SEATTLE – Tracing the family tree of COVID-19 through its evolving DNA sequence makes it possible to disprove many false claims circulating on social media about the novel coronavirus, and, in particular, that it was generated in a covert biological weapons program.

SEATTLE – Tracing the family tree of COVID-19 through its evolving DNA sequence makes it possible to disprove many false claims circulating on social media about the novel coronavirus, and, in particular, that it was generated in a covert biological weapons program. “From everything I’ve looked at, there is zero evidence for genetic engineering; it looks like normal evolution,” said Trevor Bedford, a computational biologist at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, who has been using genomes sequences taken from patient samples to track the spread of the virus since Jan. 11.

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The hormone prolactin is known for and named after its role in breastfeeding. But that is far from its only role. There are more than 300 identified functions of prolactin, which is present in both men and women, though women have higher levels, and extremely high levels late in pregnancy and during breastfeeding. Now, scientists at the University of Arizona have identified another function of prolactin signaling.

At this very early point in the emerging 2019-nCoV outbreak, knowledge about the virus is insufficient to predict what shape that outbreak will ultimately take.

The drug screens prompted by the SARS and MERS outbreaks have been useful for quickly identifying drug candidates. But in terms of their epidemiology, “SARS and MERS were different from this coronavirus,” Allison McGeer explained at a Feb. 3 webinar by Evercore ISI.