Research has found a significant fall in levels of antibodies against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, 6 months after the second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. Clinical evidence also suggests that the risk of getting a “breakthrough” infection gradually increases in the months after vaccination. Despite declines in antibody levels, other branches of [...]
Are the COVID vaccines substantially different from/inferior to other vaccines in terms of their effectiveness? The issue raised, and I'm mostly paraphrasing here, is this: Most vaccines (e.g. measles, smallpox) have efficacy defined such that (for example) a 95% effective vaccine means that for a group of thoroulghly exposed people, 95% of the vaccinated [...]
The EVONANO platform allows scientists to grow virtual tumors and use artificial intelligence to automatically optimize the design of nanoparticles to treat them. The ability to grow and treat virtual tumors is an important step towards developing new therapies for cancer. Importantly, scientists can use virtual tumors to optimize design of nanoparticle-based drugs [...]
One morning in March, 2020, Diana Berrent, a photographer and a mother of two from Long Island, woke up with a fever. She had chills, diarrhea, and a heaviness in her chest, and grew concerned. Her daughter was hosting a sleepover; Berrent made her way to the basement and asked the other girls to [...]
EPFL scientists have developed a chemical method for targeting the effects of cancer-fighting immunotherapy drugs only to the tumor tissue, making the drugs less toxic to the rest of the human body. Immunotherapy drugs are promising new weapons in the fight against cancer, but they are so strong that they can be toxic to [...]
Modern Approaches to Augmentation of Brain Function Available from Springer Press This book covers recent advances in neural technology that provide for enhancements for brain function. It addresses a broad range of neural phenomena occurring in the brain circuits involved in perception, cognition, emotion and action, that represent the building blocks of behavior and [...]
Although the currently available COVID-19 vaccines are highly effective, limited manufacturing capacity and the need for cold-chain storage hinder their global distribution. A recent study tested the efficacy of a new adeno-associated virus (AAV) vector-based vaccine in mice and macaques. A single dose of the AAV-based vaccine provided protection against SARS-CoV-2 infection in macaques [...]
Fully vaccinated people were 11 times less likely to die of COVID and 10 times less likely to be hospitalized compared to the unvaccinated since highly contagious Delta became the most common variant, US health authorities said Friday. The data came from one of three new papers published by the Centers for Disease Control [...]
The highly-infectious Delta coronavirus variant has spread to at least 174 countries worldwide, from the US to Australia, causing a surge in COVID-19 cases. The variant has mutations that help it partially escape the immune response produced by vaccines. The data for how well COVID-19 vaccines work against the Delta variant isn't clear cut. The vaccines may offer [...]
Fragile mRNA molecules used in COVID-19 vaccines can’t get into cells on their own. They owe their success to lipid nanoparticles that took decades to refine. Messenger RNA (mRNA) is having a moment. This year, hundreds of millions of people will receive shots of the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines for COVID-19. The crucial ingredient in each [...]
