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Courtesy of UC Davis Health

UC Davis scientists Marcelo Prado and Katie Zegarski load samples onto trays that will then be placed into a machine to test for coronavirus. It's one example of the vast research ongoing across the UC system to study the coronavirus.

UC Davis scientists Marcelo Prado and Katie Zegarski load samples onto trays that will then be placed into a machine to test for coronavirus. It's one example of the vast research ongoing across the UC system to study the coronavirus.

Researchers at universities across California are playing a major role in the global effort to find a cure and slow down the spread of the novel coronavirus.

The University of California, with five medical centers and major research capacity on its 10 campuses, is well-positioned to contribute to that effort, while private universities like Stanford University, with its ownresearch departments and medical school, are also working to understand and treat the disease.

With non-essential research suspended, many scientists are focused almost exclusively on fighting the virus and are doing so in a variety of ways. Doctors are working to increase the capacity to test individuals for coronavirus while also evaluating drugs to determine if they can be used as effective treatments. Virologists are studying the genetics of the virus to learn more about how it spreads and attacks human cells. There are also more niche efforts, such as a project at UC Berkeley that intends to use artificial intelligence to combat the virus.

There is an urgent need for scientists to learn as much as possible about the virus and slow its spread. Globally, the toll from the coronavirus has surpassed 116,000 deaths, according to a Johns Hopkins University tracker. That includes more than 300 deaths in California.

One of the leading sites for coronavirus research in California is at UC Davis, wheremany researchers have been studying the virus nonstop since February. Thats when the universitys medical center treated the patient who had the first diagnosed case of community spread coronavirus in the United States, meaning the patient, who had not traveled to countries where the virus was common at that time, had been infected from someone in the community.

Researchers took samples from that patient and used them to investigate the virus and begin developing their own in-house test.

The university was equipped to study the virus because of its range of research and medical centers, said Angela Haczku, who, as the associate dean for translational research at UC Daviss School of Medicine, oversees the universitys coronavirus research. The School of Medicine collaborated with the universitys Center for Immunology and Infectious Diseases and the universitys primate research center to create their own tests. The universitys primate center, where experiments are conducted using non-human primates, could also eventually be used to test and develop potential vaccines, officials said.

UC Davis began in-house testing March 19 and is now using an automated testing system that has the potential to produce more than 1,000 tests daily, Haczku said. There is a shortage of coronavirus testing nationally, and experts say that expanding testing would make it easier to slow the spread of the virus since doctors would have a better idea of who is infected.

The automated testing at UC Davis is made possible through a robot called the Roche Diagnostics cobas 6800 System. The machine, which is the size of an SUV, is already producing 400 tests a day for patients at UC Davis Health and that number could increase to up to 1,400 tests daily.

Haczku said she has dedicated almost all of her time over the past month to coronavirus-related research focused on expanding testing and on clinical trials, which involve testing drugs on patients to learn if they can work as effective treatments. UC Davis is currently conducting clinical trials of two drugs: remdesivir, an antiviral drug that was previously tested on patients with Ebola, and sarilumab, which treats arthritis.

Haczkus days start with 7 a.m. meetings with other School of Medicine administrators and end around midnight after connecting with research collaborators in Asia.

Seeing what this virus does to people, there is a motivation to work fast, she said.

Courtesy of UC Davis Health

A scientist at UC Davis tests a patient sample for coronavirus.

The other four University of California medical centers at UCLA, UC San Diego, UCSF and UC Irvine are also either doing their own in-house testing of the coronavirus or plan to soon. The five medical centers hope to combine resources, such as patient databases, to develop better testing and clinical trial capabilities, but they first need to get approval from a UC Institutional Review Board, Haczku said. Institutional Review Boards are regulatory committees that oversee research involving humans to make sure the research is ethical.

Globally, more than 200 clinical trials of different drugs are underway. One of those trials involves all five of the UC campuses with medical centers. They are among dozens of universities conducting a trial of remdesivir, an antiviral drug that scientists believe has potential to be a treatment for the virus. Stanford University is also participating in that trial. In clinical trials, drugs are administered to patients who give consent to participate in the trial after learning about any potential risks.

Dr.Bruce Aylward of the World Health Organization in February called remdesivir the one drug right now that we think may have real efficacy. President Donald Trump has also touted remdesivir, saying in March that the drug seems to have a very good result having to do with this virus.

However, remdesivir is not yet an approved treatment of COVID-19, the disease the virus causes. The Food and Drug Administration has authorized its use in emergency situations for some coronavirus patients, including the first United States patient who was diagnosed with coronavirus and the UC Davis patient who was diagnosed with the first community-acquired case of the virus in the U.S. UC Davis doctors in February gave the drug to that patient, who recovered after receiving remdesivir and has since been discharged, though doctors have warned against drawing conclusions about the drug based on a single patients experience.

Doctors will get a better sense of whether the drug is effective through the clinical trials. Patients will be eligible to be enrolled in the clinical trial if they test positive for COVID-19 and if they are being treated at one of the testing sites, such as one of the UC medical centers or Stanford.

Patients will be randomly assigned to receive either remdesivir or a placebo. The National Institutes of Health, the federal agency that is sponsoring the trial, will analyze results from the different testing sites and determine whether the drug is effective, said Dr. Neera Ahuja, who along with Dr. Kari Nadeau is one of two Stanford doctors conducting the trial.

A major advantage of the study, Ahuja said, is that if remdesivir proves to be ineffective, doctors can continue with the same trial infrastructure and easily switch to testing another drug. Thats because the study has an adaptive trial design, which is meant to make a trial more efficient by allowing changes to the study while it is ongoing.

And so unlike some of the other industry-sponsored trials where its just one drug and thats all they have, we can phase from one to the next to the next until we hopefully find something effective and then be able to hopefully fast track it to FDA approval, Ahuja told EdSource.

Remdesivir is far from the only drug being studied to fight the coronavirus.

Researchers at UC San Franciscos Quantitative Sciences Bioinstitute are looking into dozens of other drugs that could attack the virus in a different way.

While drugs like remdesivir seek to destroy the viruss own proteins, researchers at the Quantitative Sciences Bioinstitute have identified drugs that could potentially treat the virus by blocking it from interacting with proteins in human cells that the virus relies on to survive.

Theres a lot of work ongoing where people are trying to target the viral proteins, which is great. Were taking a different track, Nevan Krogan, the director of the institute, said at a virtual town hall in March.

So far, they have identified 69 drugs that could target the human proteins, including 27 that are FDA-approved.

The reason scientists are studying so many different drugs is because the current coronavirus is new to scientists and there is still much they dont know about it.

Virologists like Mike Buchmeier at UC Irvines Center for Virus Research are attempting to address that dilemma by studying exactly how the virus is spreading.

Buchmeier, who specializes in researching coronaviruses, has been researching the virus since it was discovered in China in December. Officially called SARS-CoV-2, it is a new strain of coronavirus, which is part of a large family of viruses that commonly infect many animals, including cats, cattle and bats.

In rare cases, such as with the current virus, coronaviruses can spread from animals to humans and then spread to other people, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Health experts believe the new strain of coronavirus likely originated in bats and first spread from animals to humans at a seafood and meat market in Wuhan, China, where the outbreak began.

Buchmeiers current research, he said in an interview, involves studying the viruss RNA, a single stranded genetic material. (Many viruses have RNA instead of the double stranded DNA genetic material.) Having that information helps Buchmeier and other scientists understand the virus because they can use the genetic material to trace the origins of the virus and how it has spread. The genetic material also allows Buchmeier to better understand how the virus causes damage in humans.

And then we can use that to think about what would be a suitable vaccine, Buchmeier said.

Elsewhere across universities in California, other efforts are underway in response to the virus. For example, UC Berkeley is one of the hosts of a new artificial intelligence research consortium that is seeking research proposals that offer ways to fight the coronavirus.

The consortium, called the C3.ai Digital Transformation Institute, was created by California-based artificial intelligence company C3.ai and will be managed and hosted by UC Berkeley and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. One of the institutes co-directors is Shankar Sastry, a professor of engineering and computer science at UC Berkeley.

Early results from the research wont be available until June, but the work of other artificial intelligence companies internationally may provide a glimpse into how the technology can be used to fight the virus.

For example, the United Kingdom-based artificial intelligence company Exscientia has a collection of thousands of drugs and is using its technology to try to determine which ones can potentially treat COVID-19. Exscientia plans to use its drug-screening technology to quickly mine through the drugs and identify molecules that may be effective in fighting the coronaviruss proteins and enzymes. The company then hopes to use that information to repurpose one of the existing drugs to treat coronavirus patients.

The Berkeley institute is calling for a wide range of proposals to combat the virus, such as using machine learning to design new drugs or incentivize behavior that mitigates the spread of the virus, like social distancing.

Given the urgency of the challenge, the institute accelerated its timeline by putting out the first call for research proposals in March and asked for the proposals to be submitted by May 1. Awards will be distributed by June, but researchers who submit their proposals by April 15 could be notified of awards earlier than that.

The institute also plans to use a peer-review process that is less rigorous than is customary so it can further expedite the project and share results with the public as soon as possible. The consortium plans to start disseminating results via public forums in June. What wed like to do here is to provide for a certain adventurousness. We wont be afraid to have even a substantial fraction of the research projects fail, he said.

Sastry added that he views the institute as something that could be an intermediary between the computer science world and the public health field.I feel theres a huge new subject of academic inquiry here. And so I think that to have an intermediary between information technologies and all these societal systems, I think thats the intellectual turf of this institute. Thats really a prime excitement to me, Sastry said.

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California university researchers join the global race to fight coronavirus - EdSource

A wide range of University of New Mexico researchers from across main and north campuses are utilizing UNM Center for Advanced Research Computing resources to study COVID-19. Researchers from several departments at UNM, including Anthropology, Biology, Computer Science, Pediatrics, Internal Medicine, and various Health Sciences research centers are studying different aspects of the coronavirus pandemic.

Since the U.S. discovered its first case of COVID-19 on in January, scientists across the country have worked feverishly to understand this new and rapidly spreading disease. A collaborative team of researchers including assistant professor at the UNM Center for Global Health Daryl Domman, assistant professor at the UNM Department of Pediatrics Darrell Dinwiddie, professor at the UNM Division of Translational Informatics Tudor Oprea, and biologists at the Los Alamos National Laboratory have been using advanced computing techniques to study the genetic variations of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. By sequencing the genome of SARS-CoV-2 samples taken from positive cases in New Mexico and Wyoming, the team has been able to track mutations in the virus.

Oprea explained, Were trying to understand what the trends are with respect to the viruswhether its the same virus that came from Wuhan, or, does it mutate? How many flavors of the virus are out there? Do they cause different symptoms?

Tracking the locations of precise coronavirus strains allows researchers like Domman to understand exactly how the novel coronavirus is spreading.

What were hoping to do with this information is really understand the spread of the virus within our community, Domman reported. He explains, Traditional epidemiology is about case count datalooking at contact tracing and who might have been exposed. This data is extremely useful but its inherently limited in answering questions about how the virus is spreading.

Looking at which genetic variations of SARS-CoV-2 appear in specific locations can provide additional information beyond counting the number of positive cases in a region. Domman believes that sequencing samples of the novel coronavirus will allow scientists to identify local transmission chains, estimate how long the virus has existed within a community, and estimate how many cases are currently active within a region. Already, this project has revealed important insights into the local spread of coronavirus, including that the vast majority of early COVID-19 cases in New Mexico and Wyoming can be attributed to European travel.

Meanwhile, the New Mexico Decedent Image Database (NMDID), since its website launch in January of this year, has already been a source of valuable information for COVID-19 research. The NMDID is a free resource that gives researchers access to over 15,000 decedent full-body CT scans and a wealth of information about the deceased. CARC houses and maintains the database in collaboration with UNM associate professor of Anthropology and creator of NMDID Heather Edgar. Researchers at Johns Hopkins University have been using NMDID to better understand how COVID-19 affects its victims.

Edgar said, Theyre using about 34 or so CTs of decedents who died of pneumonia and comparing [them] to people who have COVID-19basically looking to see how similar or different the new disease is to the things were used to looking at.

Across campus at the UNM Moses Biological Computation Lab, Computer Science and Biology professor Melanie Moses and research assistant Vanessa Surjadidjaja are using CARC resources to understand how the human lung responds to a viral pathogen like SARS-CoV-2.

Currently, there is much to learn about how our immune systems are responding to the novel coronavirus. Our research aims to understand how the immune system, specifically T cells, find cells infected with SARS-CoV-2 dispersed in the lung, Surjadidjaja explained. Their study uses laboratory data and computer simulations to visualize interactions between immune cells and viruses within the complex structures inside the lung. Their goal is to predict how viral load changes over the course of an infection, an important component of disease severity and transmissibility between people.

All of these studies are ongoing and will continue to develop quickly as scientists do their best to make a positive impact during this tumultuous time.

Oprea captured the current mood of many research teams when he said, Everyone works with a sense of urgency. We are well aware that until a vaccine is found, the world will be in stand-by mode. Were just trying to do our part.

Domman stressed the importance of providing local authorities with the information they need to make prudent policy choices, commenting, In the more immediate, its about providing that actionable data to the folks who will do some good with it.

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UNM researchers use advanced computing to study COVID-19 - UNM Newsroom

Transmission electron micrograph of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Image credit: NIAID

Scientists have developed an inexpensive new test that can rapidly diagnose COVID-19 infections, a timely advance that comes as clinicians and public health officials are scrambling to cope with testing backlogs while the number of cases continues to climb.

Developed at UC San Francisco and Mammoth Biosciences, the new test officially named the SARS-CoV-2 DETECTR is easy to implement and to interpret, and requires no specialized equipment, which is likely to make the test more widely available than the current crop of COVID-19 test kits. Though the new test has yet to receive formal approval for clinical use from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, UCSF researchers are clinically validating the test in an effort to fast-track the approval process through a so-called Emergency Use Authorization.

The introduction and availability of CRISPR technology will accelerate deployment of the next generation of tests to diagnose COVID-19 infection, said Charles Chiu, MD, PhD, professor of laboratory medicine at UCSF and co-lead developer of the new test, which is described in a paper published April 16, 2020, in the journal Nature Biotechnology.

The new SARS-CoV-2 DETECTR assay is among the first to use CRISPR gene-targeting technology to test for the presence of the novel coronavirus. Since CRISPR can be modified to target any genetic sequence, the test kits developers programmed it to home in on two target regions in the genome of the novel coronavirus. One of these sequences is common to all SARS-like coronaviruses, while the other is unique to SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19. Testing for the presence of both sequences ensures that the new DETECTR tool can distinguish between SARS-CoV-2 and closely related viruses.

Much like the diagnostic kits currently in use, the new test can detect the novel coronavirus in samples obtained from respiratory swabs. However, the new test is able to provide a diagnosis much more quickly. While the widely used tests based on polymerase chain reaction (PCR) techniques take about four hours to produce a result from a respiratory sample, the new DETECTR test takes only 45 minutes, rapidly accelerating the pace of diagnosis.

Another key advantage of the new DETECTR test is that it can be performed in virtually any lab, using off-the-shelf reagents and common equipment. This stands in stark contrast to PCR-based tests, which require expensive, specialized equipment, limiting those tests to well-equipped diagnostic labs. Plus, the new DETECTR test is easy to interpret: much like a store-bought pregnancy test, dark lines that appear on test strips indicate the presence of viral genes.

The new test is also highly sensitive. It can detect the presence of as few as 10 coronaviruses in a microliter of fluid taken from a patient a volume many hundreds of times smaller than an average drop of water. Though slightly less sensitive than existing PCR-based tests, which can detect as few as 3.2 copies of the virus per microliter, the difference is unlikely to have a noticeable impact in diagnosis, as infected patients typically have much higher viral loads.

The SARS-CoV-2 DETECTR adds to a rapidly growing suite of new COVID-19 diagnostic tests that researchers and clinicians hope will increase testing capacity, including tests for specific antibodies in patients who have recovered from COVID-19 infection.

As researchers work to validate the new DETECTR test for FDA approval, its developers are continuing to make modifications to the test kit so that it can be used for field testing at sites like airports, schools, and small clinics.

Authors: James PBroughton of Mammoth Biosciences and Xianding Deng of UCSF are co-lead authors of the study. Charles Chiu of UCSF and JaniceChen of Mammoth Biosciences are co-senior authors of the study. Additional authors include Guixia Yu, Venice Servellita, Jessica Streithorst, AndreaGranados,AliciaSotomayor-Gonzalez, AllanGopez, ElaineHsu, WeiGu, and SteveMiller, and Kelsey Zorn, of UCSF; Clare LFasching, JasmeetSingh, and Xin Miao of Mammoth Biosciences; and Chao-YangPan,HugoGuevara,and DebraWadford of the California Department of Public Health.

Funding: This work was supported by National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants R33-AI129455 from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and R01-HL105704 from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute; the Charles and Helen Schwab Foundation; and Mammoth Biosciences, Inc.

Disclosures: Chiu is the director of the UCSF-Abbott Viral Diagnostics and Discovery Center (VDDC), receives research support funding from Abbott Laboratories, and is on the Scientific Advisory Board of Mammoth Biosciences, Inc. Chen is a co-founder of Mammoth Biosciences, Inc. Broughton, Fasching, Singh, and Miao are employees of Mammoth Biosciences, Inc. Chiu, Broughton, Deng, Fasching, Singh, Miao and Chen are co-inventors of CRISPR-related technologies.

About UCSF: The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is exclusively focused on the health sciences and is dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care. UCSF Health, which serves as UCSF's primary academic medical center, includes top-ranked specialty hospitals and other clinical programs, and has affiliations throughout the Bay Area.

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New CRISPR-Based COVID-19 Test Kit Can Diagnose Infection in Less Than an Hour - UCSF News Services

For students at the University of Vermont, knowledge knows no bounds. Near or far from campus, they study everything from the most complex micro-ecosystems on the planet to the biggest threats to democracy today; they're engaged year-round, day and night, all in pursuit of knowledge. As this academic year enters its final stretch, we take a look at some of the most exciting research projects UVM students have worked on this year.

Want more? Hundreds of student research projects from every discipline are ready to discover at the Virtual Student Research Conference. Engage with student researchers online from Thursday, April 16, to Thursday, April 23.

According to animal science student Jamie Burke 20, pictured above, the inside of a cows stomach contains one of the most complex micro-ecosystems in the world. She would know, as shes helped create and sustain six artificial cow rumens in Professor Sabrina Greenwoods lab in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

To better understand how introducing amino acid supplements into a cows diet might ultimately improve health and nutrition properties in dairy products, Burkewith guidance from professor Jana Kraftfed and maintained fermenters that mimicked the activity that takes place inside a cow's stomach.She and the research team in Krafts lab specifically analyzed the branched-chain fatty acids (BCFA) in protozoal cell membranes in the artificial rumen ferment.

But they had one hiccup: in a real rumen, most protozoa like to attach to the rumen wall; in an artificial rumen, that hospitable surface doesnt exist. So, Burke 3D printed a filter for the ferment. This 3D-printed support can serve as a model for all continuous culture fermenter systems to promote protozoa retention, maintain fluid flow, and allow for better comparisons of protozoa numbers in different systems, she says.

Preparing for a weekend ahead, Danielle Allen makes sure the cells she's growing in the Thali lab for her HIV research will stay "happy and healthy" until Monday when she returns. (Video: Rachel Leslie)

Viruses are absolutely fascinating, says molecular genetics senior Danielle Allen, who is conducting research on the spread of HIV at the cellular level in Professor Markus Thalis lab at the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Allens research is focused on one of the relevant host proteins, EWI-2, active in cell fusion, which can occur when a viral protein in an HIV-infected cell binds to a surface protein on an uninfected cell. EWI-2 is also an active component in other biological functions, including cancer metastasis, sperm-egg fusion and muscle regeneration. But while it is a known fusion inhibitor, the proteins mechanism of fusion inhibition is not well understood.

Thats where Allen set her sights. Using fluorescence microscopy, she determined optimal transfection conditions for EWI-2 mutant plasmids to obtain equal surface expression of each EWI-2. Allen also designed a new fusion assay system that could be used for future fusion assays to further characterize EWI-2s mechanism of fusion inhibition.

By understanding these proteins involved in HIV transmission, we might be able to develop better treatments for HIV, which is really important since the current treatments are intense and there isnt a cure, says Allen. Ive learned a lot of different techniques that I didnt know beforeeverything from growing DNA in E. coli to isolating the DNA, transfecting HeLa cells, a lot of stuff with florescence microscopy and staining cells with antibodiesa lot of stuff you just dont really have time to learn in lectures in undergraduate teaching labs.

Political science and history double major Jason Goldfarb. (Photo: Sally McCay)

Jason Goldfarb 20 grew up hearing about the ways social media connected the world, exposing truths in the Arab Spring and elevating causes like the Black Lives Matter movement. But headlines of Russian propagandists and Cambridge Analytica following the 2016 U.S. election prompted Goldfarb to wonder: is social media helping or harming us? In the seniors thesis project for the College of Arts and Sciences, Scrolling Alone: The Impact of Social Media on American Democracy, he outlines a disturbing finding: Although there is potential for social media to live up to its promise of connecting the world, the present platforms harm civic discourse, Goldfarb says.

A double major in political science and history, his research considers technology through both lenses, drawing parallels between Facebook and other revolutionary technologies throughout time. Think of the automobile, notes Goldfarb. It democratized transportation, revolutionized warfare, and changed the way in which cities are designed. Social media, he argues, has similarly transformed much of todays world, stoking polarization, encouraging distraction, and eroding privacy. The paper was published in the Undergraduate Journal of Politics, Policy and Society in late 2019. Under the guidance of Dr. Amani Whitfield and Professor Bob Pepperman Taylor, its my proudest accomplishment at UVM.

Anthropology major Rose Lillpopp. (Photo: Sally McCay)

From University Row to upscale private events, it seems like food trucks can be found everywhere these days. Though lauded as an entrepreneurial feat for the past decade, College of Arts and Sciences anthropology student Rose Lillpopp 20 says that food trucks have historical roots and repercussions in the street food vending industry that run deep. Her research digs into the positive and negative influences food trucks have on our foodways and social relationships, and grapples with topics like immigration, identity, race, class and public policy.

In addition to sampling the menus of dozens of food trucks, Lillpopp developed relationships with vendors and customers she interviewed about how a vendors authenticity or legitimacy is earned, how their brands are perceived and what customers convey about themselves when they order in public spaces.

For example, Customers patronizing a vegan truck versus a wagyu beef truck are claiming different identities that come with various moral or economic prestige, she explains. Because food trucks have been under-researched and taken for granted, this conflicted history is erased by the fallacy that the gourmet food truck is unattached to these less privileged forms of vending.

Business student Mateo Florez. (Photo: Sally McCay)

While much about the use and effects of e-cigarettes remain unknown, entrepreneurship and marketing student Mateo Florez 20 is searching for answers about why these vaping products are so popular among college students.

For his Grossman School of Business research, he collected data from 750 undergraduate students about their basic demographics, substance use and preferences to run a statistical analysis technique, called a conjoint analysis. Ultimately, the analysis will provide insight on the relative value each respondent places on certain attributes of vapingincluding social context while vaping, substance effect from vaping and health risksand will be able to establish a possible correlation between demographics and e-cigarette use.

E-cigarettes have exploded in popularity during the past couple years, and understanding more about the driving forces behind e-cigarette consumption can provide both policymakers and consumers better insight into the root causes of this trend, he says.

Hannah Sheehy (center) teaches fellow student research assistants about a new rubric she developed to measure the quality of the childrens storytelling. (Video: Janet Franz)

Not all research endeavors result in storybook endings, but for the families that Hannah Sheehy and Provost Patty Prelock collaborated with for a study about Theory of Mind (ToM)the ability to attribute mental states to oneself and others, one of the primary challenges of autism spectrum disorder (ASD)its been just that.

As a research team coordinator for Prelocks study, Sheehy,a communication sciences and disorders senior in the College of Nursing and Health Sciences, assisted three families with ASD children throughout a six-week reading intervention program designed to help bolster their students ToM. The intervention program incorporated parent-led stories and picture books with ToM elements such as visual perspective-taking and emotion recognition, and included scripts to help parents further facilitate discussion with their child about the stories. Sheehy collected and analyzed the data from the program and found that each child improved not only their ToM score, but their own language complexity and story coherence abilities as well.

Pointing out a characters facial expression or asking the child how they think a character is feeling helped the children understand peoples emotions and become stronger storytellers themselves, which is an important social skill, says Sheehy. Ive loved seeing how the study empowers parents to incorporate simple book-reading strategies that scaffold their childs ToM development into their everyday lives and conversations.

Business student Michael Chan. (Photo: Sally McCay)

Recognizing the increasing demand for sustainable and socially responsible businesses and products,Michael Chanwas curious about how that trend found its way into local communities. A double major in business and environmental sciences, Chans research looked to an unexpected source for answers: marginalized small business owners. Small businesses are key change agents in their communitys transformation toward a more sustainable future, he says.

Chan conducted personal interviews with local entrepreneurs of varying genders, geographic locations, races, industries and sizes about how they started and grew their businesses. He then analyzed major trends among their experiences by applying constructivist grounded theory to their narratives. What he noticed was that, despite their identity and industry differences, major themes of family, resilience and care for others emerged, connecting identity groups.

Storytelling is a powerful tool in changing the world around us, Chan says. When it comes to building a more sustainable and socially responsible future, his findings indicate that connecting to the experiences of those deemed other in our communities will increase awareness of our individual purchasing power.

Medical Laboratory Science major Sierra Walters maintains cancer cell lines for genetic experiments. Her work contributes to a project investigating the alterations of a gene associated with lung cancer, the leading cause of worldwide cancer-related mortality. (Video: Janet Franz)

How to tell if a malignant tumor will be responsive to treatment? In her time at UVM, senior Sierra Walters has worked to help researchers better answer that question. Specifically, a team working with College of Nursing and Health Sciences professor Paula Deming and Larner College of Medicine professor David Seward is taking a closer look at a protein, STK11, thats been implicated in certain types of lung cancer and can equate to a poor prognosis. The big picture to this project is to study how different genetic variations in the STK11 gene alter the proteins function, explains Walters, with the hope of someday aiding doctors and labs profiling the tumors of lung cancer patients. Im so grateful to have gotten involved in this project so early in my college career, says Walters, a medical laboratory science major in the College of Nursing and Health Sciences. While the research is on pause during remote instruction, the team still meets weekly. And her time at UVM isnt done; after graduation, Walters will pursue her masters, and work in the microbiology department at UVM Medical Center. Having a hands-on job where Im constantly trying new things and working with other students in the lab helped prepare me for the future.

Writing for this piece contributed by Kaitie Catania, Andrea Estey, Janet Franz and Rachel Leslie. Photos by Josh Brown and Sally McCay. Videos by Janet Franz and Rachel Leslie.

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The Pursuit of Knowledge | UVM Today | The - UVM News

SAN DIEGO, April 16, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Turning Point Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: TPTX), a precision oncology company developing next-generation therapies that target genetic drivers of cancer, today announced the publication of preclinical data and patient case studies from the Phase 1 portion of its TRIDENT-1 clinical study for its lead investigational drug, repotrectinib.

Among the findings published in the American Association of Cancer Research peer-reviewed journal, Clinical Cancer Research, repotrectinib demonstrated potent in vitro and in vivo activity in patient-derived preclinical models compared with proxy chemical compounds for other tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) against ROS1 and the ROS1 G2032R solvent-front mutation. The central nervous system (CNS) activity of repotrectinib was studied in an in vivo model and demonstrated significant reduction of metastatic brain lesions with longer survival compared to a proxy chemical compound for entrectinib.

Our findings provide encouraging support for repotrectinib as a potential first-line treatment in ROS1-positive non-small cell lung cancer, and later-line use after progression from a prior ROS1 TKI, said Dr.Byoung Chul Cho,Division of Medical Oncology, Yonsei Cancer CenteratSeverance Hospital,Yonsei University College of Medicine,Seoul,Republic of Korea and corresponding author of the paper. In addition, these preclinical data as presented initially at the annual AACR conference in 2019 and now expanded upon in the publication suggest repotrectinib may prevent or delay the emergence of the G2032R solvent-front mutation and subsequent compound mutations, potentially improving clinical outcomes.

In preclinical studies, repotrectinib potently inhibited in vitro and in vivo tumor growth and ROS1-downstream signaling in treatment-nave models compared with proxy chemical compounds for crizotinib, ceritinib, and entrectinib. Compared to a lorlatinib proxy chemical compound in a xenograft model, repotrectinib markedly delayed the onset of tumor recurrence following drug withdrawal. In addition, repotrectinib induced anti-tumor activity in the CNS. Repotrectinib also showed selective and potent in vitro and in vivo activity against the ROS1 G2032R solvent-front mutation.

Patient case studies (from the previously reported July 22, 2019 data cut-off) included in the manuscript highlighted the potential for repotrectinib to prevent or delay ROS1 kinase domain resistance mutations.

The emergence of resistance mutations and disease progression in the CNS are characteristics of ROS1-positive non-small cell lung cancer and represent a high unmet medical need given the lack of approved therapies, said Dr. Mohammad Hirmand, chief medical officer of Turning Point Therapeutics. These findings highlighted in Clinical Cancer Research build on prior preclinical studies of repotrectinib and data we have shown from the Phase 1 portion of TRIDENT-1, and are encouraging for repotrectinib as a potential treatment for both TKI-nave and -pretreated ROS1-positive non-small cell lung cancer patients.

Approximately 50 to 60 percent of crizotinib-resistant mutations are found within the ROS1 kinase, of which the ROS1 G2032R solvent-front mutation is the most common. In addition, it is estimated that approximately 50 percent of patients treated with ROS1-TKIs experience disease progression due to CNS metastases.

The Clinical Cancer Research article may be found online at https://clincancerres.aacrjournals.org/content/early/2020/04/08/1078-0432.CCR-19-2777

More information about the ongoing TRIDENT-1 study of repotrectinib may be found by searching clinical trial identifier NCT03093116 at https://clinicaltrials.gov.

About Turning Point Therapeutics Inc.Turning Point Therapeuticsis a clinical-stage precision oncology company with a pipeline of internally discovered investigational drugs designed to address key limitations of existing cancer therapies. The companys lead drug candidate, repotrectinib, is a next-generation kinase inhibitor targeting the ROS1 and TRK oncogenic drivers of non-small cell lung cancer and advanced solid tumors. Repotrectinib, which is currently being studied in a registrational Phase 2 study in adults and a Phase 1/2 study in pediatric patients, has shown antitumor activity and durable responses among kinase inhibitor treatment-nave and pre-treated patients. The companys pipeline of drug candidates also includes TPX-0022, targeting MET, CSF1R and SRC, which is currently being studied in a Phase 1 trial of patients with advanced or metastatic solid tumors harboring genetic alterations in MET; TPX-0046, targeting RET and SRC, which is currently being studied in a Phase 1/2 trial of patients with advanced or metastatic solid tumors harboring genetic alterations in RET; and TPX-0131, a next-generation ALK inhibitor entering IND-enabling studies. Turning Points next-generation kinase inhibitors are designed to bind to their targets with greater precision and affinity than existing therapies, with a novel, compact structure that has demonstrated an ability to potentially overcome treatment resistance common with other kinase inhibitors. The company is driven to develop therapies that mark a turning point for patients in their cancer treatment. For more information, visit http://www.tptherapeutics.com.

Forward Looking StatementsStatements contained in this press release regarding matters that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements include statements regarding, among other things, the efficacy, safety and therapeutic potential of Turning Point Therapeutics drug candidate repotrectinib, and the results, conduct, and progress of Turning Point Therapeutics TRIDENT-1 clinical study of repotrectinib. Because such statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Words such as plans, will, believes, anticipates, expects, intends, goal, potential and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are based upon Turning Point Therapeutics current expectations and involve assumptions that may never materialize or may prove to be incorrect. Actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking statements as a result of various risks and uncertainties, which include, without limitation, risks and uncertainties associated with Turning Point Therapeutics business in general, and the other risks described in Turning Point Therapeutics filings with the SEC. All forward-looking statements contained in this press release speak only as of the date on which they were made. Turning Point Therapeutics undertakes no obligation to update such statements to reflect events that occur or circumstances that exist after the date on which they were made.

Jim Mazzolajim.mazzola@tptherapeutics.com858-342-8272

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Clinical Cancer Research Highlights Potent Antitumor Activity of Repotrectinib in Treatment-Nave and Solvent-Front Mutation Ros1-Positive Non-Small...

The Oregon State University veterinary laboratory teamed up with a private lab to use its expertise to boost testing and tracking of the COVID-19 virus, even after its offer of help drew scant interest from state health officials.

(CDC file art)

Published by arrangement with The Lund Reporthttps://www.thelundreport.org/

Specialists at Oregon State Universitys veterinary laboratory figured they could help the state ramp up testing for coronavirus. They run a sophisticated facility with state-of-the-art testing equipment, and theyre experts atdiagnostics and tracking viruses.

But they couldnt just start running COVID-19 tests. They faced a tangle of red tape.

So they approached the Oregon Health Authority, and a lawmaker contacted Gov. Kate Browns office for help. That led nowhere. The authority did not give them any support, and Browns office did not follow up with them, according to interviews and documents obtained by The Lund Report.

The labs managers did not give up. They forged ahead, dismantling obstacles without the states help. They joined forces with a commercial medical lab in Corvallis. In a joint effort, the two labs plan to launch their first COVID-19 tests on Wednesday. The project expects to run nearly 1,000 COVID-19 a day, giving Oregon a much-needed boost in its efforts to track the virus. Right now, Oregon tests between 7,000 and 8,000 people a week, Brown said.

Oregons lack of adequate testing infrastructure has dogged the states efforts to contain the virus. State public health officials repeatedly have said the state needs more tests to halt the spread, something that Brown repeated at a news conference on Tuesday."We need to ramp up testing in every region of the state," she said.

Yet state officials did not pursue a homegrown opportunity that taps the expertise of an Oregon university research laboratory.

From the start, testing has lagged in Oregon. Initial kits from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were faulty, and there was a lack of supplies. The state expected all tests to be conducted at the public health lab in Hillsboro but has since allowed testing by five hospital systems, two private labs and the University of Washington. Still, the state only has results for about 30,000 people, according to an Oregon Health Authority report on Monday.

The OSU project shines a light on the difficulties faced by entities outside the public health system to help Oregon track and quell the epidemic. The Oregon Health Authority apparently failed to recognize the contribution a veterinary lab could make despite examples in other states.

University veterinary labs in at least two other states Colorado and Oklahoma have been conducting COVID-19 testing for weeks. Each can process hundreds of tests a day. Their veterinary labs unlike OSUs had help from public authorities.

Physicians lack drugs to fight the virus, and it will be a year or more before a vaccine is on the market. The only tool public health officials have right now are tests.

"Testing is an essential pillar of any public health response to a disease outbreak, Dr. Sharon Meieran, a Multnomah County commissioner and emergency room doctor, told The Lund Report in an email. It allows for case identification, contact tracing and importantly, especially in congregate settings, the ability to isolate individuals who are infected so that they do not risk infecting others. Any increase in our capacity to test for COVID-19 will aid in our ability to respond to this disease at both an individual and community level."

Experts say that the more entities that test and the quicker the results, the sooner people will isolate themselves and stop spreading the highly contagious virus.

The lack of testing from the beginning has been one of the leading causes for where we are now," said Chunhuei Chi, director of OSUs Center for Global Health.

Lab Has Diagnostic Track Record

In Oregon, the idea to get the veterinary lab involved came from the medical community in Corvallis, including Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center. Frustrated over long waits for testing results, physicians approached the Oregon Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory at OSU last month to see if officials there could use their equipment to run COVID-19 tests. The lab was a prime candidate to help.

Any additional testing capacity that they can provide would be welcomed by the region and the state of Oregon, said Dr. Adam Brady, an infectious disease specialist and chairman of the hospitals coronavirus task force, in an email.

The lab, part of the universitys Carlson College of Veterinary Medicine, has a long history of tracking illness, like viruses in sheep and hoof and mouth disease in cattle. It works with state epidemiologists and is part of a U.S. Food and Drug Administration network of about 45 facilities nationwide that specialize in investigating animal diseases. They analyze animal blood, urine, stool and tissue samples for signs of illnesses to help the federal agency investigate complaints about tainted food and drugs.

One of the labs machines extracts genetic material from samples, usually collected via nasal swabs. The other machine analyzes the genetic material and provides the results.

This is just the sort of technology needed to conduct COVID-19 tests.

Mark Ackermann, director of the veterinary lab, wanted to help out but to run human analyses, a lab needs to be certified by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. His lab lacked that certification.

To obtain it, a lab has to meet federal standards. That process is complicated and takes time, even for a research lab that already meets other federal standards to track diseases in animals.

So Ackermann asked the Oregon Health Authority for help in smoothing the way for the veterinary lab to conduct tests on its own or work with another facility.

Agency officials visited the lab and discussed federal certification requirements, said Jonathan Modie, a spokesman for the agency. But they didnt help. Theysuggested that Ackermann contact clinical laboratories instead.

Early on, Ackermann received support from Sen. Sara Gelser, D-Corvallis, who saw the potential in the idea. On March 26, Gelser tried to enlist the support of Gov. Kate Brown by emailing Browns chief of staff, Nik Blosser, and copying other lawmakers. That email, obtained by The Lund Report, encouraged the governors office to consider an executive order allowing COVID-19 tests at research universities. Gelser pointed out that Oklahomas governor had issued such an order enabling a university veterinary lab there to participate in testing.

Would the governor consider a similar executive order so that OSU could make the same application and hopefully come online immediately, Gelser wrote, calling it a game-changer for containment efforts.

Charles Boyle, a spokesman for Brown, said the office passed along the request to the health authority. He referred a reporter to the health authority for further comment.

Ackermann said he never heard from the governors office.

Partnership Is Formed

But the lab found a way forward on its own.

At the same time that Ackermann was crashing into a regulatory wall, another lab in Corvallis was trying to conduct testing. WVT Laboratory, a commercial lab that normally analyzes toxins in urine and runs drug tests, contacted Benton Countys emergency operations center to see what it needed to do to conductCOVID-19 testing. That contact led to WVT hooking up with OSU through Dr. Bruce Thomson, a retired family physician in Corvallis who does consulting work for the county.

The two labs complemented each other.

WVT Laboratory has the necessary certification from CMS to conduct COVID-19 testing. It also has an approved records system that meets federal privacy regulations for patients. And the veterinary lab has the equipment that WVT needed to run the tests.

Less than a week after they met on April 1, the heads of the two labs decided that OSU would contribute its equipment. The university lab will extract the genetic material from tests and WVT will run the tests. After contacting the county, the pact came together quickly, said Manny Cruz, chief executive officer of WVT, which has a staff of eight people.

In an interview, Thomson gave the Oregon Health Authority credit for visiting Corvallis even though that didnt lead to anything.

I know they were pretty darn busy juggling a lot of things and felt that they just couldnt be of any help to us, Thomson said.

But in an April 4 email to Ackermann and Sen. Brian Boquist, R-Dallas, Thomson criticized the agency.

Our pursuit was not supported in any way by OHA, Thomson wrote. In spite of all the obstacles that OHA enumerated several times during an hour-long pitch by us, it now appears that the lab instrument will be up and running.

The two labs trained together for the first time Friday, with a plan to ramp up testing this week. The lab will not collect samples directly from patients. Instead, local doctors will determine who needs testing, collect samples from patients and send them to the lab for testing.Similar Efforts Elsewhere

The public-private collaboration between OSU and WVT may be unique in the U.S. Other veterinary labs involved in COVID-19 testing have official support. Those states found ways to either obtain the federal certification for the veterinary lab or they hooked the lab up with a partner with federal approval.

Last month, the diagnostic veterinary lab at Colorado State University in Fort Collins forged the path by gaining federal certification through a collaboration with the universitys student health center lab.

Kristy Pabilonia, director of the veterinary lab at Colorado State, said the student health centers lab director had the right qualifications, enabling the veterinary lab to apply for the certification, which requires audits and inspections. Usually, the federal government completes a background check and vets the director. The Colorado lab didnt need that step because the student lab director was already qualified.

The veterinary lab equipment can handle 200 tests a day.

Oklahoma State University is also running COVID-19 tests. It has five machines processing 1,000 tests a day at its diagnostic laboratory, which usually investigates animal diseases and outbreaks. The university could expand to around-the-clock testing if necessary, said Kenneth Sewell, the universitys vice president of research.

Like OSU, the veterinary lab at Oklahoma State lacked CMS certification. But it teamed up with its medical school, which is run by a certified director. The medical schools certification allows the lab to run tests.

The states governor, Kevin Stitt, also helped by signing an executive order that allowed the university to do the tests.

We became an extension or arm of the public health process so the hospitals and health care providers and pop-up specimen collection centers could send specimens to us, Sewell said. It allowed us to relieve the pressure on the department of health.

The Oregon solution came together differently. Ackermann, who avoided criticizing the health authority, said he was grateful that WVT was eager to collaborate.

They were willing to help, so lets go down that road and see where it takes us.

This story is published as part of a collaborative of news organizations across Oregon sharing stories in the public interest. Salem Reporter is part of the collaborative.

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Without state's help, OSU lab found its own way to help COVID-19 testing - Salem Reporter

In the mid-2010s, an outbreak of Ebola ravaged West Africa. Between December 2013 and June 2016, the disease officially killed 11,308 people in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, although the World Health Organisation (WHO) believes the real figure is probably much higher.

Ebola's virulence and lethality it has a mortality rate of around 40 per cent; Covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, kills roughly one per cent of sufferers, although the exact number is currently unclear made containing it an international priority. By mobilising labs around the world, a prophylactic Ebola vaccine rVSV-ZEBOV was rushed through development. In December last year, six years after the first cases were discovered in West Africa, and three years after the outbreak was officially deemed over, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) finally OKed it for use in the US. Compared to the normal timelines for these things, that still represents astonishing speed.

In the wake of the Ebola outbreak, WHO has taken a front-foot approach. Every year it publishes a list of key diseases it sees as the major issues the medical research community needs to tackle. The Blueprint For Diseases, as its called, highlights the diseases that could break out into epidemics in the next 12 months. It's a guide for the research community, an attempt to steer its resources to where they're most required. Currently, Covid-19 tops the list. Lurking at the bottom, as it has been every year since the Blueprint was first published in 2016, is something that sounds like it's been pulled from the pages of a comic: Disease X.

To create a vaccine in 18 months is unprecedented in human history. No vaccine has ever been developed at that speed.

Thats the unknown, brand new pathogen that springs up, says Rachel Grant, of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations. CEPI was formed in 2017, after the Ebola crisis made apparent the lack of a single, coordinating voice in the research and development (R&D) of vaccines. Its founding partners included the nation of Norway, the Gates Foundation, the Wellcome Trust, and the UK Research Foundation. (Since then, Germany and Japan have signed up, too.) What happened with Ebola was the world tragically realised they reacted too late," says Grant. "The whole system was too fragmented to respond in an effective way.

Disease X has long been recognised as an issue. Before coronavirus, the last brand new pathogen to spring up was the mosquito-borne Zika virus, which infected an estimated half-a-million people between 2015 and 2016. At the time of writing, Covid-19 had infected at least 1.5 million people and killed 90,000 (see the most recent numbers at Johns Hopkins Universitys live map of global cases).

The focus of the R&D world is now squarely on Covid-19, and the race is on to develop a vaccine. If the boffins and academics are to succeed, they will have to move at a previously unheard-of pace. Vaccine researchers are used to working on vaccines for decades, but with coronavirus, we cant wait that long. More than 60 teams across the globe are trying to find a way to protect the worlds population up from around 40 two weeks ago and the more optimistic among them think there could be a vaccine ready in 12 to 18 months. That is unprecedented in human history, says Grant. No vaccine has ever been developed at that speed. But they have to try.

Professor Katie Ewer hated immunology when she was an undergraduate. She had been interested in biology since she was a child, fascinated by seemingly endless processes that occur in our cells and organs every second of our lives without us knowing about it. When she didn't get into medical school she trained as a microbiologist instead, and grew fascinated by infectious diseases. Ive always had a real obsession with the human body, anatomy and how it works, she says. Eventually, she came to see immunology as its "ultimate expression". After a PhD in the subject she landed at Oxford University's Jenner Institute, and has spent the 13 years since working on a malaria vaccine, to try and halt the spread of a disease that kills 500,000 people every year.

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Thirteen years may sound like a long time, but vaccines are difficult to develop, especially when they're for diseases that largely impact the poorer parts of the world. A malaria vaccine would save tens of millions of lives, but it would be less profitable than, say, a drug that reverses hair loss or makes you lose weight. So not-for-profits like the Jenner Institute, where Ewer is a senior scientist, do the work that big pharma won't prioritise. According to The Global Fund, $5 billion is needed to keep development of a malaria vaccine on track. In 2018, researchers received $2.8 billion, a drop from the year before. That Covid-19 has spread through the global west has, perversely, probably accelerated the search for its vaccine.

To create a vaccine, you need to know what you're fighting, which is why, on 11 January, researchers in Shanghai leaked the genetic sequence of the coronavirus, after realising that Chinese authorities had no intention of releasing it globally. The next day, their lab was closed for "rectification". Their sacrifice enabled teams around the world to mobilise.

"We go round the lab with a tape measure, measure two metres, work out the number of people who can safely work in a particular area"

Vaccines work by training your body to react in a certain way, like teaching a child to catch a ball. The first time you throw it, it bounces off them. The second time, maybe they put up an arm to protect themselves. Eventually, they'll learn to predict its flight, get their hands in the right place, and time when they should wrap their fingers around the ball. It's become an innate reaction that happens almost without thinking.

In the same way, the first time your body is exposed to a new virus, it doesn't know how to react. Being infected with Covid-19 is like turning a tennis ball launcher on that child before they've learnt to catch they'll be overwhelmed. But introduce a measured, non-fatal dose and our body learns to battle it, even when confronted by a larger amount. This is done by injecting antigens (or small molecules of the virus, which is a pathogen) into the body. The immune system recognises a harmful alien presence and, through a process of trial and error, creates antibodies to battle it. Once it's been destroyed, your body remembers the specific antibodies it needs to produce if the virus returns say, through live infection so it can mobilise more quickly. (This is also why those who've already been infected almost certainly can't catch Covid-19 a second time, unless the virus mutates.)

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Before the advent of genetic medicine, vaccines worked by injecting patients with either a dead form of a virus, so it couldn't replicate inside the body, or a similar but less harmful pathogen (Edward Jenner, for whom the Jenner Institute is named, all-but invented vaccination in the 1790s when he realised that if you deliberately infected someone with the comparatively harmless cowpox virus, they wouldn't catch smallpox). Today, making a vaccine isn't simple, but it is standardised. The actual platform the backbone of the vaccine is always the same, whatever the disease, says Ewer. Researchers just slot in a little bit of the genetic information from the new virus.

The Jenner Institute develops a multitude of different vaccines at any one time, and at the start of the year, Ewers colleague, Professor Theresa Lamb, was handling its coronavirus research. By the middle of February, the Institute had recognised that the early stages of their vaccine production had gone well, and were preparing to test it in a clinical trial. Suddenly the small number of people working on the vaccine under Lamb ballooned. Ewer was drafted to help in the effort, one of around 60 people including doctors and nurses who are screening potential trial participants and laboratory staff developing tests and assays working on the project. Many are working from home: the lab doesnt want people in unnecessarily, in case they contract or spread the disease. We go round [the laboratory] with a tape measure, we measure two metres, work out the number of people who can safely work at that distance in a particular area of the lab, says Ewer. Its really boring, just the same as any other supermarket or shop.

The potential outcome is far from boring. Covid-19 has changed our scientific landscape in terms of how fast things are moving, says Dr Melvin Sanicas, a vaccinologist and medical director at Takeda, a Japanese pharmaceutical company. Since its genetic sequence was released, two teams have got candidate vaccines into clinical trials. One is based on an Ebola vaccine, developed by CanSino Biological Inc, a Hong Kong company, in collaboration with the Beijing Institute of Biotechnology. The other is from a Massachusetts-based pharmaceutical company, Moderna (who declined to speak for this story).

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In the 70 years since the first identified coronavirus infection in humans, no vaccine has ever got beyond Phase II trials, which means labs are taking diverse approaches to finding one now. The Asian plan uses a non-replicating viral vector essentially, the dead vaccine. The Moderna plan uses an RNA vaccine, in which human cells are injected with the disease's RNA a simpler version of DNA, used by cellular organisms like viruses in the hope that it will absorb it and start to produce antibodies. The former isn't so different from Jenner's original method; the Moderna plan is based on science that, so far, is largely theoretical, but which will be much quicker to test and produce than those made by the traditional method. If it works.

But finding a vaccine that defeats a disease is merely step one. You test the vaccine candidates in cell cultures or animal models to see if the vaccine candidate is safe and whether its able to induce an immune response, says Sanicas. The right immune response sees the body fight back against the pathogen, without being overwhelmed by it some candidate vaccines have to be shelved because the virus wins. Get it to work in cell cultures or animal models, and youre through the pre-clinical phase. You can now try and test it in humans.

"With any vaccine there is a risk of rare serious adverse events."

Testing is the time-consuming part. The team at Oxford University recently put out a call for participants across the Thames Valley area, asking for 510 participants in total. More than half will be given the actual vaccine, and 250 will be given a control. Theyll be monitored over the next six months to see how the vaccine is working researchers are looking for an immune response, but also check for side-effects that might be worse than the disease. In exchange, the participants will get up to 625, and the pride of knowing theyre helping save the world. The amount is relatively low (participants in a botched clinical trial in the mid-2000s got 2,000 each), and the risk real: an accompanying document acknowledges with any vaccination there is a risk of rare serious adverse events.

All vaccines entering clinical trials on humans go through three stepped stages. The Oxford trial will test only a few people to start with, to make sure everything works correctly and safely, before increasing the numbers. Well try and get up to vaccinating some quite big numbers of people in a short space of time, says Ewer. In less urgent times, that means thousands of participants over several years, because it can take months for an immune response to show up in healthy subjects.

To progress, a vaccine needs to produce positive results at all three stages. Normally, that means an effectiveness of at least 97 per cent, says Sanicas, although the pandemic is so severe that any potential coronavirus vaccine could be rolled out with results as low as 70 per cent.

Next, you start applying to national regulatory bodies the FDA in the US, the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency in the UK, and the European Medicines Agency in the EU for approval. Once theyve determined the vaccine is safe, effective and made using quality production mechanisms, they approve the vaccine for use, says Sanicas. Getting from identification to commercial vaccine normally takes the best part of a decade.

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Faced with a pandemic, there's always a temptation to cut corners. Every extra day jumping through red tape means thousands of people dead, tens of thousands more infected. But the scientific community has learned that a bad vaccine is worse than no vaccine. In the mid-2000s, trials of an experimental leukaemia drug in London went wrong, seriously damaging six participants without that testing, actual patients could have been given a drug that was more likely to kill them than their disease. And all vaccine development lives in the shadow of a terrible series of events in 1976, when the threat of a swine flu epidemic across the US led the government to instigate mass vaccination. To speed up production, they opted to use a "live" virus, rather than an inactive strain. Of the inoculated, one in 100,000 contracted a neurological disease called GuillainBarr syndrome, in which the bodys immune system attacks its own nerves, causing permanent paralysis. Since then, speed has always come second to safety.

But time can be saved if you can organise people properly. "Getting the regulatory authorities to focus, to come together, to really understand the data, all of that will make a difference to the timeframe for this," says Grant. Medical advances have also sped up the process of getting a vaccine to trial safely. The Oxford team is also changing the way they work, to speed things up without sacrificing safety, says Ewer. Were doing a lot of things in parallel that we would ordinarily do one after the other."

But they arent the only team on the cusp of clinical trials.

A tobacco warehouse in Owensboro, Kentucky may seem like an odd place for a coronavirus vaccine to emanate, but we live in strange times. British American Tobacco (BAT), which some might say is a company best known for killing people, has also entered the race to save lives. Right now, I would hope we could leave the politics of tobacco and smoking to one side," says Kingsley Wheaton, who leads marketing at BAT, "in order that we try and focus on the matter at hand right here, right now, which is solving this Covid-19 problem globally."

A few years ago, recognising it was selling fewer cigarettes every year, BAT invested in a company called Kentucky BioProcessing, to help find new uses for the tobacco plants it was growing but which people weren't smoking. They were especially interested in a protein that could be harvested and processed as animal feed. You take a small, hardy Australian tobacco varietal, and around halfway through its growing cycle impregnate it with an antigen for the protein. It replicates at a tremendous scale. The plant is a mini-factory, if you like, says Wheaton.

It became clear that this might also be a way to produce vaccines quickly and cheaply. Instead of an antigen developing a feedstock protein, Kentucky BioProcessing realised they could develop the antigens of viruses. You could clone in fields, rather than Petri dishes. In 2014, as Ebola was killing people in Africa, Kentucky BioProcessing put its newly acquired company to work. Improbably, Kentucky BioProcessing developed ZMapp, an Ebola drug that the World Health Organisation concluded, in 2018, had benefits [that] outweigh the risks (science has since thrown doubts on its effectiveness, however).

Every year since, Kentucky BioProcessing has worked on a seasonal flu vaccine; this year's was heading into the first stage of clinical trials when the coronavirus began its rampage across the globe. Now, the business has been reoriented to aid Covid-19 vaccine development: 50 staff members are devoted to growing an antigen that can create a vaccine in tobacco plants in a matter of weeks. You extract it, purify it and hey presto theres a vaccine. Results from pre-clinical trials in animals are pending, at which point it will move into clinical trials which may be anything from 12 to 18 months, even with a fair wind, Wheaton says.

What if they all worked together? Wouldnt it get done in half the time? No.

Not that theyre waiting that long. Even if BAT's vaccine is ineffective, its production technique could be a game-changer. Because a pandemic is different from an epidemic, and the need for a vaccine is everywhere and at the same time, youve also got to think about manufacturing capacity, says CEPIs Grant. If youre thinking about developing a vaccine for an epidemic, youre talking millions of doses of whatever it is youve developed. A pandemic, youre talking about billions.

BAT plans to start production on their vaccine even before it knows whether it works, making between one and three million a week, just in case. Wheaton is at pains to point out that if the vaccine isnt approved, it wont be used, but if it turns out our candidate vaccine is the right one, it would be good to have a stockpile of these things.

This is where research diversity becomes so important. People may look at the vast array of organisations, private companies, university laboratories and oddball developers trying to produce different vaccines simultaneously in all four corners of the world and think, What if they all worked together? Wouldnt it get done in half the time? Not so, says Grant, whose list of teams working on a vaccine tops 90. You are always better to have a diversified approach than you are to have a really narrow one, she says. You never want a single point of failure in a situation like this." With vaccines, there are too many potential failure points to count.

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During the West African Ebola crisis, pharma giant Merck was one of the first to get a drug through clinical trials. Its vaccine, rVSV Zebov-GP, had 100 per cent efficacy, but a zero per cent chance of actually being used at scale; it needed to be stored at 80C. You try getting a vaccine supposed to be stored at 80C out to war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo and youve got massive supply problems, says Grant. Which is why it was handy there was investment in another vaccine, by Johnson & Johnson, that wasn't so temperamental.

Most drug research works on a winner-takes-all model: invent Viagra, or Minoxodil, or Oxycontin, and you get a 20-year exclusivity licence (in the US). That means you can charge as much for it as you like. Once the licence lapses, competitors can create generic versions and the price falls. With a pandemic vaccine, the rules of the marketplace make less sense. There's healthy competition, but its against nature, not each other.

"Im trying to do as much as I can do in the working day and then go home and try and be a mum to my kids at home."

That said, there are economic incentives at play: make the vaccine everyone wants and you can at least recoup the costs of developing it. CEPI has ploughed $23 million into the eight programmes it's supporting underway, and estimates it will cost something like $2 billion more to get three of those into clinical testing. Altruism is fuelling initial development, but at some point realism steps in. Still, any CEPI-developed vaccines wont result in a free-for-all (the US government's reported attempts to buy German pharmaceutical group CureVac, to get at its potential coronavirus vaccine first, hint at what could happen with international cooperation). CEPI has a stringent policy on equitable access and believes that work needs to be done now at an intra-governmental level to decide a way for people who need the vaccine most, such as healthcare workers and the vulnerable, to access it first.

Regardless, developers are keen to help in any way they can. Were one of many in that area, but wed also be delighted to take a candidate vaccine and become a fast-scale manufacturer through our plant-based system, says Wheaton.

For those in the labs, competition isn't a concern. They worry about the pressure of getting a vaccine right and getting it quickly. When I ask Ewer if the process of developing a vaccine has been stressful, she replies with one word: "Yes".

I try not to think about it too much, she eventually adds. Shes stopped watching the news; a regular Twitter user, shes now shunning the app. I had to stop engaging with it because if I think too much about it, I get really stressed. If I think too much about what happens if none of this works, then I feel a bit overwhelmed, so Im trying to do as much as I can do in the working day and then go home and try and be a mum to my kids at home, try and keep things as normal for them as possible, because its weird for the family as well as it is for everybody.

"Hopefully one of us will produce a vaccine that is effective. I dont really mind if its ours or anybody elses, as long as one of them works."

It can be easy to forget, as we praise our scientists and our doctors, our nurses and the collective brainpower of the experts working to lead us out of this crisis, that theyre human beings, too. The risks of getting it wrong are real and they feel them every day.

If you ask me whether I want this really quick, or I want a robust process, I would pick the safe and robust process, says Sanicas, who worries were all getting caught up in the hype around 18 months to a vaccine. I dont want this to be just a vaccine you bring quickly to the market but were not sure about the long-term effects. He thinks itll take two years for anything to come to fruition.

Near the end of our conversation, I ask Ewer if theres one thing she wishes the general public who are clamouring for a Covid-19 vaccine as eagerly as they are for sufficient testing capacity knew about her work. I expected her to explain the challenges of the vaccine, or to caution about its progress (she believes the best case scenario is that by autumn this year the Oxford team will have evidence of the vaccine being safe and able to induce a good immune response). I didnt expect her to answer as she did.

I think I would like people to know there are lots of people working very, very hard on this, she explains. Making vaccines is difficult and its expensive, but there are at least 30 different groups around the world, all trying to produce a vaccine against this disease, and hopefully one of us will produce a vaccine that is effective. I dont really mind if its ours or anybody elses, but as long as one of them works, thats the most important thing.

She pauses for a moment, then picks up her train of thought. As long as somebody gets there, we dont mind if its us, or Moderna, or anyone else. As long as one of us gets there, and we can make enough of it quickly enough to make an impact.

The information in this story is accurate as of the publication date. While we are attempting to keep our content as up-to-date as possible, the situation surrounding the coronavirus pandemic continues to develop rapidly, so it's possible that some information and recommendations may have changed since publishing. For any concerns and latest advice, visit the World Health Organisation. If you're in the UK, the National Health Service can also provide useful information and support, while US users can contact the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

For more advice, visit the following recommended websites:

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When Will There Be A Coronavirus Vaccine? - esquire.com

Metastatic brain tumor and primary lung cancer were found to have gotten different genetic characteristics in the course of genetic mutation, researchers said.

By making the most of these characteristics, medical professionals will be able to upgrade the effect of targeted therapies, they added

The joint research team of Seoul National University Hospital (SNUH) and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) attached to Harvard University College of Medicine has recently released the results of analyzing the genetic mutations of metastatic brain tumors and primary lung cancer.

Brain tumors spread from lung cancer are very malignant, and the number of patients has been increasing recently. However, their treatments have been limited due to their insufficient study

The research team has selected 73 patients suffering from brain tumors spread from lung cancer and analyzed the genetic mutations of metastatic brain tumors and primary lung cancer.

The Korean and U.S. researchers confirmed MYC, YAP1, MMP13, and CDKN2A/B genetic mutations occur in metastatic brain tumors, unlike primary lung cancer. Even the same cancer cells showed different genetic mutations, depending on whether they belong to the lung or brain.

The research team explained this is a very significant finding in the targeted treatment of brain tumors spread from lung cancer. If medical professionals treat patients with targeted therapies developed to suit the characteristics unique to a metastatic brain tumor, they will be able to upgrade therapeutic effects, it added.

The latest research is the result of the seven years of joint study since 2013 between SNUH and MGH. The two institutions have shared case reports and treatment methods through 14 video conferences, and have several joint studies underway by strengthening their cooperation in research.

We jointly published the genetic mutations observed only in metastatic brain tumor in the journal Cancer Discovery jointly with MGH in 2015, said Professor Baek Seon-ha of the Department of Neurosurgery at SNUH. The recent research is its follow-up study, a result of the close cooperation and continuous joint study between the two hospitals.

Professor Park Seong-hye of the Department of Pathology at SNUH also said, This research will exert a decisive influence on the research and deciding on the treatment method of brain tumor spread from lung cancer.

Co-researchers from the U.S. side were Professor Priscilla Brastianos, and research fellow Scott Carter of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

The research results were published on the online edition of the March issue of the journal Nature Genetics.

cks@docdocdoc.co.kr

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New horizon opens for targeted therapy of metastatic brain tumor - Korea Biomedical Review

Buried in the genetic code of the new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19, are mutations that can help scientists learn more about where the disease started and how its continuing to spread.

Virginias state laboratory is one of three public health labs in the country to begin unraveling that code, Gov. Ralph Northam announced at a news briefing on Monday.

In coordination with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and international health partners, the states Division of Consolidated Laboratory Services will begin sequencing virus samples from patients across the commonwealth. By compiling a repository of genetic information, health officials hope to learn more about how the disease began circulating in different communities and whether certain mutations are associated with outbreaks.

Were sequencing the entire genome of the virus, DCLS Director Denise Toney said Monday. We want to determine what are the similarities and what are the differences between what Virginia has and what theyre seeing in European countries, for example, versus southeast Asia versus Washington state.

The technology, often called next-generation sequencing, has actually been around for more than a decade, said Dr. Paul Skolnik, an infectious disease expert and chair of medicine at the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine. Its been used extensively to sequence the genetic code of other infectious diseases, especially HIV.

But unlike HIV which mutates rapidly and can even circulate in individual patients as swarms of closely related viruses SARS-CoV-2 appears to be changing much more slowly. Both Skolnik and Toney said its too early to classify different strains of the disease, and still unclear whether it will ever have that level of variability.

A transmission electron microscopic image from the first U.S. case of COVID-19. The spherical viral particles, colorized blue, contain cross-sections through the viral genome, seen as black dots. (CDC Public Health Image Library)

Usually, there has to be a certain percentage of difference between the sequences to allow us to call something more than one strain, Skolnik said.

He cautioned that more research has to be done before scientists can determine how much variability exists within the virus. But based on the behavior of other coronaviruses, he said its unlikely that SARS-CoV-2 will change fast enough, or extensively enough, to be broken into multiple strains.

What scientists have seen are divergent clusters of the disease, Toney said. So far, there have been roughly seven similar mutations recorded around the world in countries with widespread transmission.

By sequencing samples from COVID-19 patients from Virginia and comparing them with other variants, state health officials have already learned that the disease entered the commonwealth through multiple sources (rather than being spread through exposures to a single patient). Toney said local samples matched with versions from southeast Asia and Europe, as well as other areas of the United States.

Comparing viral sequences can help experts determine which mutations are responsible for outbreaks and which seem to respond to containment measures, she added. It could also help epidemiologists track the disease within communities, determining whether it was introduced by different sources or whether a single version was widely transmitted.

It can give us clues to whether two nursing homes are linked, for example, Toney said. If the strain types are very, very similar and clustered together, it suggests they may have a similar mode of transmission.

From a global perspective, sequencing a wide variety of COVID-19 samples is a valuable tool in developing new treatments and vaccines, Skolnik said. Identifying mutations in the virus allows scientists to determine commonalities between different variants. Knowing which targets are shared in samples around the world will allow researchers to develop drugs that are most effective in interfering with its replication.

Then, it will give us great insight into what made this particular coronavirus so lethal, he added. In that we can understand, from the genetic sequence, what proteins are made and how those proteins differ from coronaviruses that have circulated for eons in the human population. Theres something particular that this particular coronavirus had that made it able to destroy and attack tissue in the lungs.

So far, the state lab has only sequenced a few samples of the virus, Toney said. DCLS is currently working with the Virginia Department of Health to identify which samples would yield the most information through sequencing.

If they have no idea how you got exposed, that could make you a good person to sequence, she added. Maybe it turns out your virus is linked to, say, the Nile River cruises. Then that could link to a nursing home outbreak, or maybe some clusters were seeing in the Northern Virginia area. It can help point to where your exposure may have been.

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Virginia's state lab is one of the first in the country to sequence samples of virus that causes COVID-19 - starexponent.com

A new, different type of coronavirus test is coming that will help significantly in the fight to quell the COVID-19 pandemic, doctors and scientists say.

The first so-called serology test, which detects antibodies to the virus rather than the virus itself, was given emergency approval Thursday by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. And several more are nearly ready, said Dr. Elizabeth McNally, director of the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine Center for Genetic Medicine.

Youll see many of these roll out in the next couple of weeks, and its great, and it will really help a lot, said McNally, noting doctors and scientists will be able to use it to determine just how widespread the disease is, who can safely return to work and possibly how to develop new treatments for those who are ill.

The serology test involves taking a blood sample and determining if it contains the antibodies that fight the virus. A positive result indicates the person had the virus in the past and is currently immune.

That kind of test will be far easier to roll out and use than the complex nasal swab tests now being used to detect the active virus that causes COVID-19, she added, saying its possible that the antibody tests could be conducted in the confines of ones own home, much like a pregnancy test.

They will come in a variety of shapes and sizes, McNally said. "The simplest would be one that you do at home, that you would poke your finger and squeeze out a little blood and put it on a little strip, and itll be the plus-minus whether youve developed antibodies or not.

There are several benefits to having the test, including:

Determining how much of the population is infected.

One of the questions we are going to be asking is, How widespread was this virus? McNally said. "I think we have a lot of indication that its much more widespread than we know, because most of the younger people who get this get it relatively mildly, recover and do OK. And were not tracking any of those people right now.

Interestingly, the more people who have had it, the safer everyone is, under the concept of herd immunity.

The people who are already covered can actually provide protection to the people around them, just because its hard for the virus to spread, McNally said. The virus cant spread anymore, so people are less likely to get it.

Figuring out who can go back to work, particularly sidelined doctors and nurses, police officers and firefighters.

If a person is positive for antibodies, which likely show up two to six weeks after infection, theyre not going to get sick or spread the virus, because their bodies are killing it off. Once the antibodies come up in your system, that means your body fought it off, and you dont have active virus, McNally said.

It may also be important to test grocery store workers, McNally added, noting that buying food is one of the things thats still forcing people out of their homes. Thats one of the major points of contact, so where we can reduce that, especially in the next few weeks, I think thats going to be really critical, she said.

Getting a sense of how long immunity lasts.

Other coronaviruses that have been studied trigger antibodies that typically last one to three years. So the immunity likely isnt forever.

Are we seeing a sustained response thats going to help us prepare better for when this happens again, and it will happen again, McNally said. Thats what happens with viruses.

Possibly learning more about how to fight the disease, using antibody treatment.

Maybe these people that really did poorly (when they had COVID-19), maybe they were slow to develop antibodies, in which case this concept of giving them antibodies is actually a good concept to help treat people, McNally said. "So, theres so many things we will learn from the immune response to this virus.

Approval of the antibody test is something that public health officials have been talking about for weeks, saying it couldnt come fast enough.

When we have antibody testing, trust me, well be using that a lot, because well be looking to see if people have been exposed to coronavirus, Dr. Allison Arwady, Chicagos public health commissioner, said in a recent interview before the test was approved. Are they recovered? Will they be safe for working and caring for people?

Likewise, Dr. Robert Gallo, co-founder and director of the Institute of Human Virology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, described development of the test as imperative.

It allows the public health officials to better follow the epidemic," Gallo said. "Without the antibody test, its very hard to follow the epidemic with convenience of any kind.

Research wise, wouldnt it be really important to know if theres some aspect of the immune system that makes it worse, or if there are people correlating with some type of immune response that was really correlated with the symptoms being virtually nothing," he added. You would just be able to make really important conclusions, so we need the antibody test rather desperately.

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Next coronavirus test can tell if you are now immune and its fast - Monmouth Daily Review Atlas

SALT LAKE CITY, April 08, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Myriad Genetics, Inc. (NASDAQ: MYGN), a global leader in personalized medicine, announced today that due to the impact of the global COVID-19 pandemic, the company is withdrawing its fiscal year 2020 financial guidance.

Prior to mid-March we were experiencing volume trends consistent with our expectations across all products; however, recent social distancing guidelines have had a significant impact on test volume trends in late March and into the fiscal fourth-quarter, said R. Bryan Riggsbee, interim president and CEO and chief financial officer at Myriad Genetics. Our priority as an organization during the coronavirus pandemic has been to maintain business continuity and access to testing, while ensuring the safety of our employees and customers. As an organization we have taken steps to advance these dual aims, and I am very proud of how the Myriad team has responded to the crisis.

In responding to the pandemic, Myriad has made several changes to its business practices to promote the safety of both customers and employees including ceasing in-office sales calls and implementing virtual selling, granting all non-essential personnel the ability to work from home, enabling direct sample collection for patients and implementing policies to improve laboratory personnel safety.

While the uncertain timeframe of the Coronavirus pandemic makes it difficult to predict future business trends for the company, the company will provide an update on its business, including the impact of COVID-19, on its next quarterly earnings call.

About Myriad GeneticsMyriad Genetics, Inc. is a leading personalized medicine company dedicated to being a trusted advisor transforming patient lives worldwide with pioneering molecular diagnostics. Myriad discovers and commercializes molecular diagnostic tests that determine the risk of developing disease, accurately diagnose disease, assess the risk of disease progression, and guide treatment decisions across six major medical specialties where molecular diagnostics can significantly improve patient care and lower healthcare costs. Myriad is focused on three strategic imperatives: transitioning and expanding its hereditary cancer testing markets, diversifying its product portfolio through the introduction of new products and increasing the revenue contribution from international markets. For more information on how Myriad is making a difference, please visit the Company's website: http://www.myriad.com.

Myriad, the Myriad logo, BART, BRACAnalysis, Colaris, Colaris AP, myPath, myRisk, Myriad myRisk, myRisk Hereditary Cancer, myChoice, myPlan, BRACAnalysis CDx, Tumor BRACAnalysis CDx, myChoice HRD, Vectra, Prequel, ForeSight, GeneSight and Prolaris are trademarks or registered trademarks of Myriad Genetics, Inc. or its wholly owned subsidiaries in the United States and foreign countries. MYGN-F, MYGN-G.

Safe Harbor StatementThis press release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements relating to maintaining the Companys global leadership in precision medicine and the Company's strategic directives under the caption "About Myriad Genetics." These "forward-looking statements" are based on management's present expectations of future events and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially and adversely from those described or implied in the forward-looking statements. These risks include, but are not limited to: the risk that sales and profit margins of the Companys existing molecular diagnostic tests and pharmaceutical and clinical services may decline or will not continue to increase at historical rates; risks related to the Companys ability to successfully transition from its existing product portfolio to our new tests; risks related to changes in the governmental or private insurers reimbursement levels for the Companys tests or the Companys ability to obtain reimbursement for its new tests at comparable levels to its existing tests; risks related to increased competition and the development of new competing tests and services; the risk that the Company may be unable to develop or achieve commercial success for additional molecular diagnostic tests and pharmaceutical and clinical services in a timely manner, or at all; the risk that the Company may not successfully develop new markets for its molecular diagnostic tests and pharmaceutical and clinical services, including the Companys ability to successfully generate revenue outside the United States; the risk that licenses to the technology underlying the Companys molecular diagnostic tests and pharmaceutical and clinical services tests and any future tests are terminated or cannot be maintained on satisfactory terms; risks related to delays or other problems with operating the Companys laboratory testing facilities; risks related to public concern over the Companys genetic testing in general or the Companys tests in particular; risks related to regulatory requirements or enforcement in the United States and foreign countries and changes in the structure of the healthcare system or healthcare payment systems; risks related to the Companys ability to obtain new corporate collaborations or licenses and acquire new technologies or businesses on satisfactory terms, if at all; risks related to the Companys ability to successfully integrate and derive benefits from any technologies or businesses that it licenses or acquires; risks related to the Companys projections about the potential market opportunity for the Companys products; the risk that the Company or its licensors may be unable to protect or that third parties will infringe the proprietary technologies underlying the Companys tests; the risk of patent-infringement claims or challenges to the validity of the Companys patents; risks related to changes in intellectual property laws covering the Companys molecular diagnostic tests and pharmaceutical and clinical services and patents or enforcement in the United States and foreign countries, such as the Supreme Court decisions Mayo Collab. Servs. v. Prometheus Labs., Inc., 566 U.S. 66 (2012), Assn for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, Inc., 569 U.S. 576 (2013), and Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank Intl, 573 U.S. 208 (2014); risks of new, changing and competitive technologies and regulations in the United States and internationally; the risk that the Company may be unable to comply with financial operating covenants under the Companys credit or lending agreements; the risk that the Company will be unable to pay, when due, amounts due under the Companys credit or lending agreements; and other factors discussed under the heading "Risk Factors" contained in Item 1A of the Companys most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, as well as any updates to those risk factors filed from time to time in the Companys Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q or Current Reports on Form 8-K. All information in this press release is as of the date of the release, and Myriad undertakes no duty to update this information unless required by law.

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Myriad Withdrawing Financial Guidance for FY2020 Due to Business Impact from Coronavirus Pandemic - BioSpace

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A genetic variant in a gene called MET is responsible for more aggressive growth of head and neck cancer, and lung cancer, according to a new study.

A further probe into the finding reveals therapeutic strategies that could potentially target this genetic alteration and pave the way for better and more effective treatments.

The MET gene encodes for a cancer promoting protein that relays growth, survival, and transmission of signals in cancer cells, researchers say.

As reported in Nature Communications, researchers also identified a form of MET protein which showed ethnic preference with higher incidence among Asians, and associated with poorer prognosis in patients diagnosed with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma or lung squamous cell carcinoma.

Even though the MET variant does not seem to predispose someone to head and neck cancer or lung cancer, it leads to more aggressive growth of cancers that have already developed.

Unlike other MET mutants, existing MET-blocking drugs do not seem to inhibit this genetic variant, prompting researchers to conduct further investigation on the mechanism behind the genetic alteration.

The team found that the single amino-acid change in the MET receptor from the genetic alteration leads to preferential strong binding to another cancer promoting protein, HER2. Both proteins then work together to drive cancer aggression and allow the cancer cells to survive therapies that involve MET-blocking drugs.

The mechanism of this MET variant is novel and unreported. This finding contributes to the growing evidence of the role of genetic variants in affecting clinical outcome, and underscores the importance of diving deep into our genetic inheritance in cancer research, says Kong Li Ren of the Cancer Science Institute (CSI) Singapore at NUS, who initiated the study.

Knowledge of this unique mechanism also allowed researchers to identify several HER2 inhibitors capable of blocking cancer progression the genetic alteration caused.

Our study represents a conceptual advancement to cancer research, as we have shown that it is possible to block the activity of a cancer-driving gene by administrating a targeted therapy directed not against the mutant protein in question, but rather, a corresponding protein with which it binds to, says Goh Boon Cher, deputy director and senior principal investigator at CSI Singapore.

The remarkable anti-tumor responses observed in our experimental models, coupled with the availability of FDA-approved HER2 inhibitors, also presents a huge opportunity for clinicians to improve disease outcome of this genetic alteration via precision medicine.

The research team is now translating the findings to a clinical trial where patients tested positive for this MET variant gene are treated with suitable medications that have shown effectiveness in the laboratory.

Additional coauthors are from the National University Cancer Institute, the National Cancer Centre Singapore, and the Bioinformatics Institute at the Agency for Science, Technology and Research, Singapore.

Source: National University of Singapore

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Gene variant makes head and neck cancer more aggressive - Futurity: Research News

This article originally appeared on VICE US.

There was a time when waking up with a scratchy throat or a dry cough didnt elicit such a sense of dread, but Covid-19 has made us all hyper-aware of its symptoms. Many people have been left wondering if they are asymptomatic carriers of the disease, or if a slight cold they may have recently experienced was actually something more menacing.

These fears are not unfounded: More than a million patients around the world have confirmed cases of coronavirus, but the real number of infections is far higherthough nobody yet knows by how much.

Thats why medical professionals are rushing to develop tests for antibodies that might reveal if a patient ever contracted Covid-19, regardless of whether they experienced symptoms. These tests may even be able to determine individual immunities to the virus, which has led to speculation that some people could reenter the workforce or resume normal activities if they have the right antibodies.

While this proposed solution may provide a sense of hope, it is far from a certain outcome at this point in time. Theres no clear consensus about the immunological response to Covid-19, and murky ethical problems undergird the idea of lifting restrictions on some populations, while isolating others, especially based on unsettled science.

Heres what you need to know about these tests, their development, and their potential to influence the global Covid-19 response.

Antibody tests, also known as serological tests, differ from the diagnostic swab tests that have been in high demand since the pandemic gained momentum.

Swab tests, or PCR tests, are designed to directly detect the virus by searching for its RNA, which is a genetic signature of its presence. These tests require collection of mucus samples from patients, typically sourced from deep within the nasal cavity, which are then sent to a laboratory to be examined. If the results come back positive, the patient is considered an active carrier of Covid-19 who could potentially infect other people.

Antibody tests, in contrast, dont look for the virus itself, but rather our immunological response to it. When our bodies are invaded by antigens such as the coronavirus, our immune systems react by creating a type of blood protein called an antibody. Antibodies flow through the blood, attacking the alien antigens by binding to them, which can neutralize the spread of infection. Many known antibodies can be detected with a quick blood test.

The idea is that you have volunteers who have recovered from infection, and you look to see what antibodies theyre expressing and test that against samples of the virus, basically, to see what are the circulating antibodies that recognize your virus, said Ruth Collins, professor of molecular medicine at Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine, in a call.

It can take several weeks for the immune system to develop antibodies to fight a virus, which means positive serological tests may not indicate an active infection. Instead, the presence of coronavirus antibodies demonstrates if a patient ever had Covid-19, whether or not they experienced symptoms.

While it is common for an exposed person to develop immunity to other known viruses, it is important to emphasize that nobody knows yet whether the presence of Covid-19 antibodies indicates that a patient has either temporary or permanent immunity to the infection.

We dont know yet exactly how peoples immune systems respond to the infection, so wed have to find something that would mark everybodys response to the virusthe universal human response to the virusand to make sure that it was specific to this virus, Collins said.

These things are doable, she added, they just take a long time to work out.

Short answer: We have no idea.

Countless teams of scientists around the world are developing serological tests to detect antibodies related to Covid-19, including researchers at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Last Thursday, the US Food and Drug Administration approved the first test for antibodies test for Covid-19, though it is intended as a diagnostic test for active infections.

Last week, a team of scientists at Stanford University conducted finger-prick blood tests on 3,200 volunteers to help refine their antibody test. Likewise, in Italy, an entire town of 3,000 people that already received swab tests is now in the process of providing blood samples to follow-up on the diagnostic data with antibody studies.

Regardless, there have also been setbacks with the roughly 100 test kits for these antibodies that are already in development. None of these tests are close to reaching the high bar required for public distribution.

"Theres so much we really dont know"

Youd have to have a very high specificity and sensitivity, so you would be able to pick up even small amounts of those antibodies or the evidence of infection in people's blood, Collins said. Without that, you could well have people that have been infected without knowing about it, she continued, or people who might think they were still naive, immunologically, when in fact they werent.

In other words, antibody tests not only need to be good enough to yield reliable positive results, they also need to clearly show who does not have Covid-19 antibodies. Finding the right balance requires making sure that antibodies linked to viruses that arent Covid-19 do not produce false positives, and ensuring that the antibodies that are specifically linked to this particular coronavirus cannot evade detection.

Its hard to predict how long this process will take, given that so many teams are actively working on it, but its probably optimistic to expect they will take weeks or even months to be widely available to the public.

This timeline might be further delayed by new revelations about Covid-19. For instance, its possible that some carriers may never develop symptoms, but could still remain infectious to others for months.

Theres not even a consensus that everybody will completely clear the virus from their system, Collins noted. Some people may be asymptomatic shedders for a while. Theres so much we really dont know.

The phrase immunity passport has been floated by the government of the United Kingdom, and others, as a potential way to allow people with immunity to Covid-19 to return to regular work and travel routines.

Assuming that widespread serological testing is achievable, the idea is that people with antibodies linked to Covid-19 would be cleared of social distancing measures because they are theoretically immune to the virus and cannot actively spread it. This would bring back some normalcy for some of the population, and it would also enable scientists to better estimate the total number of Covid-19 cases, as opposed to confirmed cases involving patients who were sick enough to receive a swab test.

On the flip side, antibody tests for this purpose raise concerns about privacy rights and employment inequities, given that authorities would be using medical information to judge whether patients can return to work and normal life.

In the United States, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Genetic Information Act (GINA) prevent employers from discriminating on the basis of disability or genetic information. But discrimination for health reasons remains legal in many contexts in the United States, according to Jessica Roberts, director of the Health Law and Policy Institute at the University of Houston Law Center.

"We can go some way towards knowing who has been infected, but the idea of it being used as employment criteria is somewhat dystopian

Both laws would likely permit employers to screen employees for antibodies, Roberts said in an email. She noted that GINA only applies to genetic test results and family medical history, which are not likely to apply to antibody tests, which do not look for individual genetic information.

Moreover, the ADA actually allows employers to discriminate if employing a person with a disability could threaten the safety of the workplace, Roberts added. Assuming that ADA protection applies to people with Covid-19 (which a court would have to ask whether having Covid-19 constitutes a legally recognized disability), the employer could still prohibit an employee from coming to work if the employer could show that the employee would pose a significant risk.

The notion of planning a staggered reopening of society, in which restrictions are lifted on people judged immune to Covid-19, is inherently risky on both an epidemiological and ethical level.

While it may be soothing to daydream about receiving an immunity passport that allows you to return to your "normal" life, it is probably better to invest your energy in adapting to the restrictions, following health guidelines until more information is available, and working towards a better "normal" in whatever way you can.

It sounds good because it gives us what we want, which is definitive answers, Collins said.

But we dont know enough to be able to provide those definitive answers. We can go some way towards knowing who has been infected, but the idea of it being used as employment criteria is somewhat dystopian.

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What Are Antibody Tests, and Can They Prove Coronavirus Immunity? - VICE

Siddhartha Mukherjee and Ken Burns hope The Gene will spark a national conversation. Photo: Stephanie Berger/Columbia University

NEW YORK Surging hope and semblance of solace in the age of the coronavirus comes in what may seem as strange indicators for laymen: New York state registered the largest number of deaths in a single day, on Tuesday, April 7, 2020, from the coronavirus since the crisis began. A staggering number of 731 people died in a day. Yet, there was cautious optimism as the rate of hospitalizations has fallen for several days, and the infections seem to be plateauing.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, while revealing that 5,489 people had died in the state, said he was encouraged by the data on hospitalizations. He, however, cautioned against growing complacent or easing up on social distancing measures that seem to be working, reported The New York Times.

Cuomo said that increases in hospital beds and the number of health care providers who were working had helped New York to balance its patient load and help ensure that no one facility was overburdened.

The governor also said that planning was underway to restart the regional economy and that he had spoken to the governors of New Jersey and Connecticut about coordinating those efforts.

While the news on the lower number of hospitalizations may be encouraging for many, for families who are either victims or afflicted with the coronavirus, there was only misery, despair and dread to deal with.

A veteran Indian American journalist, Brahm Kanchibotla, from Hicksville, NY, was amongst the thousands who have died from the coronavirus, in New York. He breathed his last on April 6, after a cardiac arrest in a hospital in New York, after being admitted following symptoms of coronavirus. He is survived by his wife Anjana, and two children, son Sudama, and daughter Siujana.

Kanchibotla, who had worked for The Indian Express newspaper in Hyderabad, prior to emigrating to the US, worked also for the United News of India, from New York, and had worked as Content Editor for Merger Markets. He was 66 years old, according to Rajender Dichpally, a community activist.

Dichpally expressed his shock at the passing away of Kanchibotla, who he said was put on a ventilator at the hospital in New York, but didnt pull through.

He took his profession very seriously, said Dichpally. I remember when the late YSR Reddy had come to New York, in 2002. Kanchibotla wanted to interview him, and I managed to seat him next to YSR as he was having dinner, and Kanchibotla managed to get the interview.

Dichpally, who is from the Telugu diaspora, said that Kanchibotla also covered several Telugu association meets in the US, annually.

Mohammed Jaffer, the Editor of SnapsIndia, an international news photo service, based also in New Jersey, said that he knew Kanchibotla for the last 30 years, and they both were from the same hometown, Hyderabad.

I knew him for 30 years. He used to work for Indian Express Hyderabad, and he also used to work with my father there. He was a very humble and down to earth man, said Jaffer.

SIDDHARTHA MUKHERJEES NEW VENTURE

Indian American oncologist and writer Siddhartha Mukherjee and Ken Burns will present the PBS Premiere of The Gene: An Intimate History.

The ability to modify genes and prevent disease has exploded in the last decade. It is now possible to use gene therapy to cure inherited disorders, to correct genetic defects and to limit the severity of a disease. But this new era in genomic medicine offers both promise and peril, according to a report by Columbia University, where Mukherjee is on the faculty.

These revolutionary discoveries highlight the awesome responsibility that we have to make wise decisions, not just for the people alive today, but for generations to come, said Mukherjee, an assistant professor of medicine at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, staff cancer physician and author of The Gene: An Intimate History.

The Gene: An Intimate History, a four-hour, two-part documentary, will air April 7 and 14 on PBS stations nationwide. The series, like the book, weaves together science, history and stories of individuals and families, including Mukherjees account of his own family and its recurring pattern of mental illness.

The Gene airs at a critical moment for the science community, as geneticists around the world grapple with the ethical questions these technologies raise. In Nov. 2018, a Chinese researcher stunned and horrified the scientific community with the announcement that he had created the first genetically edited babies, twin girls born in China.

The documentary had been cut and finished just before the first cases of coronavirus were reported in China, so it was too late to include what would soon become the COVID-19 pandemic, a global crisis inextricably tied to our genes, Mukherjee said, reported Columbia University.

A piece of genetic material29,000-odd nucleotides of RNAcoated with protein has upended the world, Mukherjee said. Virtually every technology were using to track and treat COVID-19, even an oral or nasal swab to detect whether you are infected, relies on genetic techniques.

In an interview to Columbia News, Mukherjee sad that perhaps the most grotesque example of the misuse of the language of genetics is the Nazi eugenics program in the 1930s. The Nazis distorted the language of genes to imagine creating a genetically superior nationand then this was used to justify imprisonment and mass extermination.

Mukherjee was asked that if the concept of being able to order for $200 a profile of his or her genome that provides ancestral information, as well as genetic health risks, was positive or not.

He responded: The question you have to ask is do we want to live in a world where you can send a sample of saliva and find out that you have a 10 percent or 20 percent risk of developing breast cancer in the next 30 years. This information can be useful, motivating you to adopt more positive health behaviors. But it also marks you, changes you. It can change your relationship with yourself, your body. When you decide to test for future risk you are also, inevitably, asking yourself, what kind of future am I willing to risk?

Asked if genetics play a role in how vulnerable a person is to contracting COVID-19, and whether that person is more at risk of dying from the illness, he said this is one of the great mysteries of this infection. Young, healthy people are dying, even if most serious cases occur in the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions.

Mukherjee added: There are multiple studies trying to unravel why some people infected with SARS-Cov2, the virus that causes COVID-19, fall seriously ill, while others show only mild or nonexistent symptoms. We are finding a correlation between high viral loadthe amount of virus present in any sample taken from a patientand more severe illness.

Mukherjee had recently argued in The New Yorker that we have done a good job measuring the spread of the virus across populations, but it is now time we learn more about how SARS-Cov2 behaves in the body. This requires large-scale efforts to collect the DNA of people and the virus that they are infected with. One example of a study might be taking the DNA of those with serious underlying disease and comparing it to the DNA of those with mild or asymptomatic cases.

According to him, the medical fraternity need to determine whether genetic variations among humans affect how susceptible individuals are to COVID-19 infections as rapidly as possible.

(Sujeet Rajan is Executive Editor, Parikh Worldwide Media. Email him: sujeet@newsindiatimes.com Follow him on Twitter @SujeetRajan1)

Read more:
Death of a journalist, and Siddhartha Mukherjee on genes and COVID-19 - newsindiatimes.com

The COVID-19 pandemic is piling on top of a litany of health inequalities in America to kill a disproportionate number of African Americans. In Chicago alone, black residents make up more than half of all cases and about 70 percent of those whove died of the disease. Thats despite African Americans only making up about 30 percent of the citys population.

Those numbers take your breath away, they really do, Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot said in response at a press conference on April 6th. This is a call-to-action moment for all of us.

Experts who have long grappled with higher rates of chronic conditions like diabetes, heart disease, and asthma in black communities arent surprised. The barriers and biases that laid the groundwork for African Americans to be potentially harder hit in this crisis have been in place for generations, they say. Ensuring better health outcomes in this pandemic or any future public health crisis means addressing those underlying injustices.

When you look at [COVID-19] that particularly is virulent for persons who have higher rates of disease, thats exactly the picture of African Americans. But its not their genes. Its the social conditions that we have created, says, David Williams, a professor of public health at Harvard whose research has examined how race and class affect health. I hope this is a wake up call for America.

Its hard to get a grasp on how discriminating the spread of the disease in the US really is; limited testing nationwide means we dont even have a good baseline for how many Americans have contracted COVID-19. Many states arent reporting the breakdown of their cases by race, and many localities disclosing the race of COVID-19 patients dont have demographic data for every single case. The data that we do have, however, is beginning to show a stark divide across the nation.

In Michigan, African Americans make up a third of all cases and 40 percent of deaths, while making up just 14 percent of the states population. And 70 percent of people whove died of COVID-19 in Louisiana as of April 6th were African American; less than one-third of the states population is black. In Alabama, an equal number of black and white residents have died, but 69 percent of the population is white while roughly 27 percent is black.

I have seen in my waiting room mostly black and brown patients who are essential workers and service workers who cant afford to stay home. These are the ones that I see presenting to the clinic with COVID-19 symptoms, said Uch Blackstock, a physician in Brooklyn and CEO of the company Advancing Health Equity, in an April 6th press call.

On April 8th, New York the state that has more than a third of all the cases in the US released data on race for the first time, backing up Blackstocks earlier observations. Black New Yorkers made up 18 percent of deaths to COVID-19 in the state (outside of New York City), although theyre just 9 percent of the population. In the Big Apple, Hispanic and black people have died at rates 5 to 6 percent higher than the percentage of the population they make up.

The disparities that have plagued this city, this nation, that are all about fundamental inequality are once again causing such pain and causing innocent people to lose their lives, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said in a press conference today. Its sick. Its troubling. Its wrong.

Improving the odds for neighborhoods of color, Williams says, will mean addressing the cascade of disparities when it comes to housing, air quality, education, and job opportunities. Your zip code is a better predictor of how long and how well you will live than your genetic code, Williams says.

Chicago has the biggest differences in life expectancies based on ZIP code in the US, according to data from NYU Langone Health. There, the neighborhood with the lowest life expectancy 60 years has a population thats almost 95 percent black. Meanwhile, the neighborhood with the highest life expectancy 90 years is predominantly white.

Without closing those neighborhood-to-neighborhood gaps, Williams fears that the economic fallout from COVID-19 could make health disparities even worse in the future. Without that investment, I shudder to think of what the long term effects are going to be, he says.

COVID-19 is deadlier in people who have preexisting health conditions that weaken their lungs and immune systems. Black Americans were already three times more likely to die from asthma-related causes in 2014, according to the US Department of Health and Human Services. Living in neighborhoods with more air pollution is likely a contributing factor: African Americans were 75 percent more likely to live in places bordering a polluting facility like a factory or refinery compared to other Americans, according to a 2017 report by the NAACP and Clean Air Task Force. Theyre also exposed to air thats 38 percent more polluted in comparison to white Americans, the report found.

Heightened risks for African Americans are paired with lower rates of being insured and lower median household incomes in comparison to whites, which can limit access to health care. Williams also points out that black households are less likely to have an economic cushion to help them get through the pandemic and its aftermath since they have 10 cents in wealth for every dollar that white households have accumulated.

While anyone struggling to make ends meet is especially vulnerable right now, Williams points out that people of color face the added burdens of racism and discrimination when trying to get medical care. Racial and ethnic minorities tend to get worse care compared to whites, regardless of insurance status, income, age, or severity of conditions, a comprehensive 2003 report from the National Academies Institute of Medicine found. Across virtually every therapeutic intervention, from the most simple medical procedure to the most complicated, blacks and other minorities receive poorer quality care and less intensive care than whites, Williams says. He fears the same could be playing out now.

Theres already some early evidence that testing for COVID-19 might have been out of reach for many African Americans, which could lead to a silent spread of the disease among black communities, says Syracuse University associate professor Shannon Monnat. States with more black residents and higher poverty rates had lower rates of testing for COVID-19, according to preliminary data published by Syracuse University last week. Those early figures similarly suffer from a poor baseline since testing has been low across the board for all Americans. But Monnat says that places that have large concentrations of vulnerable populations, including racial and ethnic minorities and poorer residents, tend to have poorer health care infrastructure, which could lead to less access to COVID-19 tests.

In response to New Yorks newly released numbers, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said that the state would increase its testing in minority communities and conduct research on why the state is seeing those gaps. Thats a late start considering the state has seen an exponential growth in cases for weeks, but it could serve as a lesson for other big cities bracing for a surge of infections.

You can almost predict with certainty that already marginalized and vulnerable populations will be getting tested less frequently and less easily than other populations, says Irwin Redlener, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University. They are always at risk for not getting whats needed, especially and including in times of disaster.

Read more from the original source:
America set up black communities to be harder hit by COVID-19 - The Verge

Public health officials have been warning that a Covid-19 vaccine will not be available to the public for 12 to 18 months, dampening hopes that there will be a quick end to the global pandemic nightmare.

But Chinese researchers cracked the virus' genetic code within weeks of its emergence late last year, and two vaccine candidates are already in early human trials one in China and the other in the United States.

What's the hold up?

Essentially, you can speed up the vaccine development process to respond to a pandemic, but you don't want to speed it up so much that you allow a bad vaccine to enter the market, explained Dr Greg Poland, director of the Mayo Clinic's Vaccine Research Group.

"The process of developing, testing and licencing a vaccine for widespread population use is designed to be slow, deliberative, peer-reviewed, reflective, evidence-based, so that we don't make mistakes," Poland said.

Going too fast could lead to a vaccine that's not effective or, worse, can cause serious health problems, Poland said.

Typically, clinical trials take 10 to 15 years and a billion dollars to complete, Poland said.

Vaccine trials come in three phases, said Dr Wilbur Chen, an adult infectious disease expert at the University of Maryland's Center for Vaccine Development and Global Health:

The US vaccine candidate now in clinical trials was developed at record speed by scientists at the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and the biotech company Moderna.

"This was very dramatic that we were able to have the first Covid-19 vaccine into clinical trials within just a couple of months," Chen noted.

Researchers combined the virus' genetic code with existing processes to create the vaccine candidate, said Dr Kathleen Neuzil, director of the University of Maryland's Center for Vaccine Development and Global Health, in Baltimore.

"The reason we were able to get into trials so quickly is because this vaccine was modelled on other vaccines for influenza and Zika, using the same manufacturing process and the same technology, but just substituting the genetic code for this SARS-CoV2 virus," Neuzil said.

This trial has enlisted 45 healthy adults in Seattle, who are being tracked for about six weeks.

The Covid-19 virus infects lung cells using "spike" proteins that line the outside of the virus. These spikes bump into receptors on the lung cells, tricking the cells into letting the virus enter and infect them.

The NIAID/Moderna vaccine aims to teach the immune system to recognise these spike proteins and destroy the virus.

The US Food and Drug Administration has indicated that it is willing to speed up the regulatory process by allowing clinical trial phases to be combined.

For example, phase I and II trials could be combined by tracking both safety and immune response. Phase II trial participants could be followed into phase III, and tracked to see if the vaccine prevents community infection.

"We know we are in the middle of a pandemic right now, so we are very carefully following safety, but we really can't forget we're now at about the million mark for people infected with Covid-19," Neuzil said.

But Poland warned there are potential pitfalls that need to be considered in rushing a vaccine to market.

For example, the vaccine might not provide lasting immunity, either because people's immunity wanes quickly or because the virus mutates to get around it.

There already are concerns regarding the ability of people to remain immune to coronaviruses. People typically lose their immunity to coronavirus strains that cause the common cold within a year, Chen said.

Poland also is concerned about the focus of the NIAID/Moderna vaccine and other similar candidates on the "spike" or "S" protein alone.

"That's one area where there's been at least one identified mutation," Poland said of the coronavirus spike protein. "You put a mutational pressure on an RNA virus and, no surprise, the virus mutates and changes."

By comparison, flu vaccines include antigens related to two separate proteins on the influenza virus, to limit the virus' ability to mutate away from a person's established immunity, Poland explained.

Another concern is the potential for unintended safety consequences related to the vaccine.

"Something rushed out too fast that would have some significant side effect later would set back vaccine acceptance in an already vaccine-sceptical culture for decades," Poland said.

Neuzil noted that "when we have seen safety signals with vaccines, they ordinarily occur soon after you give the vaccine".

However, vaccine candidates earlier developed for the coronaviruses behind SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) and MERS (Middle East respiratory syndrome) have raised concerns about creating lung disease on their own, according to a recent editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The SARS vaccine candidates tended to cause "antibody-enhanced disease" in animal testing, a condition in which a creature that's received a vaccine not only gets infected by the target virus but also suffers worse symptoms than if they'd never been inoculated, Poland explained.

"It protected them from the virus, at the cost of antibody-enhanced disease. These animals developed an unusual immunopathological picture in their lungs and livers. The vaccines never progressed past that," Poland said.

Similar antibody-enhanced disease reactions also occurred in the 1960s with an inactivated measles vaccine and in 2018 with a vaccine for dengue, Poland said.

Poland foresees a potential future in which a Covid-19 vaccine is rushed out but proves ineffective in preventing infection, possibly because the virus has mutated around the vaccine. "A second strain develops next year that, when it infects people who have been immunised, they are not protected because of the false immunity they have or develop antibody-enhanced disease," he said.

There are as many as 40 vaccine candidates for Covid-19 in various stages of development, Poland said.

A second US company, Inovio Pharmaceuticals, announced on Monday that it is beginning phase I clinical trials in 40 healthy volunteers in Philadelphia and Kansas City, Missouri. This vaccine uses a section of the virus' genetic code packaged inside a piece of synthetic DNA.

Having many vaccine candidates will help in the process of speeding a successful vaccine to the public, Neuzil said.

"You can't count on a single vaccine," Neuzil said. "We want a lot of shots on goal right now, hoping that we'll score with at least one of these."

READ | SA scientists make key coronavirus discovery - the lead researcher tells us more

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Image credit: National Cancer Institute, Unsplash

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Why will it take so long for a Covid-19 vaccine? - Health24

Investigators have identified genomic alterations that appear to be associated with prognosis in men with metastatic castration-sensitive prostate cancer (mCSPC).

Astudy of 424 patients with mCSPC treated at a tertiary care center revealedthat alterations in the androgen receptor (AR), TP53, cell-cycle, MYC oncogenicsignaling pathways occur more commonly in tumors with worse overall survivaland decreased time to castration-resistant disease, whereas alterations in theSPOP and MNT pathways occur more frequently in tumors with a better prognosis,according to findings published in ClinicalCancer Research.

Thegenomics of metastatic castration-sensitive prostate cancer have not been wellcharacterized in the literature, but it is now clear that upfront treatmentintensification with taxanes or next-generation AR-directed therapies offerbenefit in the overall patient population, said the studys co-senior authorWassim Abida, MD, a medical oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering CancerCenter in New York. The question remains whether treatment selection ortargeted therapies can be employed based on genomic characteristics.

Theassociation between alterations in cell-cycle genes and TP53 and MYC pathwaygenes and worse outcomes may pave the way for targeted therapy in thesehigher-risk groups, Dr Abida said.

Thestudy compared genomic alterations according to clinical phenotypes: high- vslow-volume disease and de novo vsmetastatic recurrence. Of the 424 patients in the study, 213 men (50%) hadhigh-volume disease (4 or more bone metastases or visceral metastases) and 211(50%) had low-volume disease; 65% had de novometastases and 35% had metastatic recurrence. At the time of sample collection, patients had a medianage of 66 years. The investigators conducted gene sequencing from May 2015 to September2018.

High- vs low-volume disease

Inadjusted analyses, men with higher-volume disease had significant 1.8- and3.7-fold increased risks of castration-resistant disease and death,respectively, compared with men who had low-volume disease. Tumor specimensfrom men with high-volume disease had more copy number alterations.

Amongmen with high-volume disease, the highest-ranking pathways were the NOTCH,cell-cycle, and epigenetic modifiers pathways.

Althoughthe prevalence of CDK12 alterations differed between patients with de novo metastatic and those with metastaticrecurrences, the groups had similar prognoses. I was actually surprised therewere not more dramatic genomic differences between de novo and relapsed disease, said study co-senior author PhilipKantoff, MD, a medical oncologist and Chair of the Department of Medicine atMemorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York.

Afteradjusting for disease volume and other genomic pathways, the researchers foundthat the rates of castration resistance differed by 1.5-fold and up to 5-fold accordingto alterations in the AR, SPOP (inverse), TP53, cell-cycle, WNT (inverse), andMYC pathways. Overall survival (OS) rates varied from 2- to 4-fold according toalterations in the AR, SPOP (inverse), WNT (inverse), and cell-cycle pathways.PI3K pathway alterations were not associated with prognosis.

Docetaxeland next-generation AR axis-directed therapies have been shown to prolong OS, butit remains uncertain which patients benefit the most from intensifiedtherapies. We did not find any obvious genomic reason to explain thedifferences in docetaxel sensitivity between high- and low-volume disease, DrKantoff said.

Theauthors pointed out that genomic landscape studies of tumor DNA profiling inprostate cancer in general have excluded metastatic castration-sensitive tumors.Instead, most studies have focus on localized disease or metastaticcastration-resistant disease.

DrAbida and his colleagues acknowledged that their study has inherent biases becauseit was hospital based and enrolled patients at an academic referral center.

Moleculardeterminants of castration resistance or survival in patients with mHSPC have beenunclear, but the new study sheds new light on molecular alterations associatedwith poor outcomes in men with mHSPC, particularly alterations in the AR, cellcycle genes, MYC, and TP53 genes, said Joshi Alumkal, MD, the Leader of theProstate/Genitourinary Medical Oncology Section and Associate Division Chieffor Basic Research in the Hematology-Oncology Division at the University ofMichigan School of Medicine.

Severalrandomized phase 3 clinical trials now show a benefit of escalating treatmentin men with mHSPC by adding novel AR-targeting agents or chemotherapy plusmedical castration versus medical castration alone, Dr Alumkal said. Whetherthe addition of any of these specific agents to medical castration isassociated with improved outcomes in patients with poor-risk molecularalterations identified by the new study is a critical next question, he said.

Urologiconcologist James Mohler, MD, Senior Vice President for Translational Researchat Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center in Buffalo, New York, said the new study found relativelysmall differences among the clinical phenotypes, but that is not surprisingbecause the temporal differences in the evolution of tumor biology occur overlong periods of time, much of which precedes clinical presentation. The hazardratios for association between mutational analysis and oncologic outcome insome cases were statistically significant, but are so small as to not beclinically significant. Part of the reason for this may be that prostatecancer, once metastatic, is so complex that no single mutation or single genepathway is driving growth and hence targetable at a high rate beyond the long provenbenefit from androgen deprivation therapy, Dr Mohler said.

Theresults reported by these authors may be disappointing to many clinicians, butare important because they represent a comprehensive analysis of mCSPC. Theauthors appropriately acknowledge that better tumor sampling and morecomprehensive genetic analysis and larger numbers of patients may be requiredto find any benefit to genomic or somatic sequencing, Dr Mohler said. I amafraid that these limitations are not just of their work but a biologicallimitation of aggressive prostate cancer, which makes improving treatment ofadvanced prostate cancer in an individual patient extremely challenging.

Reference

Stopsack KH, Nandakumar S, Wibmer AG, et al. Oncogenic genomic alterations, clinical phenotypes, and outcomes in metastatic castration-sensitive prostate cancer [published online March 27, 2020]. Clin Cancer Res. doi: 10.1158/1078-0432.CCR-20-0168

Originally posted here:
Genomic Alterations Linked to Outcomes in mCSPC - Renal and Urology News

Indians have some genetic advantage, but these are still early days to come to any conclusion

The fewer-than-expected cases positive to the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) in Indiahave spawned severaltheories, one of them being,Indians being immune to the virus.

It is theoretically possible as Indians are constantly exposed to microbes that keep the immune system primed, destroying pathogens attempting to attack. This is why children in very clean environments fall sick at the slightest exposure to a pathogen a concept known as the hygiene hypothesis.

Indians have some genetic advantage as well: Theyhave evolved to gain more genes that protect against viral infections, according to Rajalingam Raja, director of Immunogenetics and Transplantation Laboratory at the University of California in San Francisco, US. He said:

These genes enable natural killer (NK) cells, a type of white blood cells in our body that provide a first line of defense against viral infections

Two families of genes KIR genes and HLA genes playa part in this protective function. Indians have more KIR genes than the Chinese and caucasians. This could makeIndians more immune to the virus, according to Raja.

A similar mechanismprotectsbats from viruses like Ebola and SARS. Bats are immune since they have expanded gene families that enhance NK cell function, said Raja, who first wrote about NK cells in 2008 in journal Genes and Immunity.

This alone is, however, not enough to guide Indias strategy to fight the disease or even suggest that strict measures are not needed. A team of researchers from India and the US studied umbilical cord blood of children in the two countries and found differences. The findings were published in journal PLoS One in 2018.

We interpreted our study to suggest that Indian babies could be more susceptible to early-life infections if they had lower frequencies of certain immune cells, said Holden Maecker, director of the Human Immune Monitoring Center at Stanford University School of Medicine.

Persistent pathogen assault especially early in life is almost certainly detrimental. Thisisseen in the phenomenon of environmental enteropathy, where kids with poor sanitation and high enteric pathogen loadsdevelop malnutrition and stunting, Maecker said. But he agreed exposure to pathogens could equip the immune system better to fight new assaults like Zika or coronavirus, to an extent.

This was similar to the protective effect provided by latent tuberculosis. It was certainly possible that there was increasing resistance if not specific immunity to COVID-19 in certain genetic groups. It is difficult, however, to extrapolate this to all Indians who are a diverse collection of ethnic groups.

It is a balance and my guess is that its too soon to say where Indians as a whole will fall on this balance in terms of their sensitivity to COVID-19, hesaid.

Arguments about the Indian immune systemsare mostly speculative, according to Satyajit Rath of the National Institute of Immunology. He co-authored the 2018 study with Maecker.

I am yet to see any indication that COVID-19 will, in fact, turn out to be less prevalent and/or milder in India, since the epidemic is still in its early stages in the subcontinent, he said.

There are no publications, as of now, on the differential prevalence or outcome of COVID-19 among Indians and those of other ancestries worldwide.

Good nutrition, exercise and sleep can improve the immune system.

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Excerpt from:
COVID-19: Do Indians have higher immunity to novel coronavirus - Down To Earth Magazine

Families across the U.S. will get a portion of money from the federal government's sweeping $2 trillion stimulus package. But how much? USA TODAY

On the day some Americans could begin receiving stimulus checks from the federal government amid the coronavirus pandemic that has eroded the country's financial footing, economists surveyed by Bloomberg predict the Labor Department will report another 5.5 million initial claims for unemployment insurance.

A record 6.6 million people sought benefits for the report issued a week ago after 3.3 million claims, then a record, were reportedthe previous week.

Also Thursday, astronauts launched for the International Space Station after a "strict quarantine." And the Trump administration loosened restrictions on essential workers.

The U.S. death toll was nearing 15,000 early Thursday, with more than430,000 confirmed cases, according tothe Johns Hopkins University data dashboard. Worldwide, there are close to 1.5million confirmed cases and more than 88,500 deaths.

Our live blog is being updated throughout the day. Refresh for the latest news, and get updates in your inboxwithThe Daily Briefing.More headlines:

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Much-awaited stimulus cash will beginflooding into millions of bank accounts next week in the first wave of payouts to shore up the nation's wallets.Millions of taxpayers will begin receiving the extra money to pay rent, groceries and other bills next week, or possibly as early as Thursday or Friday.The first group estimated to cover 50 million to 60million Americans would include people who have already given their bank account information to the Internal Revenue Service.

The first group also would includeSocial Security beneficiaries who filed federal tax returns that included direct deposit information, according to an alert put out today by U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich. Dingell's announcementsaid the expectation is that the first direct deposits would hit inmid-April, likely the week beginning April 13.

Susan Tompor, Detroit Free Press

Congress has passed, President Trump has signed, a $2 trillion stimulus bill that includes checks to taxpayers. Here's how to see what you might get. USA TODAY

Attorney General William Barr called the restrictions in effect in many states to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus "draconian" and said Wednesday they should be revisited next month.Asked by Fox News host Laura Ingraham about the balance betweenreligious freedomsand the need to protect people, Barr said the federal government would be "keeping a careful eye" onstates' use of broad powers to regulate the lives of their citizens.

Officials, Barr said, should be "very careful to make sure...that the draconian measures that are being adopted are fully justified, and there are not alternative ways of protecting people."

Nicholas Wu

The new coronavirus began spreading in New York in February and came to the area via travelers from Europe, new research suggests.Two separate teams of scientists studying the genetics of the virus came to similar conclusions: People were spreading the virus weeks before the first confirmed case in New York.

"So far, the majority seem to be coming from Europe, and this is in part I think because there was a focus on stopping travel from China," Adriana Heguy, a geneticist at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, told AFP.Harm van Bakel, a geneticist at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai who led the other research team, told the New York Times: "The majority is clearly European."

The first case of the new coronavirus confirmed in New York came on March 1. On Jan. 31, President Donald Trump said he would restrictentry to the United States from those traveling from China. On March 11, Trump said he was restricting travel from Europe.

Ryan W. Miller

There probably wont be much let-up in the nations grim tally of job losses, at least in the short term, as the coronavirus pandemics toll on the economy mounts.

Economists surveyed by Bloomberg estimate the Labor Department will report Thursday that 5.5 million Americans filed initial applications for unemployment insurance last week, below the record 6.6 million who sought benefits the previous week. Jobless claims provide the best measure of layoffs across the country.

The figures are so outsizedthat forecasting them has become something of a crapshoot. Michelle Meyer, chief U.S. economist of Bank of America Merrill Lynch, predicts the latest initial claims total Thursday will be 6.5 million, and JPMorgan Chaseestimates anall-time-high of 7 million.

Paul Davidson

Another trial is underway to test the safety of a possible vaccine for the new coronavirus, and those who fear needles may be in luck: It uses a skin-deep shot that would feel like a small pinchinstead of a deep jab.The trial aims to give 40 healthy volunteers in Philadelphia and Kansas City, Missouri, two doses of the potential vaccine, INO-4800, four weeks apart.

Similar to another clinical trial that began testing for safety in Seattle last month, the potential vaccine does not rely on using the virus itself. Inovio Pharmaceuticals' trial, instead, injects a piece of synthetic DNA with a section of the virus' genetic code. The Seattle trial relies on messenger RNA. After the shot,volunteers are given a brief electrical pulse that allows the synthetic DNA to more easily enter the body.

Dozens of other potential vaccines are being developed around the world, but it could be more than a year to 18 months before a vaccine is widely available, public health officials have said.

- Ryan W. Miller

The European Union could collapse if it fails to come together over financial challenges presented by the coronavirus, Italy's prime minister said. Giuseppe Conteand some other EU leaders are pressingmore frugal members of the bloc to issue so-called "corona bonds" - sharing debt that all EU nations would help to pay off. The Netherlands is among nations that haveopposed the plan.

"If we do not seize the opportunity to put new life into the European project, the risk of failure is real," Conte told the BBC.

Conte also saidItaly may start to gradually ease the world's most restrictive national lockdown. The number of new COVID-19cases, hospitalizations and deaths have started to decline across the country in recent days. Italy has reported more than 17,000 deaths, the most of any nation, and almost 140,000 confirmed cases.

The coronavirus pandemic is forcing people to stay home, but three astronauts are set toexperience a different type of isolation and quarantine in space. NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy and his fellow crewmates, Russia's Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner,blasted offaboard the Soyuz MS-16 spacecraftat 4:05 a.m. ET from Kazakhstan for a six-hour journey to the International Space Station.

Russian space officials have taken extra precautions to protect the crew during training and pre-flight preparations as the coronavirus pandemic has swept the world. Speaking to journalists via video link Wednesday, Cassidy said the crew has been in a very strict quarantine for the past month and so in good health.We all feel fantastic, he said.

Associated Press

U.S. stocks were poised to give up modest ground when markets open Thursday, one dayafter the Dow Jones industrial Average raced 779.71 points higher to close at23,433.57. The Standard & Poors 500 rose 3.4% Wednesday to end at 2,749.98, driven by gains in beaten down energy, real estate and utility shares.The broad index has jumped nearly 23% since it hit a low two and a half weeks ago.

Shares were mixed in Asia on Thursday after a 3.4% gain on Wall Street as investors chose a positive focus for data about the coronavirus outbreaks trajectory.

The prospect for progress in talks among oil producers was a big driver of Wednesday's rally, along with the signs of virus infections leveling off in several global hotspots and increased clarity in the U.S. presidential race, said Adam Taback, chief investment officer for Wells Fargo Private Bank.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson spent a third night in intensive care beingtreated for coronavirusand is instable condition and "improving," his office said.Johnson had a "good night" in the hospital, a Downing Street statement said.However, Britain's leader, 55, is still on oxygen and has handed over day-to-day operations of his government Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab.

Johnson's wife, Carrie Symonds, is pregnant and also suffered symptoms consistent with the coronavirus. Earlier this week, Symonds tweeted that she was feeling stronger and "on the mend."

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In a first, small step toward reopening the country, the Trump administration issued new guidelines to make it easier for essential workers who have been exposed to COVID-19 to get back to work if they do not have symptoms of the coronavirus.

Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, announced Wednesday at the White House that essential employees, such as health care and food supply workers, who have been within 6 feet of a confirmed or suspected case of the virus can return to work under certain circumstances if they are not experiencing symptoms.

Associated Press

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has new guidance for essential workers as it takes a small step toward reopening the country. (April 8) AP Domestic

According to new documents released Wednesday by the House Oversight Committee, 90% of the federal personal protective equipment stockpile had been depleted as the Health and Human Services Department made its "final shipments" of N95 respirators, surgical and face masks, face shields, gowns, and gloves.

The remaining 10%, HHS said, would be reserved for federal workers and would not be sent to the states.

The documents, which report the distribution of personal protective equipment to state and local governments, show that only11.7 million N95 respirator masks have been distributed across the nation, and only 7,920 ventilators have been distributed both small fractions of the estimated amount of protective equipment needed by frontline medical workers.

Nicholas Wu

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While governors, mayors and hospital officials conduct much-publicized life-and-death struggles to acquire ventilators, for most COVID-19 patients the oxygen-providing apparatuswill merely serve as a bridge from life to death.

Dennis Carroll, who led the U.S. Agency for International Development's infectious disease unit for more than a decade, told USA TODAY perhaps one-third of COVID-19 patients on ventilators survive.

But for many, ventilators represent their last chance."If you were one of the one-third, I suspect youd be very appreciative that that capability was available," Carroll said.

Some patients may be on a ventilator for only a few hours or days, but experts say COVID-19 patients often remain on the ventilators for 10 days or more.

John Bacon

Mapping coronavirus:Tracking the U.S.outbreak, state by state.

When will life return to normal? U.S.testing is too far behind to know, says one expert.

How the 50 states are responding to coronavirus:And why eight states haven't issued stay-at-home orders.

'Scotch tape and baling wire':How some hospitals and companies are responding to meet America's ventilator shortage.

You're not 'too busy' to stay active: Health experts worry about inactivity during coronavirus quarantine.

Contributing: Paul Davidson, USA TODAY; The Associated Press

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Coronavirus live updates: Stimulus checks on the way; New York's outbreak may have come from Europe; US death toll nears 15,000 - USA TODAY

Why the two-metre rule may not be enough

SOCIAL distancing guidance is to keep two metres away from people we dont live with. This rule is thought to be based on experiments from the 1930s that suggested droplets released from coughs and sneezes can travel between one and two metres.

But this understanding may be outdated. In an experiment led by the Health and Safety Executive, a cough from a medical manikin called Violet provides a graphic illustration of just how easily and how far coronavirus particles can spread.

In the demonstration, Violet coughs up a liquid laced with a dye that shows up under ultraviolet light. The dye is meant to reveal how droplets containing coronavirus particles are propelled through the air when we cough.

"You see thousands of droplets coming out of Violets mouth, with some reaching the ceiling and the far wall, which is at least two metres away," says paediatrician Dr Guddi Singh.

"Some of these droplets land on my hand, even though I am not in the direct line of the cough. If these droplets contained the virus, I would be infected. It is incredibly contagious.

"The experiment shows me why we need social distancing of at least two metres," she says. "But even at that, you are just on the fringe of where the spread could be happening."

Indeed, new research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association suggests that two metres may not be nearly far enough; that coronavirus particles can be propelled up to eight metres by sneezes and six metres by coughs.

Some experts suggest that the larger droplets in saliva and mucus the ones believed to carry Covid-19 will fall safely to the ground within two metres. However, the US researchers said their experiment calls into question our understanding of what a safe distance might be.

Another report even suggests we may have more than coughs and sneezes to worry about. The prestigious National Academy of Sciences in the US recently warned that the virus may also be spread by the fine mist we produce when we talk and breathe.

One study suggests this can spread genetic material from the coronavirus more than two metres away from patients. This raises the possibility that the virus can linger in the air and potentially infect someone who walks by later.

All this research has prompted the World Health Organisation to start a review of its advice on the use of face masks.

Dilemma of the silent spreaders

THE spread of Covid-19 by people who arent showing symptoms is one of the reasons the virus is so dangerous. A study published in the journal Science concluded that 86 per cent of cases have either no symptoms or only very mild ones.

Countries such as Iceland and South Korea have reported a huge number of silent spreaders. In South Korea, 40.2 per cent of those aged 20 to 29 fell into this bracket.

It is not known why some people dont show symptoms, but it may be due to differences in their genetics.

How long does the virus survive?

WHETHER you have symptoms or not, the virus will be released from your respiratory system into the air and the droplets can "last for many hours on different surfaces which we may then touch", says Dr Singh.

"A recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine revealed the virus can survive suspended in the air for up to three hours. It can stay on cardboard for 24 hours and plastic for 72 hours."

This, says Dr Singh, could have implications for online shopping.

"In countries that seem to have managed the outbreak pretty well, such as Singapore and Taiwan, all deliveries are treated very seriously because it is clear that this could be another mode of transmission.

"With deliveries, there is advice that plastic items should be wiped down with soap and water."

Other experts say you are unlikely to reach every nook and cranny, so would be better off keeping your hands clean.

Its not just a cough and fever

THE official advice is that the two main symptoms of Covid-19 are a high temperature and a "new and continuous cough". Indeed, data gathered by the WHO in February on more than 55,000 confirmed cases in China showed a fever to be the most common symptom, occurring in 87.9 per cent of cases, followed by a dry cough (in 67.7 per cent).

Other symptoms listed included fatigue, coughing up phlegm, sore throats, headaches and diarrhoea and vomiting.

In the last ten days of the pandemic, a new symptom has emerged: loss of sense of smell. Data collated by ENT UK, which represents ear, nose and throat specialists, suggests this inability to smell and, often, to taste may be the very first sign.

Indeed, a new report from Kings College London points to it being one of the most common symptoms.

Younger people are at risk too

It is known that older people and those with underlying conditions such as type 2 diabetes and heart and lung diseases, such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), are more likely to become severely ill with coronavirus. A report in The Lancet last week where researchers from Imperial College London analysed data from China showed how the risks of serious illness and death rise sharply as we get older.

While a 20-year-old has about a 1 per cent chance of their illness being so severe that they are hospitalised, the risk rises to around 4 per cent for someone in their 40s; 8 per cent for someone in their 50s; and 19 per cent for the over-80s.

Yet, younger people are not invincible. Data from NHS England shows that while the vast majority of the almost 5,000 deaths in England have been in the over-60s, 396 younger people under 60 have lost their lives to Covid-19.

It is possible some peoples genetics makes them more vulnerable. Another theory revolves around the viral load the amount of virus someone is initially exposed to.

With some viruses, the more you breathe in, the sicker you get, which could explain why young nurses who are in close contact with lots of sick patients are dying from coronavirus.

The power of handwashing

In 2018, mathematician Dr Hannah Fry, who presents the BBC2 show with Dr van Tulleken, simulated a pandemic of a deadly flu virus. Her experiment revealed how quickly the contagion could be slowed simply by handwashing.

Washing hands an extra five-to-10 times a day would halve the number of people who caught the virus in the next 100 days, she says.

"The way that pandemics spread is all exponential, which means tiny things can have a massive impact. Things like handwashing, done properly, can genuinely make a difference," says Dr Fry.

:: Coronavirus, Horizon Special, BBC2, Thursday April 9, 9pm.

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Two metres may not be nearly enough: What scientists now know about the virus - The Irish News