News

Variants of the coronavirus are appearing in different parts of the world, many of them spreading with alarming speed. One contagious variant is the South African, or SA, variant, identified by an international team of researchers, including biomedical scientists from the University of California, Riverside.

A new preprint study suggests that a single dose of either the Pfizer–BioNTech or Oxford University–AstraZeneca vaccine can substantially reduce the risk of COVID-19-related hospitalizations in the elderly.

A new study helps explain the antihypertensive properties of tea and could lead to the design of new blood pressure-lowering medications. Compounds in both green and black tea relax blood vessels by activating ion channel proteins in the blood vessel wall.

Diphtheria - a relatively easily-preventable infection - is evolving to become resistant to a number of classes of antibiotics and in future could lead to vaccine escape, warn an international team of researchers.

Scientists in 18 countries have used genome sequencing technology to track the the global spread and exchange of Streptococcus equi, which causes the disease strangles, in the largest ever study of its kind.

An international team of scientists has discovered that extracts of a weedy grass called Andropogon virginicus appear to be effective against several human diseases, including diabetes and cancer.

A new study of the U.K. and South Africa variants of SARS-CoV-2 predicts that current vaccines and certain monoclonal antibodies may be less effective at neutralizing these variants and that the new variants raise the specter that reinfections could be more likely.

New research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis indicates that three new, fast-spreading variants of the virus that cause COVID-19 can evade antibodies that work against the original form of the virus that sparked the pandemic.

According to a study, multidrug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus strains are spreading between pigs, farmworkers, their families and community residents, which could represent an emerging public health threat.

The ACTIV-3 clinical trial, which is evaluating the safety and efficacy of investigational therapeutics for COVID-19 in hospitalized patients, has closed enrolment in two sub-studies. The first sub-study was examining the investigational monoclonal antibody therapy VIR-7831 and the second was evaluating a combined monoclonal antibody therapy containing BRII-196 and BRII-198.