Tag: Coronavirus
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Give It a Shot
To celebrate the beginning of World Immunization Week, let’s focus on its biggest roadblock – vaccine hesitancy.
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Nanoparticle based vaccines: a potentially new addition to the “vaccine menu”?
A versatile and highly effective flu vaccine required in tiny amounts might be just around the corner: too good to be true? Kevin Boyle looks at recent advances. For around 70 years, flu vaccines have mostly been made the same way – using chicken eggs. The virus is injected into the eggs and incubated for…
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HLA Genotype and its effect on the severity of COVID-19 Infections
Isabelle Ferenczi introduces the importance of Human Leukocyte Antigens and their potential role in determining a given patient’s response to COVID-19 infection. A brief introduction to HLA Human Leukocyte (white blood cell) Antigens (HLA), are proteins that have a vital role in presenting foreign peptide (short amino acid chain) antigens in the bloodstream. Antigens are…
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Are mRNA vaccines our way out of the COVID-19 pandemic?
Seán Dunphy discusses recent developments in COVID-19 vaccines. Vaccine development is complex and often takes 10 to 15 years of research. With this in mind the scientific response to the Covid-19 pandemic is remarkable. In a single year, 54 Covid-19 vaccines have been brought to human trials, and 13 of these are in the final…
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Fake science: an infodemic in a pandemic
The pandemic brought the world to a halt, allowing for focus on important issues such as the Black Lives Matter movement and the ever-developing situation surrounding the coronavirus. Locked inside, much of the world’s attention turned to screens for information on how the pandemic was evolving, and in particular, how the science was progressing. Since…
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Sex differences in immune responses to COVID-19
There are a broad range of COVID-19 symptoms, which widely differ in severity between patients. Age quickly emerged as the most significant predictor of this. COVID-19 related deaths are extremely uncommon in those under 50, but for those over 75, the odds of surviving COVID-19 decreases dramatically. Sadly, over 10 percent of this age group…
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COVID-19: Unmasking the benefits of face masks
Masks could be more effective than earlier thought, blocking up to 99.9% of COVID-19 laden droplets released by infected patients and carriers, according to a new study by the Roslin Institute at the University of Edinburgh. Containing the spread of COVID-19 has been a tricky task. It is one of the main reasons why COVID-19…
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Coronagenes: A study of the genes behind severe COVID-19
COVID-19 affects individuals in different ways. Some people are asymptomatic whereas others require intensive care; most cases are short lived, but others experience more long term symptoms. The body’s reaction to COVID-19, like most illnesses, is dictated by both environmental and genetic factors. As COVID-19 emerged, environmental risk factors for severe symptoms, such as old…
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COVID-19, a disease of the blood vessels?
COVID-19 baffled doctors and scientists around the world with its strange symptoms and disproportionate mortality rates. Months after the onset of the pandemic, researchers may finally be closer to understanding how the disease manifests itself in patients. An important clue lies in the circulatory system. Early on, most COVID-19 patients showed signs and symptoms of…
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A coronavirus vaccine is desperately needed, but what are we willing to do to get it?
Tom Edwick dives into the ethics of SARS-CoV-2 vaccine development. As we move into month four of lockdown, life as we knew it seems little more than a distant memory. Life in this new covid era has thrown up a lot of fun experiences that I wouldn’t have had to deal with otherwise, like having…