Whether it’s the highly mutated Omicron variant emerging in South Africa as biopharma researchers scramble to create custom-made vaccines in record time or the institutional mandates juxtaposed with waning vaccine immunity and the ongoing ups and downs of cases and deaths, the SARS-CoV-2 virus continues to dig its ugly spikes into an uncertain and anxious world.
Stimulating the innate immune system with defective viral genomes (DVG)-based strategy provided broad-spectrum protection against RNA viral infections, including SARS-CoV-2 and other respiratory diseases in animal models, according to a U.S.-led international collaborative study reported in the Nov. 17, 2021, edition of Cell.
While the world grapples for a clear picture of the Omicron variant and how to handle it, Moderna Inc., Biontech SE and Adagio Therapeutics Inc. stepped out with stock advances, building on momentum from the end of last week, while eyeing 2022 as a launch date against the variant.
Med-tech happenings, including deals and partnerships, grants, preclinical data and other news in brief: Axiology Labs, Biocept, Brain Scientific, Illumigyn, Imidex, Laurel Bridge, Lemon Medical, LOK, MGC, Nobel Biocare, Pathogendx, Peramare, Sprintray, Vela Diagnostics.
LONDON – Intensive monitoring of health care workers at two hospitals in London showed that despite having a blood biomarker of infection, 58 of them did not test positive for COVID-19 at any point, suggesting they may have been clearing subclinical infections before seroconversion.
The sprint of fighting COVID-19 has been in respiratory medicine. For patients who become acutely ill, the short-term danger is in respiratory failure. But increasingly, it seems like the pandemic’s marathon fight may come to be against the neurological symptoms of COVID-19.
LONDON – PCR point of care testing specialist Quantumdx Group Ltd. is poised to accelerate its commercial development in China, after the Hong Kong venture capital fund Vita Spring made a £15 million (US$20.3 million) equity investment.
LONDON – Researchers have pinpointed a little-studied gene as responsible for doubling the risk of respiratory failure in COVID-19 and shown exactly how it exerts its effect. The gene, leucine zipper transcription factor like 1, is activated by a single base pair change on chromosome 3 that occurs in 60% of people of South Asian ancestry and 15% of people of European ancestry.
As booster shots become increasingly available and COVID-19 vaccines for young children are introduced into pediatric offices, several potential therapeutics to battle the SARS-CoV-2 virus are lining up for regulatory authorizations.
