The Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine is devoted to biomedical research with the aim of understanding the molecular basis of health and disease and translating findings as quickly as possible into clinical applications. Better prevention, diagnosis and treatment of diseases are the ultimate goals.
Cytokine storms may affect the severity of COVID-19 cases by lowering T cell counts, according to a new study published in Frontiers in Immunology. Researchers studying coronavirus cases in China found that sick patients had a significantly low number of T cells, a type of white blood cell that plays a crucial role in immune response, and that T cell counts were negatively correlated with case severity.
Interestingly, they also found a high concentration of cytokines, a protein that normally helps fight off infection. Too many cytokines can trigger an excessive inflammatory response known as a cytokine storm, which causes the proteins to attack healthy cells. The study suggests that coronavirus does not attack T cells directly, but rather triggers the cytokine release, which then drives the depletion and exhaustion of T cells.
The findings offer clues on how to target treatment for COVID-19, which has become a worldwide pandemic and a widespread threat to human health in the past few months. “We should pay more attention to T cell counts and their function, rather than respiratory function of patients,” says author Dr. Yongwen Chen of Third Military Medical University in China, adding that “more urgent, early intervention may be required in patients with low T lymphocyte counts.”
A research collaboration and ensuing friendship between a trauma surgeon in Oregon and a handful of engineers in Florida has resulted in a new ventilator design that requires no electricity and could be a game-changer during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Albert Chi, who specializes in critical care and prosthetics, was keeping a close eye on COVID-19 during the early days. He immediately began working with his team at Oregon Health and Science University to develop a new, easy way to replicate ventilators that could be deployed anywhere. Specializing in trauma, Chi as a retired commander of the U.S. Navy Reserve and well versed in extreme conditions.
When Chi had a design, he called his friend and clinical-trial collaborator Albert Manero CEO and co-founder of Limbitless Solutions in Orlando, Florida.
An unconscious person’s response to odors after a serious brain injury may be a simple yet powerful signal of how aware they are and how likely they are to survive and recover, a new study suggests, relying on responses to the scent of shampoo and the stench of rotting fish.
Patients who survive brain damage from trauma, stroke, or heart attack are plunged into forms of unconsciousness that vary from minimal consciousness to unresponsive wakefulness, sometimes called a vegetative state. Specialists trying to tell who is in which state have fared only a little better than a coin flip: About 4 in 10 people thought to be unconscious are actually aware.
That uncertainty makes decisions for families and clinicians supremely difficult, from weighing how to treat pain to whether to withdraw life support. Sophisticated imaging of unconscious patients’ brain activity can reveal hints of awareness that go beyond behavioral assessments, sometimes only to deepen the mystery of who will get better. Now Israeli scientists have turned to the sense of smell, evolutionarily speaking our most ancient sensory system, as a window into our brain. Their paper appears Wednesday in Nature.
COVID-19 can remain in the air in closed spaces.
Tras la propagación del virus, científicos se han dedicado a comprobar si es posible el contagio por medio del aire
Investigadores del laboratorio Estatal de Virología de la Universidad de Wuhan indicaron que debido a la pandemia causada por el creciente número de contagios por coronavirus, distintos estudios se han dedicado a comprobar si es posible el contagio por medio del aire.
Continue reading “El COVID-19 puede permanecer en el aire de espacios cerrados” »
#OopsMyBad #Busted 🤔
Yes you read this right. The WHO criticized a drug and used a reference that was neither peer reviewed or published 🙄…Then they removed it as if no one would notice.
The antiviral medicine remdesivir from Gilead Sciences failed to speed the improvement of patients with Covid-19 or prevent them from dying, according to results from a long-awaited clinical trial conducted in China. Gilead, however, said the data suggest a “potential benefit.”
Continue reading “Data on Gilead’s remdesivir show no benefit for coronavirus patients” »
Xenex Disinfection Services found out today its ultraviolet light technology is 99.9 percent effective in eradicating the virus, according to the Texas Biomedical Research Center.
“This is what the world has been looking for„” says Xenex CEO Morris Miller, “to make sure there’s a device that can actually kill the real virus.”
Xenex robots cost $125,000 and are now being ordered by hospitals, hotels, airlines and even the Governor of Texas.
Continue reading “Xenex robots get stamp of approval for COVID-19 elimination” »
Alzheimer’s disease is the sixth leading cause of death in the United States, affecting one in 10 people over the age of 65. Scientists are engineering nanodevices to disrupt processes in the brain that lead to the disease.
People who are affected by Alzheimer’s disease have a specific type of plaque, made of self-assembled molecules called β-amyloid (Aβ) peptides, that build up in the brain over time. This buildup is thought to contribute to loss of neural connectivity and cell death. Researchers are studying ways to prevent the peptides from forming these dangerous plaques in order to halt development of Alzheimer’s disease in the brain.
In a multidisciplinary study, scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory, along with collaborators from the Korean Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) and the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), have developed an approach to prevent plaque formation by engineering a nano-sized device that captures the dangerous peptides before they can self-assemble.
Rudolph Heider who survived the Spanish Flu, the Great Depression, and World War Two has beaten Coronavirus on his 107th birthday.
A great-great-grandfather who lived through the Spanish Flu, Great Depression and World War II has now conquered coronavirus — just in time for his 107th birthday.
Continue reading “Grandfather miraculously beats coronavirus on his 107th birthday” »
Rice University researchers have discovered a hidden symmetry in the chemical kinetic equations scientists have long used to model and study many of the chemical processes essential for life.
The find has implications for drug design, genetics and biomedical research and is described in a study published this month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. To illustrate the biological ramifications, study co-authors Oleg Igoshin, Anatoly Kolomeisky and Joel Mallory of Rice’s Center for Theoretical Biological Physics (CTBP) used three wide-ranging examples: protein folding, enzyme catalysis and motor protein efficiency.
In each case, the researchers demonstrated that a simple mathematical ratio shows that the likelihood of errors is controlled by kinetics rather than thermodynamics.
