A Game of Cancer and Evolution

The cholesterol-lowering drugs quell inflammation and reverse endothelial tissue damage, hints that they might curb the body’s excessive immune response to SARS-CoV-2 infection.

James R. Heath, PhD, President of the Institute for Systems Biology will discuss key single-cell learnings and applications from the large Seattle-based academic pharmaceutical consortium committed to defining molecular mechanisms of SARS-CoV-2 infection and identifying potential prognostic immune biomarkers. Stacey Willard, PhD, from IsoPlexis will discuss how functional phenotyping individual immune cells using IsoPlexis technology edges researchers closer to predicting the risk for severe disease. 

In record time, scientists have gone from harvesting antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 from survivors of coronavirus infections to testing the antibodies’ safety as a drug in humans.

By revealing that animals could develop immune responses against their own tissues, the physician-scientist established an entirely new field of science.

During bacterial infection, autophagy proteins appear to regulate the release of cell-saving exosomes, which bear the brunt of toxin damage.

Specialized exosomes sop up bacterial toxins, a study finds.

These webs of chromatin and proteins, released by immune cells to control microbial infections, could serve as a therapeutic target in coronavirus infections.

There is no evidence that any of the coronavirus vaccines in development worsen a coronavirus infection rather than confer immunity to it, but the phenomenon is something scientists are closely monitoring.