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Category: Science/mathematics

Could BCG, a 100-year-old vaccine for tuberculosis, protect against coronavirus?

Could BCG, a 100-year-old vaccine for tuberculosis, protect against coronavirus?

Shutterstock By Kylie Quinn, RMIT University; Joanna Kirman, University of Otago; Katie Louise Flanagan, University of Tasmania, and Magdalena Plebanski, RMIT University This week, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced it will donate A$10 million to help fund an Australian trial testing whether a very old vaccine, BCG, can be used against a new threat, COVID-19. So what is the BCG vaccine and what might its place be in the fight against coronavirus? The ABCs of BCG The BCG…

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Sugars on coronavirus spike protein offer vaccine clues

Sugars on coronavirus spike protein offer vaccine clues

Jordana Cepelewicz writes: Cells are furry. That might come as a surprise, since textbook illustrations so often represent a cell as smooth — “something like a balloon full of water,” said Elisa Fadda, a computational chemist at Maynooth University in Ireland. “But that is absolutely not true.” In reality, the surface of a cell is adorned with a forest canopy of sugars, intricate and diverse clusters of carbohydrates that extend like branches and leaves from protein tree trunks. And because…

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Beware overblown claims about new strains of the coronavirus

Beware overblown claims about new strains of the coronavirus

Ed Yong writes: As if the pandemic weren’t bad enough, on April 30, a team led by scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory released a paper that purportedly described “the emergence of a more transmissible form” of the new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2. This new form, the team wrote, “began spreading in Europe in early February.” Whenever it appeared in a new place, including the U.S., it rapidly rose to dominance. Its success, the team suggested, is likely due to a single…

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General population probably won’t have vaccine until the second half of 2021 — ‘and that’s if everything works OK’

General population probably won’t have vaccine until the second half of 2021 — ‘and that’s if everything works OK’

STAT reports: The WHO has called for equitable sharing of Covid-19 vaccines, insisting they should be seen as a global resource. But there have been concerns from the earliest days of this pandemic that countries that are home to vaccine production facilities will nationalize any output to ensure domestic needs are met before vaccine can be exported for use elsewhere. Robin Robinson, who led the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority from 2008 to 2016, said the agency has spent…

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Trump wants a coronavirus vaccine already and imagines Jared Kushner can deliver it at ‘warp speed’

Trump wants a coronavirus vaccine already and imagines Jared Kushner can deliver it at ‘warp speed’

The Daily Beast reports: Already under fire for his role atop a shadow task force aiding the administration’s response to the coronavirus, senior White House aide Jared Kushner is now being handed another critical job: helping get a vaccine for the disease developed in record time. President Donald Trump, who has said he believes a COVID-19 vaccine will be available by the end of the year, is turning to his son-in-law to help streamline the effort, branded, “Operation Warp Speed.”…

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Rising fears that Trump will incite a global vaccine brawl

Rising fears that Trump will incite a global vaccine brawl

Politico reports: When global leaders gathered virtually last month at the behest of the World Health Organization to commit to distributing a future coronavirus vaccine in an internationally equitable way, the United States didn’t join in. On Monday, the European Union is hosting a gathering for countries to pledge funding for research into vaccines and treatments for Covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. But once again the U.S. government isn’t expected to participate. The Trump administration’s apparent lack…

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Wuhan virologist identified dozens of deadly SARS-like viruses in bat caves and warns more are out there

Wuhan virologist identified dozens of deadly SARS-like viruses in bat caves and warns more are out there

Scientific American reports: Before SARS, the world had only an inkling of coronaviruses—so named because their spiky surface resembles a crown when seen under a microscope, says Linfa Wang, who directs the emerging infectious diseases program at Singapore’s Duke-NUS Medical School. Coronaviruses were mostly known for causing common colds. “The SARS outbreak [in 2003] was a game changer,” Wang says. It was the first emergence of a deadly coronavirus with pandemic potential. The incident helped to jump-start a global search…

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Scientists say a now-dominant strain of the coronavirus appears to be more contagious than original

Scientists say a now-dominant strain of the coronavirus appears to be more contagious than original

The Los Angeles Times reports: Scientists have identified a new strain of the coronavirus that has become dominant worldwide and appears to be more contagious than the versions that spread in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new study led by scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory. The new strain appeared in February in Europe, migrated quickly to the East Coast of the United States and has been the dominant strain across the world since mid-March,…

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No scientific evidence the coronavirus was made in or escaped from a Chinese lab, says Fauci

No scientific evidence the coronavirus was made in or escaped from a Chinese lab, says Fauci

National Geographic reports: Anthony “Tony” Fauci has become the scientific face of America’s COVID-19 response, and he says the best evidence shows the virus behind the pandemic was not made in a lab in China. Fauci, the director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, shot down the discussion that has been raging among politicians and pundits, calling it “a circular argument” in a conversation Monday with National Geographic. “If you look at the evolution of the…

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Could ‘innate immunology’ protect us from the coronavirus?

Could ‘innate immunology’ protect us from the coronavirus?

Melinda Wenner Moyer writes: As the world waits for a coronavirus vaccine, tens of thousands of people could die. But some scientists believe a vaccine might already exist. Surprising new research in a niche area of immunology suggests that certain live vaccines that have been around for decades could, possibly, protect against the coronavirus. The theory is that these vaccines could make people less likely to experience serious symptoms — or even any symptoms — if they catch it. At…

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The months of magical thinking: As the coronavirus swept over China, some experts were in denial

The months of magical thinking: As the coronavirus swept over China, some experts were in denial

Helen Branswell writes: The response to the coronavirus pandemic in the United States and other countries has been hobbled by a host of factors, many involving political and regulatory officials. Resistance to social distancing measures, testing debacles, and longtime failures to prepare for the possibility of a pandemic all played a role. But a subtler, less-recognized factor contributed to the wasting of precious weeks in January and February, when preparations to try to stop the virus should have kicked immediately…

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Three potential futures for Covid-19: recurring small outbreaks, a monster wave, or a persistent crisis

Three potential futures for Covid-19: recurring small outbreaks, a monster wave, or a persistent crisis

Sharon Begley writes: As epidemiologists attempt to scope out what Covid-19 has in store for the U.S. this summer and beyond, they see several potential futures, differing by how often and how severely the no-longer-new coronavirus continues to wallop humankind. But while these scenarios diverge on key details — how much transmission will decrease over the summer, for instance, and how many people have already been infected (and possibly acquired immunity) — they almost unanimously foresee a world that, even…

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The coronavirus genome is like a shipping label that lets epidemiologists track where it’s been

The coronavirus genome is like a shipping label that lets epidemiologists track where it’s been

The steady rate of genetic changes lets researchers recreate how a virus has travelled. nextstrain.org, CC BY By Bert Ely, University of South Carolina and Taylor Carter, University of South Carolina Following the coronavirus’s spread through the population – and anticipating its next move – is an important part of the public health response to the new disease, especially since containment is our only defense so far. Just looking at an infected person doesn’t tell you where their version of…

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Expert report predicts up to two more years of coronavirus pandemic misery

Expert report predicts up to two more years of coronavirus pandemic misery

CNN reports: The new coronavirus is likely to keep spreading for at least another 18 months to two years—until 60% to 70% of the population has been infected, a team of longstanding pandemic experts predicted in a report released Thursday. They recommended that the US prepare for a worst-case scenario that includes a second big wave of coronavirus infections in the fall and winter. Even in a best-case scenario, people will continue to die from the virus, they predicted. “This…

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Should you get an antibody test?

Should you get an antibody test?

James Hamblin writes: The road to ending social distancing is less contentious than it may seem. Many priorities are clear: Invest in comprehensive testing for the coronavirus, in effectively treating the disease, and in vaccine development and production. Invest in research to understand transmission of the virus, and precisely how to prevent it. The fundamental mystery to solve is how people develop immunity, the key to which will be testing for antibodies in the blood. Identifying antibodies will help inform…

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How long will a coronavirus vaccine really take?

How long will a coronavirus vaccine really take?

The New York Times: A vaccine would be the ultimate weapon against the coronavirus and the best route back to normal life. Officials like Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the top infectious disease expert on the Trump administration’s coronavirus task force, estimate a vaccine could arrive in at least 12 to 18 months. The grim truth behind this rosy forecast is that a vaccine probably won’t arrive any time soon. Clinical trials almost never succeed. We’ve never released a coronavirus vaccine…

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