News & HighlightsNews
Study of “breakthrough” cases suggests COVID testing may be here to stay
In rare cases, people who have been fully vaccinated against COVID and are immune to the virus can nevertheless develop the disease. New findings from The Rockefeller University now suggest that these so-called breakthrough cases may be driven by rapid evolution of the virus, and that ongo...
Surprising reason that B cells benefit from booster shots
Certain infectious diseases, such as COVID or the flu, evolve constantly, shapeshifting just enough to outmaneuver our immune systems and reinfect us repeatedly. But subsequent reinfections often don’t lead to the most severe outcomes—for very good reason. Upon first exposure to a pathogen...
Rockefeller begins testing of new COVID-19 antibody drug in people
With green light from the FDA, Rockefeller scientists started human trials this week for a new monoclonal antibody drug as a potential treatment for COVID-19. Monoclonal antibodies are mass-produced replicas of natural antibodies made by the immune system to fight viruses. Designed to prev...
West Nile infections are spiking. Here’s why the percentage of severe cases is so small
...Interestingly, it isn’t the first time they’ve uncovered a link between severe symptoms and the presence of these autoantibodies; they’ve previously documented the phenomenon in cases of severe COVID and flu pneumonia. We spoke to Casanova, a researcher with the university’s Stavros Nia...
Intriguing science discoveries of 2022
For the past three years, the COVID pandemic altered virtually every aspect of our lives. But we’ve been in a transitional phase in 2022, shifting towards the new normal. Science at Rockefeller has been in transition, too. Deeper insights into the nuances of COVID infection emerged,...
What bats can teach us about COVID-19
...But at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, he diverted his expertise and applied the same methods to instead to see if they could crack the mystery of bats’ exceptional immunity to coronavirus. His group began by sequencing the genome of the horseshoe bat, thought to be the initial hos...
Rockefeller scientists investigate life-threatening inflammation affecting children with COVID-19
...As part of an international study of genetic causes behind severe COVID-19 in young people, Casanova and collaborators have been enrolling these unusual cases since early March, when they were first reported by European doctors. Collaborating with the New York Genome Center and the stat...
The immune system mounts a lasting defense after recovery from COVID-19
As the number of people who have fought off SARS-CoV-2 climbs ever higher, a critical question has grown in importance: How long will their immunity to the novel coronavirus last? A new Rockefeller study offers an encouraging answer, suggesting that those who recover from COVID-19 are prot...
Rockefeller grants commercial license for the development of monoclonal antibodies for treatment of COVID-19
With promising results from preclinical studies and with human trials now underway, Rockefeller has taken the next step with its novel COVID-19 treatment. The university has entered a licensing agreement with a global pharmaceutical company to advance development of a drug based on two mon...
Waddling water bears, grandmother neurons, and other memorable science stories of 2021
...Basic biomedical research went on, unabated, through the second year of New York City's touch-and-go battle with COVID. Investigations into the nature of the novel coronavirus and its intractable variants intensified, demanding the attention of more than 25 Rockefeller laboratories, all...
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