BY VICTOR TANGERMANN According to several UK experts, there’s a chance that vaccines currently being administered in the country won’t provide sufficient immunity against new strains of the coronavirus emerging in both the UK and South Africa, Reuters reports. The scientists are most concerned about several mutations in the spike protein, the part of the virus that...
Tag: <span>Vaccines</span>
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Unique susceptibility to unique Sars-CoV-2 variants and vaccines
by John Hewitt , Medical Xpress Credit: Wikipedia Individuals with different genetic variants in their immune system components often have very different immune responses to Sars-CoV-2. They also will have different responses to vaccines. By the same token, newly emerged variants in Sars-Cov-2 can elicit different immune responses in identical immune systems. In the larger...
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How can we make sure people get the second COVID-19 vaccine dose?
MICHIGAN MEDICINE – UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN The light at the end of the pandemic tunnel is getting brighter. This week, the first health care workers will receive the first doses of an FDA-approved coronavirus vaccine. Soon, so will other front-line workers in health care and beyond, and residents of long-term care facilities. The availability of...
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Injectable hydrogel could someday lead to more effective vaccines
AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY Vaccines have curtailed the spread of several infectious diseases, such as smallpox, polio and measles. However, vaccines against some diseases, including HIV-1, influenza and malaria, don’t work very well, and one reason could be the timing of antigen and adjuvant presentation to the immune system. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Central Sciencedeveloped an...
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Scientists are working on vaccines that spread like a disease. What could possibly go wrong?
By Filippa Lentzos, Guy Reeves, September 18, 2020 A worker conducts testing during the 2014 Ebola outbreak in Liberia. Once a COVID-19 vaccine is approved for public use, officials around the world will face the monumental challenge of vaccinating billions of people, a logistical operation rife with thorny ethical questions. What if instead of orchestrating complicated and resource-intensive campaigns...
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Candidate monoclonal antibody shows hope as COVID-19 treatment
By Sally Robertson, B.Sc.Sep 16 2020 Researchers in the United States have described the effectiveness of a candidate monoclonal antibody currently being evaluated in a Phase 1 trial as a therapy for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and its causative agent, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The drug, called CPI-006, targets an immune signaling molecule...
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MADE in CHINA: CanSino Receives First Country Patent for COVID-19 Vaccine ; Works With Russia, Brazil, and More for Phase 3 Trial
A breakthrough for CanSino Biologics, Inc., being the first local vaccine company of the province of China to be approved of a patent to a Novel coronavirus or COVID-19 vaccine, Reuters said. State media, People’s Daily, reported last Sunday, August 17, 2020, that CanSino Biologics, Inc., a Chinese biopharmaceutical firm, has been approved by China...
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Patients taking long-term opioids produce antibodies against the drugs
by Eric Hamilton, University of Wisconsin-Madison University of Wisconsin-Madison scientists have discovered that a majority of back-pain patients they tested who were taking opioid painkillers produced anti-opioid antibodies. These antibodies may contribute to some of the negative side effects of long-term opioid use. Existing antibodies may also limit the benefit a patient receives from an...
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Tuberculosis vaccine research could benefit the elderly and diabetics
by James Cook University A study of older mice with type 2 diabetes has yielded highly promising results for researchers investigating potential new vaccines for tuberculosis (TB). A team of researchers from Australia, Bangladesh and France investigated a potential vaccine, BCG::RD1, and found it highly protective when administered directly into the lungs of diabetic mice,...
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Neutralizing antibodies isolated from COVID-19 patients may suppress virus
by Columbia University Irving Medical Center Cryo-EM reconstructions show how two different antibodies (blue) bind to the spike protein of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Credit: David Ho / Columbia University Irving Medical Center Researchers at Columbia University Irving Medical Center have isolated antibodies from several COVID-19 patients that, to date, are among the most potent in...