Indian scientists have discovered a previously unknown mechanism underlying life-threatening sepsis and proposed a new treatment strategy centered upon cell-free chromatin (cfCh), they reported in the March 4, 2020, edition of PLOS ONE.

COVID-19 has disrupted science in the way it has disrupted everything else. In the short term, universities have largely closed shop as a way to maximize social distancing, and lots of science – or at least, lots of bench work – is not getting done.

“In any crisis, leaders have two equally important responsibilities: solve the immediate problem and keep it from happening again... The first point is more pressing, but the second has crucial long-term consequences.” So wrote Bill Gates in a February editorial in The New England Journal of Medicine about COVID-19, which “has started behaving a lot like the once-in-a-century pathogen we’ve been worried about.”

COVID-19 has disrupted science in the way it has disrupted everything else. In the short term, universities have largely closed shop as a way to maximize social distancing, and lots of science – or at least, lots of bench work – is not getting done.

BioWorld looks at translational medicine, including: Microbiome changes precede tumor development in CRC; Converting catch and release to PARP traps; Smart bacterium senses environment; The dose makes the poison – timing, too; Minimal phenotyping gives minimal insights into MDD genetics; Hypoxia linked to common form of muscular dystrophy; Stopping tau in its tracks; Optogenetic plaque model traces neurodegeneration in AD; Once repulsive, always repulsive.

COVID-19 has disrupted science in the way it has disrupted everything else. In the short term, universities have largely closed shop as a way to maximize social distancing, and lots of science – or at least, lots of bench work – is not getting done.