When drugs to kill microbes are ineffective, host-directed therapy uses the body’s own immune system to deal with the infection. This approach is being tested in patients with COVID-19, and now a team of researchers at Trinity College Dublin has published a study showing how it might also work in the fight against tuberculosis (TB).…
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A group of doctors and data scientists is calling on hospitals to create clinical departments devoted to artificial intelligence (AI) to harness the power of the technology to transform patient care. While there have been many predictions of AI’s potential to benefit healthcare delivery – from helping doctors perform surgery to catching cancer earlier –…
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Cancer’s knack for developing resistance to chemotherapy has long been a major obstacle to achieving lasting remissions or cures. While tumors may shrink soon after chemotherapy, many times they eventually grow back. Scientists once thought that unique genetic mutations in tumors underlay this drug resistance. But more and more, they are casting their eyes on…
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A team of scientists has engineered the spike protein of the SARS-CoV-2 virus – a critical component of potential COVID-19 vaccines – to be more environmentally stable and generate larger yields in the lab. By solving problems with protein instability that have held back vaccine research, the new spike protein design could accelerate the development…
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A team of Brazilian and European scientists has determined the transmission rates and out-of-country origins of predominant SARS-CoV-2 strains currently circulating in Brazil, which harbors one of the fastest growing COVID-19 epidemics in the world. Although the researchers show that non-pharmaceutical interventions initially reduced viral transmission, the continued increases in both cases and deaths in…
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BOSTON – New genome-editing technologies developed by researchers in J. Keith Joung’s laboratory at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) have the potential to help understand disease-associated genetic mutations that are based on C-to-G (cytosine to guanine) single base changes. The new base editors are also designed to minimize unintended (“off-target”) mutations that could potentially cause…
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The fatal disease smallpox is older and more widespread than scientists so far have proved. A new study by an international team of researchers from the University of Copenhagen and the University of Cambridge shows that the Vikings also suffered from smallpox. Through the ages, the highly infectious disease smallpox has killed hundreds of millions…
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The anecdotes are alarming. A woman in Los Angeles seemed to recover from Covid-19, but weeks later took a turn for the worse and tested positive again. A New Jersey doctor claimed several patients healed from one bout only to become reinfected with the coronavirus. And another doctor said a second round of illness was…
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WASHINGTON — As nations around the world race to lock up coronavirus vaccines even before they are ready, the Trump administration on Wednesday made one of the largest investments yet, announcing a nearly $2 billion contract with Pfizer and a German biotechnology company for 100 million doses by December. The contract is part of what…
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ImageJordan Uhl is typing. On official U.S. Army and Navy esports Twitch channels, members of the military livestream themselves playing video games such as Call of Duty, Fortnite and League of Legends for an audience of thousands. It’s an outreach and recruitment effort — and the military service members also chat with viewers about life…
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