Journal Club

Highlighting recent, timely papers selected by Academy member labs

Category Archives: Infectious disease

To find zoonotic viruses, researchers seek genomic signatures of virus adaptations to hosts

Posted on October 15, 2021 by Jyoti Madhusoodanan

In light of the ongoing pandemic, researchers have stepped up efforts to identify new zoonotic threats—viruses that could make the leap from animals to humans and cause future epidemics. Studies aiming to identify such viruses often focus on a novel … Continue reading →

Opinion: How to ensure regulations don’t stymie much-needed COVID-19 point-of-care testing

Posted on May 26, 2021 by pnas

Clare Rocka,1 and Jonathan Zenilmana a Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21287. The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has raged for more than a year in the United States, upending … Continue reading →

Inner Workings: Researchers race to develop in-home COVID-19 testing, a potential game-changer

Posted on September 8, 2020 by Amy McDermott

For most people, a COVID-19 test entails a swab up the nose in a doctor’s office or drive-in site. The sample then goes out to a lab. Results come back within a few days to a week—a waiting period that’s … Continue reading →

Categories: Infectious disease | Inner workings | Tagged antigen, COVID-19, COVID-19 testing, CRISPR, EUA, FDA, LAMP, nucleic acid, PCR, SARS-Cov-2 | Leave a comment

In plea for face masks, researchers visualize how speech sends fluid droplets flying

Posted on April 24, 2020 by Carolyn Beans

As COVID-19 ravaged Wuhan, China, in January, scientists remained unsure how the virus was spreading so rapidly. Biophysicist Adriaan Bax, chatting over dinner with his linguist wife Ingrid Pufahl, started to suspect that the saliva we project as we speak … Continue reading →

PREVIEW News Feature: To counter the pandemic, clinicians bank on repurposed drugs

Posted on April 15, 2020 by Jyoti Madhusoodanan

Teams are pursuing a dizzying array of therapeutic strategies to stymie COVID-19. It’s not yet clear which approach, or combination of approaches, will work best. *Editor’s Note: We’re providing a preview of this content due to the urgent and rapidly … Continue reading →

Fluid dynamics work hints at whether spoken word can spread COVID-19

Posted on April 7, 2020 by Carolyn Beans

As of April 3, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is advising that everyone—sick or healthy—wear masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Recent research on how fluids travel from our respiratory tracts when we sneeze, speak, or … Continue reading →

Mouse gut bacteria cure rotavirus infection, pointing to treatment for humans

Posted on October 25, 2019 by Natasha Gilbert

Despite available vaccines, over 200,000 children die annually from severe diarrhea cause by rotavirus, which infects intestinal cells. A recently published study, facilitated by a research team’s lucky break, suggests bacteria in the mouse gut microbiome could actually help prevent … Continue reading →

New insights into how influenza evades human immunity

Posted on September 14, 2019 by Natasha Gilbert

Some viruses can only infect people once—measles for example. But other viruses, notably influenza, are capable of infecting repeatedly. Scientists have long puzzled over how the flu virus evades human immunity. Recent work in eLife clarifies exactly how the virus … Continue reading →

Journal Club: Being less infectious pays off for lung pathogen

Posted on October 21, 2018 by Jyoti Madhusoodanan

The human body is home to millions of commensal microbes, some of which—given the right circumstances—can cause disease. One such microbe, known as nontypeable Haemophilus influenzae (NTHi), infects the lungs of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), a condition that … Continue reading →

Journal Club: New screening method promises to reveal elusive cellular receptors for a range of pathogens

Posted on September 7, 2018 by Carolyn Beans

The surfaces of human cells are chock-full of proteins that help cells communicate with one another. Unfortunately, many viruses coopt these proteins, latching on in order to enter cells. By revealing which proteins are receptors for which viruses, researchers may … Continue reading →

Journal Club: Drug-resistant microbes could threaten future global economy, low income countries in particular

Posted on August 31, 2018 by Carolyn Beans

Antimicrobial resistance is not only a major public health threat, but also an economic one, according to researchers at The World Bank. Their new study, published in the journal World Development, suggests that an increase in drug-resistant microbes could cause … Continue reading →