INFORMATION:
Targeting the SARS-CoV-2 main protease yields promise in transgenic mouse model
2021-02-18
(Press-News.org) Inhibitors based on approved drugs and designed to disrupt the SARS-CoV-2 viral protein Mpro display strong antiviral activity both in vitro and in a transgenic mouse model, a new study reports. While vaccines are an important tool in the fight against COVID-19, it remains a high priority to develop antiviral drugs, especially with the rise of variants that may partially evade vaccines. The viral protein Mpro is a protease that is required for cleaving precursor polyproteins into functional viral proteins. This essential function makes it a key drug target. Jingxin Qiao et al. designed 32 inhibitors based on either Boceprivir or Teleprovir, both of which are protease inhibitors approved to treat hepatitis C virus. Six compounds protected cells from viral infection with high potency and two of these were selected for in vivo studies based on pharmacokinetic experiments. In a SARS-CoV-2 infection transgenic mouse model, treatment with both compounds greatly reduced lung viral loads and lung lesions. Both also displayed good pharmacokinetic properties and safety in rats. The work in this paper "represents an important step toward the development of orally available anti-SARS-CoV-2 drugs," the authors say.
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
New report calls for universal coverage of long-term care for older adults in U.S.
2021-02-18
The COVID-19 pandemic's heavy toll on older Americans highlights the need to strengthen the nation's safety net for people in need of long-term services and supports, an Oregon Health & Science University researcher and co-authors argue in a new report published by Milbank Quarterly.
The report proposes a system of universal coverage to support the long-term care of all older Americans.
"This approach would protect against financial catastrophe and end the current system that is based on the need to be financially destitute in order to access coverage via Medicaid," ...
Antibody response may drive COVID-19 outcomes
2021-02-18
BOSTON -- COVID-19, the source of the current pandemic, may be caused by a single virus, but it has a variety of presentations that make treatment difficult. Children, for example, almost exclusively experience mild or asymptomatic COVID-19, while adults can develop severe or even fatal COVID-19. But children who contract COVID-19 are at risk for a rare but serious syndrome called multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C). Severe cases of MIS-C can lead to cardiac disease and ventricular failure, and require hospitalization and intense medical support.
Researchers Galit Alter, PhD, core member of the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard, and Lael Yonker, MD, ...
Researchers uncover new information on the effects of antidepressants
2021-02-18
The effects of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and other conventional antidepressants are believed to be based on their increasing the levels of serotonin and noradrenalin in synapses, while ketamine, a new rapid-acting antidepressant, is thought to function by inhibiting receptors for the neurotransmitter glutamate.
Neurotrophic factors regulate the development and plasticity of the nervous system. While all antidepressants increase the quantity and signalling of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) in the brain, the drugs have so far been thought to act on BDNF indirectly, through serotonin or glutamate receptors.
A new study published this week in Cell demonstrates, however, that antidepressants bind directly to a BDNF receptor known as TrkB. This finding challenges ...
Which suicide prevention strategies work?
2021-02-18
NEW YORK, NY (Feb. 18, 2021)--A new study from Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons has found that suicide mortality can be reduced by a Federally coordinated approach employing scientifically proven options.
Columbia researchers J. John Mann, MD, Christina A. Michel, MA, and Randy P. Auerbach, PhD, conducted a systematic review, determining which suicide prevention strategies work and are scalable to national levels.
The study, "Improving Suicide Prevention Through Evidence-Based
Strategies: A Systematic Review," was published online in the American Journal of Psychiatry.
The researchers found that screening school children or the general population for those at risk for suicide--the ...
Light and genetic probes untangle dynamics of brain blood flow
2021-02-18
While the human brain has over 400 miles of total vasculature, little is known about the tiny capillaries that make up much of this intricate labyrinth of blood vessels critical for delivering oxygenated blood and nutrients to billions of brain cells.
According to Dr. Andy Shih, a principal investigator in the Center for Developmental Biology and Regenerative Medicine at Seattle Children's Research Institute, understanding how this vast network regulates blood flow in the brain could hold the key to new treatments for neonatal and childhood neurologic conditions, such as stroke and hypoxia, and issues of aging like dementia and Alzheimer's disease.
"Insufficient blood flow contributes to many of the common neurologic problems seen in children and adults," he said. "Yet, ...
Poor swelter as urban areas of U.S. Southwest get hotter
2021-02-18
Acres of asphalt parking lots, unshaded roads, dense apartment complexes and neighborhoods with few parks have taken their toll on the poor. As climate change accelerates, low-income districts in the Southwestern United States are 4 to 7 degrees hotter in Fahrenheit -- on average -- than wealthy neighborhoods in the same metro regions, University of California, Davis, researchers have found in a new analysis.
This study provides the most detailed mapping yet of how summer temperatures in 20 urban centers in California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Texas affected different neighborhoods between 2018 and 2020. The researchers found even greater heat disparities in California than in other states. The largest disparities showed ...
Promoting and protecting human milk and breastfeeding during COVID-19
2021-02-18
PHILADELPHIA (February 18, 2021) - With stressors mounting daily on the health care system due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a de-prioritization of the childbearing family has been noted. Their care has changed, resulting in mothers forced to go through labor and birth without their partners, parents barred from NICU visitation, and discharge of mothers and newborns early without enough expert lactation care. There is great concern that these changes in childbearing families' care may become permanent - to the detriment of the health of both mother and ...
Internet trends suggest COVID-19 spurred a return to earlier values and activities
2021-02-18
American values, attitudes and activities have changed dramatically during COVID-19, according to a new study of online behavior.
Researchers from UCLA and Harvard University analyzed how two types of internet activity changed in the U.S. for 10 weeks before and 10 weeks after March 13, 2020 -- the date then-President Donald Trump declared COVID-19 a national emergency. One was Google searches; the other was the phrasing of more than a half-billion words and phrases posted on Twitter, blogs and internet forums.
The study is the lead research article in a special issue of the journal Human Behavior and Emerging Technologies ...
New UCF study examines leeches for role in major disease of sea turtles in Florida
2021-02-18
ORLANDO, Feb. 18, 2021 - University of Central Florida researchers are homing in on the cause of a major disease of sea turtles, with some of their latest findings implicating saltwater leeches as a possible factor.
The disease, known as fibropapillomatosis, or FP, causes sea turtles to develop tumors on their bodies, which can limit their mobility and also their health by interfering with their ability to catch and eat prey.
While the cause of FP isn't known, saltwater leeches have been suspected to play a role due to their frequent presence on areas of sea turtles where FP tumors often develop, such as on their eyes, mouths and ...
Deep learning may help doctors choose better lung cancer treatments
2021-02-18
MALVERN, Pa. -- Doctors and healthcare workers may one day use a machine learning model, called deep learning, to guide their treatment decisions for lung cancer patients, according to a team of Penn State Great Valley researchers.
In a study, the researchers report that they developed a deep learning model that, in certain conditions, was more than 71 percent accurate in predicting survival expectancy of lung cancer patients, significantly better than traditional machine learning models that the team tested. The other machine learning models the team ...