Scientists and historians working at McMaster University, the Mütter Museum and the University of Sydney have pieced together the genomes of old viruses that were used as vaccination strains during and after the American Civil War ultimately leading to the eradication of smallpox.

Smallpox was one of the most devastating viral diseases ever to strike humankind, killing about three out of every 10 people who were infected. Those who survived were frequently disabled, blind or disfigured.

The World Health Organization recently celebrated the 40th anniversary of the eradication of smallpox, the most successful campaign ever attempted. As researchers around the world work feverishly to develop a vaccine against COVID-19, the success of the campaign and the findings of this paper, outlined the journal Genome Biology, point to the value of vaccination, say researchers. They suggest other vaccines are waiting to be discovered among the viral relatives of today’s influenza and coronaviruses.

The biotech Mesoblast is starting a compassionate use study of its stem cell product for kids with a severe offshoot of COVID-19.

The cellular drug in this case is remestemcel-L (more below).

While most children fare better than adults in dealing with COVID-19, the rare subset of kids with COVID-19 for this study have more severe disease than the average COVID patient and some die.

Pancreatic cancer is rarely detected at its early stages when it’s most curable. This is because it often doesn’t cause symptoms until after it has spread to other organs. Treatment options are chosen based on the extent of the cancer and may include surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, or a combination of these. Using mice and lab-grown pancreas models, scientists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) have discovered that they can stop the growth of pancreatic cancer cells by blocking the way the cells store cholesterol.

Their study, “SOAT1 promotes mevalonate pathway dependency in pancreatic cancer,” was published in the Journal of Experimental Medicine and led by David Tuveson, MD, PhD, professor at CSHL.

Tuveson’s team wanted to know why pancreatic cancer cells, like many cancer cells, produce abundant amounts of cholesterol. “Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) has a dismal prognosis, and new therapies are needed. Altered metabolism is a cancer vulnerability, and several metabolic pathways have been shown to promote PDAC. However, the changes in cholesterol metabolism and their role during PDAC progression remain largely unknown. Here we used organoid and mouse models to determine the drivers of altered cholesterol metabolism in PDAC and the consequences of its disruption on tumor progression,” the scientists wrote.

Please stop saying “There is no treatment for coronavirus”, coronavirus can be treated many ways. Anything can be treated many ways. When one says, “This can not be done”, one has already given up. When one says, “I can”, one at least makes an effort, and even failure is a lesson that leads to success. The WHO is already promoting the Moderna vaccine, yet it takes years to develop a vaccine properly. Any scientist will tell you it is faster to repurpose drugs than to develop a vaccine. Even in Kenya, they will not tell you how people are being treated, but already they are talking about the Moderna Vaccine.

Sometimes, old drugs find a new purpose. A widely available steroid called dexamethasone might hold the potential to save a lot of lives that otherwise would be lost to coronavirus. Preliminary results released from a randomized and controlled clinical trial involving more than 6,000 patients found that administering dexamethasone significantly reduced deaths among those with severe COVID-19 illnesses.

The study, which has not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal, found that the drug reduced deaths by one-third among patients on mechanical ventilators, and by one-fifth among patients receiving other forms of supplemental oxygen. Although dexamethasone is a far cry from a coronavirus cure, it feels like the first good news to transpire since earlier this spring, when the antiviral drug remdesivir showed it could modestly improve survival among COVID-19 patients.