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Displaying 62 of 2934 articles.
Could a bout of COVID protect you from a severe case of flu?
...By analyzing mice that had been first infected with SARS-CoV-2 and then with influenza A virus, the scientists found that having recovered from COVID had a protective effect against the worst effects of the flu, and that this memory response was coming from an unexpected corner of the i...
A new class of antivirals could help prevent future pandemics
The arrival of Paxlovid in December 2021 marked another turning point in the COVID-19 pandemic—an effective antiviral that has since successfully treated millions. But like many antivirals before it, scientists know that at some point, Paxlovid is likely to lose some efficacy due to drug r...
Innovative approach opens the door to COVID nanobody therapies
COVID is not yet under control. Despite a bevy of vaccines, monoclonal antibodies, and antivirals, the virus continues to mutate and elude us. One solution that scientists have been exploring since the early days of the pandemic may come in the form of tiny antibodies derived from llamas, ...
Boosters are key to protecting pregnant individuals and newborns against the worst effects of COVID
...But how long does this protection last? A new study from The Rockefeller University and Weill Cornell Medicine (WCM), published in Nature Communications, found that patients with a specific cocktail of COVID exposure—vaccination, up-to-date boosters, and previous infection—had the highe...
How antibodies from llamas may lead to COVID-19 treatment
...Nanobodies could become one more weapon in our arsenal against COVID-19, and potentially a widely available one.” In order to get there, Rout, Chait and their colleagues are now extracting antibodies from llamas and examining their molecular properties to identify those most effective a...
As COVID-19 vaccines emerge, the search for antiviral drugs continues
Highly promising vaccines have recently emerged for COVID-19, but this doesn’t mean research into other treatments can slow down. There is still no cure for the disease, and people will likely continue to get sick even after vaccines become widely available—by not getting their COVID
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...
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...
An immune flaw may cause West Nile virus’s deadliest symptoms
...West Nile virus now joins a small but important group of infectious diseases with a documented link between interferon-neutralizing autoantibodies and cases resulting in the most severe or deadly symptoms, including influenza (5%), COVID (15%), and MERS pneumonia (25%). But with 40% of ...
Homing in on the genetics of severe COVID in children
One of the most terrifying aspects of the COVID pandemic has been its unpredictably severe impact on some children. While most infected kids have few or no symptoms, one in 10,000 fall suddenly and dramatically ill about a month after a mild infection, landing in the hospital with inflamed...
What we need to worry about with avian flu—and what we don’t 
...You’d hope after the COVID pandemic that there’d be much more surveillance and screening. Instead, we have significant gaps in information. However, scientists are doing whatever they can. They’ve analyzed the sequence of the virus and calculated when this flu jumped from birds into cow...
Common mutation linked to COVID mortality
It may be the most baffling quirk of COVID: What manifests as minor, flu-like symptoms in some individuals spirals into severe disease, disability, or even death in others. New research published in Nature may explain the genetic underpinnings of this dichotomy.  The researchers demonstrat...
How antibody therapy impacts COVID vaccines
...The findings suggest that feedback inhibition increases the coverage provided by COVID vaccines in people who previously received monoclonal antibodies. "Depending on the virus, feedback inhibition can either enhance immunity or inhibit it," says Michel C. Nussenzweig, who co-led the st...
This technique for studying cell receptors could have sweeping implications for drug development
...While this work is the culmination of a team effort over a long period of time, Kotliar made herculean efforts to drag it across the finish line—shuttling samples and scarce reagents back and forth from Sweden in rare travel windows during COVID. It paid off. The results provide a handf...
Amid the rush for COVID-19 drugs, a case for the helicase
...Around the world, researchers working on developing treatments for COVID-19 are intensively examining each step of this process. Among them is Rockefeller’s Pels Family Professor Tarun Kapoor, whose lab has turned its expertise on stopping propagation of cancer cells to the virus, focus...
The common thread in severe COVID-19 
Patients who suffer from severe COVID-19 tend to have one thing in common: insufficient or defective proteins that help regulate the immune system, known as type I interferons (IFNs).   Two papers from the laboratory of Jean-Laurent Casanova previously demonstrated that at least 10 percent...
New design may boost potency of monoclonal antibodies against COVID
Monoclonal antibody drugs are among the few treatments available for COVID, providing a lifeline for those at high risk of severe illness and hospitalization. However, the usefulness of these drugs is limited because they are effective only when they can be administered early in the diseas...
Mathematical modeling suggests counties are still unprepared for COVID spikes
...A new paper in PNAS suggests there may have been a mathematical method, of sorts, to the madness of those early COVID days. The study tests a model that closely matches the patterns of case counts and deaths reported, county by county, across the United States between April 2020 and Jun...
The blood may hold clues to some of COVID-19’s most mysterious symptoms
The most severe cases of COVID-19 begin with leaky blood vessels. Breaches in the vascular system cause inflammation and coagulation, as fluid floods the lungs. Meanwhile, a host of seemingly unrelated symptoms set in. Blood pressure drops, arrhythmias test the heart, and the central nervo...
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...
Rogue enzymes cause numerous diseases. A new method could help design drugs to treat them.
...The paper, published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, describes how researchers used this innovative new platform to design molecules that take aim at helicases involved in COVID and certain cancers. "High-resolution structural and biochemical data alone are not sufficie...
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,...
A third vaccine dose may increase protection from Omicron
The mRNA vaccines used against COVID were never designed to battle the Omicron variant, a now dominant strain of the coronavirus that recently claimed 18,000 lives in a single week. Yet individuals who receive their third dose appear to be protected from the worst of Omicron, and a new stu...
Llama antibodies could help fight SARS-CoV-2 variants
Amid the growing threat of a new and potentially more dangerous SARS-CoV-2 variant, scientists are ramping up the quest for COVID treatments. A recent study demonstrates the therapeutic potential of an unusual class of immune proteins: miniature antibodies called nanobodies, derived from l...
Lonely flies, like many humans, eat more and sleep less
COVID-19 lockdowns scrambled sleep schedules and stretched waistlines. One culprit may be social isolation itself. Scientists have found that lone fruit flies quarantined in test tubes sleep too little and eat too much after only about one week of social isolation, according to a new study...
COVID-19 immunology study reveals universally effective antibodies
...A study of 149 people who have recovered from COVID-19 shows that although the amount of antibodies they generated varies widely, most individuals had generated at least some that were intrinsically capable of neutralizing the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The findings are published June 18 in the ...
Intriguing science discoveries of 2023
...Efforts to combat COVID, Hepatitis B, and other infections bore fruit, and countless papers shed light on basic research, answering questions that have long baffled biologists. Here are some of the intriguing discoveries that came out of Rockefeller in 2023. Old sperm, new mutations As ...
Rockefeller saliva test for COVID-19 outperforms commercial swab tests
In the early days of the pandemic, with commercial COVID tests in short supply, Rockefeller’s Robert B. Darnell developed an in-house assay to identify positive cases within the Rockefeller community. It turned out to be easier and safer to administer than the tests available at the time, ...
Natural infection versus vaccination: Differences in COVID antibody responses emerge
...Hope for a future without fear of COVID-19 comes down to circulating antibodies and memory B cells. Unlike circulating antibodies, which peak soon after vaccination or infection only to fade a few months later, memory B cells can stick around to prevent severe disease for decades. And t...
COVID-19 vaccines may need regular updates for emerging variants
...Soon after the world’s first COVID-19 vaccination campaigns kicked off, news emerged about new, more contagious SARS-CoV-2 variants crisscrossing the planet. The discovery of such strains in Britain, Brazil, and South Africa has raised a pressing concern: Will current vaccines be effect...
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