology can produce the tens of millions of tests necessary to put this virus behind us. Unfortunately, we have yet to find anyone to do so.”

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