Oct 21st, 2020 - SARS-CoV-2 has emerged as a human pathogen, causing clinical signs, from fever to pneumonia - COVID-19 - but may remain mild or asymptomatic. To understand the continuing spread of the virus, to detect those who are and were infected, and to follow the immune response longitudinally, reliable and robust assays for SARS-CoV-2 detection and immunological monitoring are needed. We quantified immun...

Oct 21st, 2020 - It is unknown whether a positive serology result correlates with protective immunity against SARS-CoV-2. There are also concerns regarding the low positive predictive value of SARS-CoV-2 serology tests, especially when testing populations with low disease prevalence. A neutralization assay was validated in a set of PCR confirmed positive specimens and in a negative cohort. In addition, 9,530 sp...

Oct 21st, 2020 - The coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has rapidly grown into a pandemic. According to initial reports, the lungs were thought to be the primary target, but recent case studies have shown its reach can extend to other organs including the heart and blood vessels. The severity of cardiac complications of COVID-19 depends on ...

Oct 21st, 2020 - Paucity of knowledge about SARS-CoV-2 specific virulence factors has greatly hampered therapeutic management of patients with COVID-19. Recently, a cluster of studies appeared, which presented empirical evidence for SARS-CoV-2 specific virulence factors that can explain key elements of COVID-19 pathology. These studies unravel multiple structural and non-structural specifics of SARS-CoV-2, such...

Oct 20th, 2020 - Radiation therapy (RT) is frequently used for post-operative treatment in breast cancer (BC) patients who received preoperative systemic therapy (PST) and surgery. Nevertheless, the optimal timing to start RT is unclear. Data from BC patients who underwent chemotherapy as PST, breast surgery and RT at 3 Institutions in Brazil and Canada from 2008 to 2014 were evaluated. Patients were classified...

Oct 20th, 2020 - Patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) frequently experience a coagulopathy associated with a high incidence of thrombotic events leading to poor outcomes. Here, biomarkers of coagulation (such as D-dimer, fibrinogen, platelet count), inflammation (such as interleukin-6), and immunity (such as lymphocyte count) as well as clinical scoring systems (such as sequential organ failure ass...

Oct 19th, 2020 - The 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) now is considered a global public health emergency. One of the unprecedented challenges is defining optimal therapy for those patients with severe pneumonia and systemic manifestations of COVID-19. Optimal therapy should be largely based on the pathogenesis of infections caused by this novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-...

Oct 19th, 2020 - Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is the causative agent of the current coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Understanding the immune response that provides specific immunity but may also lead to immunopathology is crucial for the design of potential preventive and therapeutic strategies. Here, we characterized and quantified SARS-CoV-2 specific immune respon...

Oct 19th, 2020 - Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the causative agent of the ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, induces severe pneumonia mainly in elderly males. Epidemiological data clearly indicate sex-based differences in disease outcomes, with men accounting for about 70 % of deaths, despite similar susceptibility to infection. It is well known that females ar...

Oct 19th, 2020 - There is much debate about the use of immunity passports in the response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Some have argued that immunity passports are unethical and impractical, pointing to uncertainties relating to COVID-19 immunity, issues with testing, perverse incentives, doubtful economic benefits, privacy concerns, and the risk of discriminatory effects. We first review the scientific feasibilit...

Oct 19th, 2020 - New York City (NYC) has endured the greatest burden of COVID-19 infections in the US. Health inequities in South Bronx predisposed this community to a greater number of infections cases, hospitalisations and mortality. Health Care Workers (HCWs) are at high-risk of exposure to the infection. This study aims to assess seroprevalence and associated characteristics of consenting HCWs from a NYC pu...

Oct 19th, 2020 - More than 100 COVID-19 vaccine candidates are in development since the SARS-CoV-2 genetic sequence was published in January 2020. The uptake of a COVID-19 vaccine among children will be instrumental in limiting the spread of the disease as herd immunity may require vaccine coverage of up to 80% of the population. Prior history of pandemic vaccine coverage was as low as 40% among children in the...

Oct 19th, 2020 - Today, Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a global public health emergency and vaccination measures to counter its diffusion are deemed necessary. Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the etiological agent of the disease, unleashes a T-helper 2 immune response in those patients requiring intensive care. Here, we illustrate the immunological mechanism to train the im...

Oct 17th, 2020 - SARS-CoV-2 is the cause of an ongoing pandemic that has infected over 36 million and killed over 1 million people. Informed implementation of government public health policies depends on accurate data on SARS-CoV-2 immunity at population scale. We hypothesized that detection of SARS-CoV-2 salivary antibodies could serve as a non-invasive alternative to serological testing for monitoring of SARS...

Oct 16th, 2020 - Understanding immune responses to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 is crucial to understanding disease pathogenesis and the usefulness of bridge therapies, such as hyperimmune globulin and convalescent human plasma, and to developing vaccines, antivirals, and monoclonal antibodies. A mere 11 months ago, the canvas we call COVID-19 was blank. Scientists around the world have worke...

Oct 16th, 2020 - COVID-19 caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has threatened every civilian as a global pandemic. The immune system poses the critical interactive chain between the human body and the virus. Here, we make efforts to examine whether comorbidity with type 2 diabetes (T2D) affects the immunological response in COVID-19 patients. We conducted a retrospective pilot ...

Oct 16th, 2020 - Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is caused by Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2, previously named 2019-nCov), a novel coronavirus that emerged in China in December 2019 and was declared a global pandemic by World Health Organization by March 11th, 2020. Severe manifestations of COVID-19 are caused by a combination of direct tissue injury by viral replication and ass...

Oct 16th, 2020 - This longitudinal cohort study aims to assess the extent and patterns of seroprevalence of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) antibodies in school-attending children, and their parents and school personnel. It will examine risk factors for infection, the relationship between seropositivity and symptoms, and temporal persistence of antibodies. The study (Ciao Corona) wi...

Oct 16th, 2020 - Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by SARS-CoV-2, with acute respiratory failure as the most significant symptom, has led to a global pandemic. Angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) is considered as the most important receptor of SARS-CoV-2 and wildly expressed in human tissues. Whereas, the extremely low expression of ACE2 in lung could hardly interpret the severe symptom of pneumonia...

Oct 15th, 2020 - We investigated immune responses against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) among a group of convalescent, potential blood donors in Germany who had PCR-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection. Sixty days after onset of symptoms, 13/78 (17%) study participants had borderline or negative results to an ELISA detecting IgG against the S1 protein of SARS-CoV-2. We analyzed particip...