The spikes crowning the new coronavirus that causes COVID-19 atypical pneumonia are divulging how they attach, fuse and gain entry to cells. Analysis of the spike architecture and its mechanics is locating the virus’ vulnerabilities, and revealing other information that could prompt the discovery of countermeasures against this virus.

A research team at the University of Washington School of Medicine and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Institute uses cryo-electron microscopy and other investigative methods in this effort. They are helping to determine the structure and function of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein and its chemical binding affinities as these relate to both infection and immune responses, and thereby obtain ideas for blocking the virus’ ingress to cells.

Their multiple findings were published as a preliminary report Feb.20 in bioRxiv, a preprint server for biology. The lead authors are Alexandra C. “Lexi” Walls, a recent postdoctoral fellow, and Young-Jun Park, a research scientist. Both conduct coronavirus studies in the lab of David Veesler, senior author of the report and assistant professor of biochemistry at the UW School of Medicine.

A recent Western-led study says two meters might not be far enough away if someone lets an uncovered cough loose in your direction—meaning sneeze and cough etiquette is more than a simple social nicety, but a key to stopping the spread of diseases like COVID-19.

“It’s pretty hard to avoid a cough,” said Mechanical and Materials Engineering professor Eric Savory. “By the time you react, it’s reached you.”

Teaming up with virologists at Sunnybrook Hospital, Savory recently explored cough airflows produced by human subjects naturally infected with seasonal influenza in order to better understand how the environmental conditions affect the physical transmission of the infection.

BRUSSELS, April 14, 2020 — Responding to the European Commission’s call to tackle the coronavirus pandemic, photonics scientists are developing a new, rapid, noninvasive “optical biosensor” demonstrator that will detect COVID-19 in humans as soon as it is present in the body. Having already created six working laboratory demonstrators for other applications, the research team said the technology still needs further adaptation and testing but could be available in a year at the latest.

Ever since the outbreak of the SARS-CoV-2, scientists have been scrambling to identify the species of origin to understand how the new coronavirus first leapt from its animal hosts to humans, causing the current pandemic infecting more than a million people worldwide.

Scientists have been looking for an intermediate animal host between bats, which are known to harbor many coronaviruses, and the first introduction of SARS-CoV-2 into humans.

Many animals, beginning with snakes and most recently, pangolins, have all been put forth as the likely intermediate, but the viruses isolated from them are too divergent from SARS-CoV-2, suggesting a common ancestor too far back in time—-living in the 1960s.