Determining the 3D shapes of biological molecules is one of the hardest problems in modern biology and medical discovery. Companies and research institutions often spend millions of dollars to determine a molecular structure - and even such massive efforts are frequently unsuccessful.
Read more ...
Gut bacteria and flavonoid-rich foods are linked and improve blood pressure levels
Flavonoid-rich foods, including berries, apples, pears and wine, appear to have a positive effect on blood pressure levels, an association that is partially explained by characteristics of the gut microbiome, according to new research published today in Hypertension, an American Heart Association journal.
Read more ...
Can a heartburn drug help doctors treat COVID-19?
In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, doctors in Wuhan noticed something surprising. Many of the elderly patients who survived the virus were poor: not exactly the demographic you would expect to fare well in a health crisis.
A review of the survivors’ medical records revealed that a significant number suffered from chronic heartburn and were taking an inexpensive drug called famotidine, the key ingredient in Pepcid.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, researchers worldwide have been looking for ways to treat COVID-19. And while the COVID-19 vaccines represent the best measure to prevent the disease, therapies for those who do get infected remain in short supply. A new groundbreaking study from U-M reveals several drug contenders already in use for other purposes - including one dietary supplement - that have been shown to block or reduce SARS-CoV2 infection in cells.
Read more ...
The COVIDome online portal can rapidly accelerate coronavirus research worldwide
To further accelerate COVID-19 research on a global scale, investigators from the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus have created a multidimensional dataset, known as the COVIDome dataset, derived from hospitalized COVID-19 patients versus negative controls. The team has now launched a public online portal called the COVIDome Explorer to share that data in real time.
Read more ...
Problems in thinking and attention linked to COVID-19 infection
The research found that those with more severe COVID-19 symptoms scored lower on an online series of tests, with performance on reasoning and problem-solving tasks being most affected. Further analysis of the data indicated that those who received mechanical ventilation to help them breathe whilst in hospital had the greatest impairment on cognitive tasks.
Read more ...
A protein-based COVID-19 vaccine that mimics the shape of the virus
Even as several safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines are being administered to people worldwide, scientists are still hard at work developing different vaccine strategies that could provide even stronger or longer-lasting immunity against SARS-CoV-2 and its variants. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Central Science have immunized mice with nanoparticles that mimic SARS-CoV-2 by displaying multiple copies of the receptor binding domain (RBD) antigen, showing that the vaccine triggers robust antibody and T cell responses.
Read more ...