Conchita Fraguas Bringas , Jakob Nilsson | May 16, 2022
Only recently appreciated as critical components of cellular functions, unstructured stretches of amino acids called SLiMs are key to viral-host interactions.
Several lines of evidence suggest that targeting the body’s defense pathways might help treat a subset of people with the psychiatric disorder. But many open questions remain.
Evidence suggests that COVID-19 is primarily an airborne disease. Yet the details of how transmission occurs are still debated and frequently misunderstood.
Scientists linked hamsters in a Hong Kong pet shop to 50 cases of the Delta variant in what appears to be the second documented occurrence of animals infecting people with SARS-CoV-2.
Only half of volunteers deliberately exposed to SARS-CoV-2 developed an infection. None developed serious symptoms, paving the way for further challenge trials.
Data from mouse models for mild coronavirus infections and human tissue samples offer further evidence that it doesn’t take a severe infection—or even infection of brain cells at all—to cause long-term neurological symptoms.
This strain of SARS-CoV-2 is causing new outbreaks in Europe and Asia and may spread slightly faster than the better-known BA.1 Omicron subvariant, although it’s too early to say for sure.
An independent lab fails to replicate results suggesting mammals exposed to pathogens could pass on immunological protections through epigenetic mechanisms.