News

Researchers are working on adapting nematodes to consume oil waste. They wanted to find out whether parasitic nematodes can serve as "public transit" for marine bacteria which can consume and break down oil products into fatty acids.

Scientists have made a breakthrough discovery of a key protein that supports the production of healthy blood cells throughout life by regulating the body’s inflammatory response.

Pharmaceutical company Pfizer and biotechnology company BioNTech have announced the first interim efficacy data from a large-scale trial evaluating BNT162b2, a vaccine candidate developed against SARS-CoV-2. Their press release indicates a vaccine efficacy rate of ~90% seven days after a second dose of the vaccine is administered, however the data is yet to be published.

In Science, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine describe a new method to extract tiny but extremely powerful SARS-CoV-2 antibody fragments from llamas, which could be fashioned into inhalable therapeutics with the potential to prevent and treat COVID-19.

A research team has reported that compounds simultaneously targeting Mpro and cathepsin L could improve the treatment of COVID-19 infection.

A new COVID-19 test kit combines virus amplification with a CRISPR-Cas system for effective SARS-CoV-2 detection.

Researchers are developing a user-friendly method to reconstruct and analyze SSU rRNA from raw metagenome data for easy identification of microbes in environmental samples.

A team from the University of Sheffield has designed and built a specialist microscope and shared the build instructions to help make this equipment available worldwide.

Aspirin will be investigated in the world’s largest clinical trial of treatments for patients hospitalized with COVID-19 – the Randomised Evaluation of COVid-19 thERapY (RECOVERY) trial.

A research team has discovered a mechanism that disease-causing bacteria use to anchor their protective outer membranes. These findings may be used to develop a strategy that can interrupt this process.