Lifeboat Foundation

Men’s blood has higher levels than women’s of a key enzyme used by the new coronavirus to infect cells, the results of a big European study showed on Monday — a finding which may help explain why men are more vulnerable to infection with COVID-19. One of the strongest biomarkers, ACE2, was much higher in men than in women…

LONDON (Reuters) — Men’s blood has higher levels than women’s of a key enzyme used by the new coronavirus to infect cells, the results of a big European study showed on Monday — a finding which may help explain why men are more vulnerable to infection with COVID-19.

A birthday party was behind a cluster of coronavirus cases in Pasadena, California, according to health officials.

A “large number” of extended family members and friends were at the party, the Pasadena Public Health Department said in <a href=“https://www.cityofpasadena.net/city-manager/news-releases/cluster-of-covid-19-cases-traced-to-birthday-party/ target=“_blank”>a news release, adding the event took place after the city issued a stay-at-home order in March.

One patient at the party was coughing and not wearing a face covering, health officials said, and other party guests were also not covering their face or social distancing…

A University of Saskatchewan (USask) research team has uncovered how bats can carry the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) coronavirus without getting sick—research that could shed light on how coronaviruses make the jump to humans and other animals.

Coronaviruses such as MERS, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), and more recently the COVID19-causing SARS-CoV-2 virus, are thought to have originated in bats. While these viruses can cause serious and often fatal disease in people, for reasons not previously well understood, bats seem unharmed.

“The bats don’t get rid of the virus and yet don’t get sick. We wanted to understand why the MERS virus doesn’t shut down the bat immune responses as it does in humans,” said USask microbiologist Vikram Misra.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) presents with a broad clinical spectrum, varying from asymptomatic infection to severe pneumonitis, leading to acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and death(Guan, et al 2020). Accumulating evidence suggests that in severe COVID-19, an acute hyperinflammatory syndrome characterised by fever, hypoxia and increased serum inflammatory markers, occurring 5–10 days from the first symptoms, is the major driver of morbidity and death(Zhou, et al 2020b). Hyperinflammation is not specific to COVID-19. Similar syndromes were previously described in respiratory disease associated with other coronaviruses, including the severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus (SARS-CoV) in 2003 and Middle East respiratory syndrome-coronavirus (MERS-CoV) in 2012(Castilletti, et al 2005, Tseng, et al 2005).

This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

https://www.facebook.com/383136302314720/posts/578325486129133/

Elucidating how the brain controls peripheral organs in the fight against infection is crucial for our understanding of brain–body interactions. A study in mice reveals one such pathway worthy of further investigation. Neurons in stress-responsive brain regions boost plasma-cell formation.

Antibody found to block infection by the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 in cells.

The ‘47D11’ antibody targets the ‘spike protein’ of the destructive coronavirus.

Continue reading “Antibody prevents the COVID-19 virus from infecting human cells” »

‘Through advances in medical devices and synthetic biology, DARPA’s new Advanced Acclimation and Protection Tool for Environmental Readiness (ADAPTER) program aims to develop a travel adapter for the human body, an implantable or ingestible bioelectronic carrier that can provide warfighters control over their own physiology. The integrated system will be designed to entrain the sleep cycle – either to a new time zone or back to a normal sleep pattern after night missions – and eliminate bacteria that cause traveler’s diarrhea after ingestion of contaminated food and water,’ reads a DARPA statement on the new device.”

The adapter is meant to regulate sleep patterns and protect against diarrhea.

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).

Sarah Ives’s talk on our broad spectrum vaccine technologies, and many others on Nextopic: nexverse.org/pandemics