Immunological memory provides long-term protection against coronavirus
Exposure to SARS-CoV-2 by infection or vaccination generates immune cells that provide long-term immunity. These long-lived memory T cells play a key role in preventing severe cases of Covid-19. Researchers at the University of Zurich have now discovered how these memory T cells form. Many questions about how exposure to SARS-CoV-2 by infection or immunization […]
Advantages of intranasal vaccination against SARS-CoV-2: Intranasal vaccination is needle-free and elicits immunity at the site of infection, the respiratory tract
There are many reasons that an intranasal vaccine against the SARS-CoV-2 virus would be helpful in the fight against COVID-19 infections, University of Alabama at Birmingham immunologists Fran Lund, Ph.D., and Troy Randall, Ph.D., write in a viewpoint article in the journal Science. That route of vaccination gives two additional layers of protection over intramuscular […]
Study confirms the low likelihood that SARS-CoV-2 on hospital surfaces is infectious
A new study by UC Davis researchers confirms the low likelihood that SARS-CoV-2 contamination on hospital surfaces is infectious. The study, published June 24 in PLOS ONE, is the original report on recovering near-complete SARS-CoV-2 genome sequences directly from surface swabs. “Our team was the first to demonstrate that SARS-CoV-2 virus sequences could be identified […]
Virus that causes COVID-19 can find alternate route to infect cells: COVID-19 drugs, vaccines still effective against mutating virus
Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, scientists identified how SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, gets inside cells to cause infection. All current COVID-19 vaccines and antibody-based therapeutics were designed to disrupt this route into cells, which requires a receptor called ACE2. Now, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found that […]