News by Subject Medicine & Health

The body's first encounter with the coronavirus happens in the nose and throat. New work in Cell suggests that responses in this early battleground help determine who will develop severe COVID-19 and who will have only mild or no illness. It used single-cell RNA sequencing of all the cell types recovered from nasal swabs of people with and without COVID-19.

Now, researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital and collaborators have created an "atlas" that charts how 152 different antibodies attack a major piece of the SARS-CoV-2 machinary, the spike protein, as it has evolved since 2020. Their study, published in Cell, highlights antibodies that are able to neutralize the newer strains, while identifying regions of the spike protein that have become more resistant to attack.

Researchers at Cornell have developed a way to analyze how individual immune cells react to the bacteria that cause tuberculosis. It could pave the way for new vaccine strategies and provide insights into fighting other infectious diseases.

Hydrogels developed at Rice University mimic intestines when lined with epithelial cells. A study by Rice and Baylor College of Medicine proved hydrogels in various stiffnesses are valuable for learning the dynamics of pathogens that cause diarrhea and other intestinal diseases.

Based on data for 344 volunteers, Brazilian researchers compared the physical and mental health benefits of workouts led in person by a fitness instructor, unsupervised online sessions, and classes supervised remotely via video call. Gradually increasing intensity was associated with improvements in mental health.

The rapid spread of the Alpha variant of COVID-19 in the UK resulted from biological changes in the virus and was enhanced by large numbers of infected people 'exporting' the variant around the country, in what the researchers call a 'super-seeding' event.

Replication of SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for COVID-19, depends on a series of interactions between viral proteins and different cellular partners such as nucleic acids (DNA or RNA). Characterizing these interactions is crucial to elucidate the process of viral replication and identify new drugs for treating COVID-19.

Research led by Queen Mary University of London provides new insight into the mechanisms that lead to uncontrolled inflammation in COVID-19 patients.

What The Study Did: This study included 647 patients with untreated nonmetastatic prostate cancer (269 patients during the pandemic and 378 from before the pandemic). During the initial COVID-19 lockdown, only 1% of Black men underwent prostatectomy, while 26% of white patients did.