Archives: 2020-11-25

PIER MARIA FORNASARI
2020-11-25

NIAID announced that the fourth iteration of the Adaptive COVID-19 Treatment Trial (ACTT-4) has begun to enroll hospitalized adults with COVID-19 requiring supplemental oxygen.

The NIAID-sponsored trial will enroll up to 1,500 patients at approximately 100 sites in the United States and other countries. Participants will be assigned at random to one of two treatment arms of equal size. One group will receive both dexamethasone, a corticosteroid available as a generic drug, and remdesivir, a broad-spectrum antiviral discovered and

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PIER MARIA FORNASARI
2020-11-24

Insulin treatment is associated with increased mortality in patients with COVID-19

COVID-19 caused by SARS-COV2 infection can lead to multi-organ injuries and significant mortality in severe and critical patients, especially among those individuals with type 2 diabetes (T2D) as a comorbidity. While attenuated mortality was observed with aggressive glucose control, it was unclear whether therapeutic regiments including insulin treatment was beneficial for patients with COVID-19 and

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PIER MARIA FORNASARI
2020-11-24

Antibodies capable of neutralising SARS-CoV-2 persist for at least 3 months in most Covid-19 patients, even those who had mild disease.

The SARS-CoV-2 virus is causing a global pandemic and cases continue to rise. Most infected individuals experience mildly symptomatic coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), but it is unknown whether this can induce persistent immune memory that could contribute to immunity. In this paper, published on Cell, it’s performed a longitudinal assessment of individuals recovered from mild

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PIER MARIA FORNASARI
2020-11-22

Thromboembolism risk of COVID-19 is high and associated with a higher risk of mortality: A systematic review and meta-analysis published on EClinicalMedicine.

Early reports indicated that in COVID-19 may be associated with coagulation dysfunction. Studies have reported varying rates of thromboembolism. In this paper, the Authors searched PubMed, Cochrane and Embase for systematic reviews and meta-analyses evaluating thromboembolism rates in COVID-19 published until June 12, 2020. The search terms were “COVID-19”, “SARS-CoV-2” or “novel coronavirus” and “venous

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PIER MARIA FORNASARI
2020-11-20

Oxford coronavirus vaccine produces strong immune response in older adults as published in The Lancet

The ChAdOx1 nCov-2019 coronavirus vaccine, developed by teams at the University of Oxford, has been shown to trigger a robust immune response in healthy adults aged 56-69 and those over 70 years of age. The data, published in The Lancet, suggest that one of the groups most vulnerable to serious illness, and death from COVID-19, could build

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PIER MARIA FORNASARI
2020-11-20

The Most Logical Approach to Improve CAR T Cell Therapy: a preview on Cell Systems

Combinational antigen recognition is the most logical way to improve the safety of cancer therapy. CAR T cells therapy, combined with synthetic biology, protein engineering, and bioinformatics, can perform advanced computations to enhance tumor targeting specificity. Immunotherapy, including biologic and cellular approaches, is a critical area of focus for cancer therapeutics. Of the methodologies used

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PIER MARIA FORNASARI
2020-11-20

Baricitinib treatment linked to reduced mortality in COVID-19 patients

The rheumatoid arthritis drug baricitinib can block viral entry and reduce mortality in patients with moderate to severe COVID-19, according to translational research by an international team coordinated by researchers from Karolinska Institutet in Sweden. The findings, published in the journal Science Advances, support the continuation of ongoing randomized clinical trials. “We are pleased to

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PIER MARIA FORNASARI
2020-11-20

Macrophage expression and prognostic significance of the long pentraxin PTX3 in COVID-19

As of 20 November 2020, the number of COVID-19 cases was reported to be more than 57 million, leading to more than 1.361,000 deaths worldwide . Elevated levels of CRP, cytokine and chemokines, together with low lymphocyte and eosinophil counts, characterize patients with severe disease. However, a reliable biomarker of poor outcome in COVID-19 is

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PIER MARIA FORNASARI
2020-11-19

In the lab, St. Jude scientists redefine cytokine storm and identify possible COVID-19 treatment

Immunologists have determined the process driving life-threatening inflammation, lung damage and organ failure in patients with COVID-19, sepsis and other inflammatory disorders suggesting possible treatment using existing drugs. The COVID-19 pandemic continues to cause significant illness and death while treatment options remain limited.St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital scientists have discovered a potential strategy to prevent life-threatening

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PIER MARIA FORNASARI
2020-11-19

Evaluating the effects of SARS-CoV-2 Spike mutation D614G on transmissibility and pathogenicity: 614G is associated with higher viral load and younger age of patients.

Global dispersal and increasing frequency of the SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein variant D614G are suggestive of a selective advantage but may also be due to a random founder effect. It was investigated the hypothesis for positive selection of Spike D614G in the United Kingdom using more than 25,000 whole genome SARS-CoV-2 sequences. Despite the availability of

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