With more than 18 months of the pandemic in the rearview mirror, researchers have been steadily gathering new and important insights into the effects of COVID-19 on the body and brain. These findings are raising concerns about the long-term impacts that the coronavirus might have on biological processes such as aging. As a cognitive neuroscientist, my past research has [...]
The COVID-19 pandemic triggered life expectancy losses not seen since World War II in Western Europe and exceeded those observed around the dissolution of the Eastern Bloc in central and Eastern European countries, according to research published [27 September], led by scientists at Oxford’s Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science. The research team assembled an unprecedented dataset on [...]
Within a day of testing positive for covid-19 in June, Miranda Kelly was sick enough to be scared. At 44, with diabetes and high blood pressure, Kelly, a certified nursing assistant, was having trouble breathing, symptoms serious enough to send her to the emergency room. When her husband, Joe, 46, fell ill with the [...]
A technology developed at Vanderbilt University Medical Center has led to the discovery of an "ultra-potent" monoclonal antibody against multiple variants of SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for COVID-19, including the delta variant. The antibody has rare characteristics that make it a valuable addition to the limited set of broadly reactive antibody therapeutic candidates, researchers [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
