Operation Warp Speed’s funding of AstraZeneca is intended to deliver a COVID-19 vaccine by October, although some call that timeline unrealistic.
For some COVID-19 patients, the body’s immune response may be as destructive as the virus that causes the disease. The persistent high fevers, severe respiratory distress, and lung damage seen in some critically ill patients are all signs of an immune system in overdrive.
Now, a new clinical trial will test a treatment that targets this overactive immune response, says Howard Hughes Medical Investigator Bert Vogelstein. He and his team at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine are currently recruiting individuals for the trial, which includes patients ages 45 to 85 at the Johns Hopkins Hospital who have COVID-19 but who aren’t on a ventilator or in the ICU.
Their treatment, a common type of prescription drug called an alpha blocker, might break a cycle of hyperinflammation before it ramps up, their findings from mouse studies and a recent analysis of medical claims data suggest.
With the number of novel coronavirus infections over 5 million and growing as of May 24, use of personal protective equipment, or PPE, has become essential to safeguard health care providers against COVID-19. Coronavirus particles that attach to PPE surfaces pose a significant threat to the spread of the virus.
A team of researchers at Indiana University has published significant research findings via pre-print in ChemRxiv demonstrating for the first time that coronaviruses are killed upon exposure to an electroceutical fabric.
An MRI in each other’s arms shows how physical contact alters the brains of couples.
Researchers at Aalto University and Turku PET Centre have developed a new method for simultaneous imaging brain activity from two people, allowing them to study social interaction.
In a recent study, the researchers scanned brain activity from 10 couples. Each couple spent 45 minutes inside the MRI scanner in physical contact with each other. The objective of the study was to examine how social contact activates the brain. The results were published in the theme issue Social Interaction in Neuropsychiatry of the journal Frontiers in Psychiatry.
U.S. apparel chain Gap is speeding up its rollout of warehouse robots for assembling online orders so it can limit human contact during the coronavirus pandemic, the company told Reuters.
Gap reached a deal early this year to more than triple the number of item-picking robots it uses to 106 by the fall. Then the pandemic struck North America, forcing the company to close all its stores in the region, including those of Banana Republic, Old Navy and other brands. Meanwhile, its warehouses faced more web orders and fewer staff to fulfill them because of social distancing rules Gap had put in place.
“We could not get as many people in our distribution centers safely,” said Kevin Kuntz, Gap’s senior vice president of global logistics fulfillment. So he called up Kindred AI, the vendor that sells the machines, to ask: “Can you get them here earlier?”
The Italian government had one of the early invasive experiences of the covid-19 pandemic. Scientists in Italy responded to the global crisis with serious research into the concern. Perhaps results of these inquiries and related information have affected policy makers. Italian homeowners now have new opportunities to put clean energy on the top of their roofs.
Using a new way to synthesize DNA, Mike Kamdar and his team at Molecular Assemblies are poised to disrupt just about any industry you can imagine.
From February 2020…
Scientists have discovered hundreds of unusually large, bacteria-killing viruses with capabilities normally associated with living organisms, blurring the line between living microbes and viral machines.
These phages — short for bacteriophages, so-called because they “eat” bacteria — are of a size and complexity considered typical of life, carry numerous genes normally found in bacteria and use these genes against their bacterial hosts.
Continue reading “Huge bacteria-eating viruses narrow gap between life and non-life” »
I agree, Michael is 100 % spot-on-as usual. Dr Ian Hale.
Shana tells Inverse she’s been battling consistent fevers and muscle aches ever since the first, and most severe, symptoms subsided.
“I go through periods of hope mixed with periods of despair. I want to be able to run again and have the energy to do physical activity, but my body isn’t letting me,” she says. “I never expected this.”
Continue reading “‘I never expected this:’ Doctors and patients describe Covid-19 recovery” »
