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Sperm damage and fertility problem due to COVID-19

Posted in Biological Networks, Cell Biology, coronavirus, COVID-19, COVID-19, Diagnostic Immunology, Diagnostics and Lab Tests, Health Care System by Country, Population Health Management, Population Health Management, Genetics & Pharmaceutical, Reproductive Andrology, Embryology, Genomic Endocrinology, Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis and Reproductive Genomics, Reproductive Biology & Bio Instrumentation, SARS-CoV-2, tagged , , , , , on June 23, 2022| Leave a Comment »

Sperm damage and fertility problem due to COVID-19

Reporter and Curator: Dr. Sudipta Saha, Ph.D.

Many couples initially deferred attempts at pregnancy or delayed fertility care due to concerns about coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). One significant fear during the COVID-19 pandemic was the possibility of sexual transmission. Many couples have since resumed fertility care while accepting the various uncertainties associated with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-Cov2), including the evolving knowledge related to male reproductive health. Significant research has been conducted exploring viral shedding, tropism, sexual transmission, the impact of male reproductive hormones, and possible implications to semen quality. However, to date, limited definitive evidence exists regarding many of these aspects, creating a challenging landscape for both patients and physicians to obtain and provide the best clinical care.

According to a new study, which looked at sperm quality in patients who suffered symptomatic coronavirus (COVID-19) infections, showed that it could impact fertility for weeks after recovery from the virus. The data showed 60% COVID-19 infected men had reduction in sperm motility and 37% had drop in sperm count, but, 2 months after recovery from COVID-19 the value came down to 28% and 6% respectively. The researchers also of the view that COVID-19 could not be sexually transmitted through semen after a person had recovered from illness. Patients with mild and severe cases of COVID-19 showed similar rate of drop in sperm quality. But further work is required to establish whether or not COVID-19 could have a longer-term impact on fertility. The estimated recovery time is three months, but further follow-up studies are still required to confirm this and to determine if permanent damage occurred in a minority of men.

Some viruses like influenza are already known to damage sperm mainly by increasing body temperature. But in the case of COVID-19, the researchers found no link between the presence or severity of fever and sperm quality. Tests showed that higher concentrations of specific COVID-19 antibodies in patients’ blood serum were strongly correlated with reduced sperm function. So, it was believed the sperm quality reduction cause could be linked to the body’s immune response to the virus. While the study showed that there was no COVID-19 RNA present in the semen of patients who had got over the virus, the fact that antibodies were attacking sperm suggests the virus may cross the blood-testis barrier during the peak of an infection.

It was found in a previous report that SARS-CoV-2 can be present in the semen of patients with COVID-19, and SARS-CoV-2 may still be detected in the semen of recovering patients. Due to imperfect blood-testes/deferens/epididymis barriers, SARS-CoV-2 might be seeded to the male reproductive tract, especially in the presence of systemic local inflammation. Even if the virus cannot replicate in the male reproductive system, it may persist, possibly resulting from the privileged immunity of testes.

If it could be proved that SARS-CoV-2 can be transmitted sexually in future studies, sexual transmission might be a critical part of the prevention of transmission, especially considering the fact that SARS-CoV-2 was detected in the semen of recovering patients. Abstinence or condom use might be considered as preventive means for these patients. In addition, it is worth noting that there is a need for studies monitoring fetal development. Therefore, to avoid contact with the patient’s saliva and blood may not be enough, since the survival of SARS-CoV-2 in a recovering patient’s semen maintains the likelihood to infect others. But further studies are required with respect to the detailed information about virus shedding, survival time, and concentration in semen.

References:

https://www.euronews.com/next/2021/12/21/covid-can-damage-sperm-for-months-making-it-harder-to-conceive-a-baby-a-new-study-finds

https://www.fertstert.org/article/S0015-0282(20)32780-1/fulltext

https://www.fertstertreviews.org/article/S2666-5719(21)00004-9/fulltext

https://www.fertstertscience.org/article/S2666-335X(21)00064-1/fulltext

https://www.fertstert.org/article/S0015-0282(21)02156-7/fulltext

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2765654/

https://www.fertstert.org/article/S0015-0282(21)01398-4/fulltext

https://www.euronews.com/next/2021/08/27/do-covid-vaccines-affect-pregnancy-fertility-or-periods-we-asked-the-world-health-organiza

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The durability of T cells versus the triggered of high levels of antibodies: Rationale for the development of T cells focused vaccines  

Posted in COVID-19, Immune-Mediation (independent immunopathology: lung and reticuloendothelial system), Mechanisms of infection by SARS-CoV-2, Population Health Management, Genetics & Pharmaceutical, SARS-CoV-2, SARS-CoV-2 circulating variants , SARS-CoV-2 Viral Variants, T-cell response to SARS-CoV-2 infection, Treatment Protocols for COVID-19, Vaccinology, Virus Infective Acute Respiratory Syndrome: SARS-CoV on April 22, 2022| Leave a Comment »

 

 

The durability of T cells versus the triggered of high levels of antibodies: Rationale for the development of T cells focused vaccines

Reporters and Curators: Stephen J. Williams, PhD and Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN

Scientists to FDA: Don’t forget about T cells

In the face of waning antibody immunity to the coronavirus, scientists demand more attention on T cell immunity which may be more durable

By Ryan Cross Globe Staff,Updated April 21, 2022, 6:58 p.m.
 
 

A group of nearly 70 academic scientists, doctors, and biotech leaders sent a letter with an unusual request to the US Food and Drug Administration on Thursday: Please pay more attention to T cells, an overlooked part of the immune system that helps clear up viral infections.

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Updates to COVID-19 vaccine tracker

Posted in COVID-19, Mechanisms of infection by SARS-CoV-2, Population Health Management, Genetics & Pharmaceutical, SARS-CoV-2, SARS-CoV-2 circulating variants , SARS-CoV-2 Viral Variants, Treatment Protocols for COVID-19, Vaccinology, Virus Infective Acute Respiratory Syndrome: SARS-CoV on February 9, 2022| Leave a Comment »

Updates to COVID-19 vaccine tracker

Reporter: Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN

 

On LPBI Group’s 

CORONAVIRUS, SARS-CoV-2 PORTAL @LPBI

http://lnkd.in/ePwTDxm

Launched on 3/14/2020

We cover the following Eight Pages of LPBI Group’s Coronavirus PORTAL

  1. Breakthrough News Corner
  2. Development of Medical Counter-measures for 2019-nCoV, CoVid19, Coronavirus
  3. An Epidemiological Approach
  4. Community Impact
  5. Economic Impact of The Coronavirus Pandemic
  6. Voices of Global Citizens: Impact of The Coronavirus Pandemic
  7. Diagnosis of Coronavirus Infection by Medical Imaging and Cardiovascular Impacts of Viral Infection
  8. Key Opinion Leaders Followed by LPBI

https://pharmaceuticalintelligence.com/coronavirus-portal/

Lead Curators are:

UPDATED on 3/31/2020

COVID-19 Treatment and Vaccine Tracker This document contains an aggregation of publicly available information from validated sources. It is not an endorsement of one approach or treatment over another but simply a list of all treatments and vaccines currently in development.

  • Number
  • Type of Product – Treatment
  • FDA-Approved Indications (Treatments)
  • Clinical Trials
  • Ongoing for Other Diseases
  • Developer/ Researcher
  • Current Stage of Development
  • Funding Sources
  • Anticipated Timing
  • Sources

LEGEND

  1. CCHF= Crimean-Congo Haemorrhagic Fever
  2. CHIKV = Chikungunya Virus
  3. DengV = Dengue Virus
  4. FMD = Foot and Mouth Disease
  5. EBOV = Ebola Virus
  6. HAV = Hepatitis A Virus
  7. HBV = Hepatitis B Virus
  8. HIV = Human Immunodeficiency Virus
  9. HPV = Human Papilloma Virus
  10. Inf = Influenza
  11. LASV = Lassa Fever Virus
  12. MARV = Marburg Virus
  13. MenB = Mengingitis B
  14. MERS = Middle East Respiratory Syndrome
  15. NIPV = Nipah Virus
  16. NORV = Norovirus
  17. RABV = Rabies Virus
  18. RSV = Respiratory Syncytial Virus
  19. RVF = Rift Valley Fever

  20. SARS = Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome

  21. SIV = Simian Immunodeficiency Virus
  22. TB = Tuberculosis
  23. VEE = Venezuelan Equine Encephalitis Virus
  24. VZV = Varicella Vaccine (Chickenpox)
  25. YFV = Yellow Fever Virus
  26. ZIKV = Zika Virus L

COVID-19 Treatment and Vaccine Tracker This document contains an aggregation of publicly-available information from validated sources. It is not an endorsement of one approach or treatment over another, but simply a list of all treatments and vaccines currently in development

  • Antibodies from recovered COVID-19 patients N/A Celltrion Pre-clinical Start Phase 1 ~ Sept 2020 Korea Herald 4

  • Antibodies from recovered COVID-19 patients N/A Kamada Pre-clinical BioSpace AbbVie 5

  • Antibodies from recovered COVID-19 patients N/A Vir Biotech/WuXi Biologics/Biogen Pre-clinical Stat News Vir Biotech 6

  • Antibodies from recovered COVID-19 patients N/A Lilly/Ab-Cellera (NIH Vaccines Research Center) Pre-clinical Start Phase 1 in late July 2020 Endpoints News

SOURCE

https://milkeninstitute.org/sites/default/files/2020-03/Covid19%20Tracker%20032020v3-posting.pdf

UPDATES to COVID-19 vaccine tracker

Posted 28 January 2022 | By Jeff Craven

SOURCE

https://www.raps.org/news-and-articles/news-articles/2020/3/covid-19-vaccine-tracker

COVID-19 vaccine tracker

 

The worldwide endeavor to create a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine is bearing fruit. Dozens of vaccines now have been authorized or approved around the globe; many more remain in development.
 
To clarify the landscape for our readers, our vaccine tracker has been split in two. The first chart details vaccine candidates that are still in development to address the lack of vaccines and access in many countries around the world; the second chart lists vaccines that are authorized or approved by one or more country. To reveal in-depth information about each candidate, select the “Details” button above the chart or click on the green plus button next to each entry.
 
Information about the unprecedented public/private partnerships spawned by the COVID-19 public health emergency now can be found below the charts.
 
Our charts are updated every other week. If you wish to submit an update or notice an issue with this data, please email Focus at news@raps.org. 

Updated 28 January with new information on vaccines from Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna, AstraZeneca, Gamaleya Research Institute, Janssen Vaccines, Sinovac, Bharat Biotech/Ocugen, Anhui Zhifei Longcom Biopharmaceutical, and Novavax as well as vaccine candidates from Walvax, Valneva, GSK/Sanofi, and Senai Cimatec.




 

Vaccine candidates in development

 

SHOW/HIDE DETAILS
 

Authorized/approved vaccines

 

SHOW/HIDE DETAILS
 

 

COVID-19 vaccine initiatives

OWS: Operation Warp Speed is a collaboration of several US government departments including Health and Human Services (HHS) and subagencies, Defense, Agriculture, Energy and Veterans Affairs and the private sector. OWS has funded JNJ-78436735 (Janssen), mRNA-1273 (Moderna), and NVX‑CoV2373 (Novavax), V590 (Merck/IAVI), V591 (Merck/Themis), AZD1222 (AstraZeneca/University of Oxford), and the candidate developed by Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline.
 
OWS is “part of a broader strategy to accelerate the development, manufacturing, and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics.” Leaders of OWS say they could vaccinate as many as 20 million people by the end of the year and 100 million people by February.  
 
ACTIV: Within OWS, the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) has partnered with more than 18 biopharmaceutical companies in an initiative called ACTIV. ACTIV aims to fast-track development of drug and vaccine candidates for COVID-19.
 
COVPN: The COVID-19 Prevention Trials Network (COVPN) combines clinical trial networks funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID): the HIV Vaccine Trials Network (HVTN), HIV Prevention Trials Network (HPTN), Infectious Diseases Clinical Research Consortium (IDCRC), and the AIDS Clinical Trials Group.
 
COVAX: The COVAX initiative, part of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator, is being spearheaded by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI); Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance; and WHO. The goal is to work with vaccine manufacturers to offer low-cost COVID-19 vaccines to countries. CEPI’s candidates from companies Inovio, Moderna, CureVac, Institut Pasteur/Merck/Themis, AstraZeneca/University of Oxford, Novavax, University of Hong Kong, Clover Biopharmaceuticals, and University of Queensland/CSL are part of the COVAX initiative. The US joined COVAX on 21 January. The most up-to-date forecast of COVAX’s vaccine supply can be found here. An interim distribution forecast, most recently published 3 February, can be found here.
 

 

© 2022 Regulatory Affairs Professionals Society.

Tags: biologic, coronavirus, worldwide

SOURCE

https://www.raps.org/news-and-articles/news-articles/2020/3/covid-19-vaccine-tracker

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Defective viral RNA sensing gene OAS1 linked to severe COVID-19

Posted in Biomarkers: Inflammation, coronavirus, Coronavirus Gene Expression, COVID-19, COVID-19, Disease Biology, Mechanisms of infection by SARS-CoV-2, SARS-CoV-2, Variation in human protein-coding regions, Viral diseases, Virology - Vector-borne DIsease, Virus Infective Acute Respiratory Syndrome: SARS-CoV, tagged , , , , , , , on November 22, 2021| Leave a Comment »

Defective viral RNA sensing gene OAS1 linked to severe COVID-19

Reporter: Stephen J. Williams, Ph.D.

Source: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abm3921

Defective viral RNA sensing linked to severe COVID-19

JOHN SCHOGGINS SCIENCE•28 Oct 2021•Vol 374, Issue 6567•pp. 535-536•DOI: 10.1126/science.abm39214,824

Why do some people with COVID-19 get sicker than others? Maybe exposure to a particularly high dose of the causative virus, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), accounts for the difference. Perhaps deficiencies in diet, exercise, or sleep contribute to worse illness. Although many factors govern how sick people become, a key driver of the severity of COVID-19 appears to be genetic, which is common for other human viruses and infectious agents (1). On page 579 of this issue, Wickenhagen et al. (2) show that susceptibility to severe COVID-19 is associated with a single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in the human gene 2′-5′-oligoadenylate synthetase 1 (OAS1).The authors reasoned that SARS-CoV-2 should be inhibited by interferon-mediated antiviral responses, which are among the first cellular defense mechanisms produced in response to a viral infection. Interferons are a group of cytokines that induce the transcription of a large cadre of genes, many of which encode proteins with the potential to directly inhibit the invading virus. Wickenhagen et al. interrogated many hundreds of these putative antiviral proteins for their ability to suppress SARS-CoV-2 in cultured cells and found that OAS1 was particularly potent against SARS-CoV-2.OAS1 is an enzyme that is activated in the presence of double-stranded RNA, which is scattered along an otherwise singlestranded SARS-CoV-2 genome because of an assortment of RNA hairpins and other secondary structures. Once activated, OAS1 catalyzes the polymerization of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) into a second messenger, 2′-5′-oligoadenylate. This then triggers the conversion of ribonuclease L (RNaseL) into its active form so that it can cleave viral RNA, effectively blunting viral replication (3). Wickenhagen et al. found that OAS1 is expressed in respiratory tissues of healthy donors and COVID-19 patients and that it interacts with a region of the SARS-CoV-2 genome that contains double-stranded RNA secondary structures (see the figure).OAS1 exists predominantly as two isoforms in humans—a longer isoform (p46) and a shorter version (p42). Genetic variation dictates which isoform will be expressed. In humans, p46 is expressed in people who have a SNP that causes alternative splicing of the OAS1 messenger RNA (mRNA). This results in the utilization of a terminal exon that is not used to translate p42. Thus, the carboxyl terminus of the p46 OAS1 protein contains a distinct four–amino acid motif that forms a prenylation site. Prenylation is a posttranslational modification that targets proteins to membranes. In cell culture experiments, Wickenhagen et al. showed that only OAS1 p46, but not p42, could inhibit SARS-CoV-2. However, when the prenylation site of p46 was engineered into p42, this chimeric p42 protein was able to inhibit SARS-CoV-2, which strongly implicates a role for OAS1 specifically at membranes.Why are membranes important? SARS-CoV-2, like all coronaviruses, co-opts cellular membranes at the endoplasmic reticulum to form double-membrane vesicles, in which the virus replicates its genome. Thus, membrane-bound OAS1 p46 may be specifically activated by RNA viruses that form membrane-bound vesicles for replication. Indeed, the unrelated cardiovirus A, which also forms vesicular membranous structures, was inhibited by OAS1. Conversely, other respiratory RNA viruses, such as human parainfluenza virus type 3 and human respiratory syncytial virus, which do not use membrane-tethered vesicles for replication, were not inhibited by p46.Wickenhagen et al. examined a cohort of 499 COVID-19 patients hospitalized in the UK. Whereas all patients expressed OAS1, 42.5% of them did not express the antiviral p46 isoform. These patients were statistically more likely to have severe COVID-19 (be admitted to the intensive care unit). This suggests that OAS1 is an important antiviral factor in the control of SARS-CoV-2 infection and that its inability to activate RNaseL results in prolonged infections and severe disease, although other factors likely contribute. The authors also examined animals known to harbor different coronaviruses. They found evidence for prenylated OAS1 proteins in mice, cows, and camels. Notably, horseshoe bats, which are considered a possible reservoir for SARS-related coronaviruses (4), lack a prenylation motif in their OAS1 because of genomic changes that eliminated the critical four-amino acid motif. A horseshoe bat (Rhinolophus ferrumequinum) OAS1 was unable to inhibit SARS-CoV-2 infection in cell culture. Conversely, the black flying fox (Pteropus alecto)—a pteropid bat that is a reservoir for the Nipah and Hendra viruses, which can also infect humans—possesses a prenylated OAS1 that can inhibit SARS-CoV-2. These findings indicate that horseshoe bats may be genetically and evolutionarily primed to be optimal reservoir hosts for certain coronaviruses, like SARS-CoV-2.Other studies have now shown that the p46 OAS1 variant, which resides in a genomic locus inherited from Neanderthals (5–7), correlates with protection from COVID-19 severity in various populations (8, 9). These findings mirror previous studies indicating that outcomes with West Nile virus (10) and hepatitis C virus (11) infection, both of which also use membrane vesicles for replication, are also associated with genetic variation at the human OAS1 locus. Another elegant functional study complements the findings of Wickenhagen et al. by also demonstrating that prenylated OAS1 inhibits multiple viruses, including SARS-CoV-2, and is associated with protection from severe COVID-19 in patients (12).There is a growing body of evidence that provides critical understanding of how human genetic variation shapes the outcome of infectious diseases like COVID-19. In addition to OAS1, genetic variation in another viral RNA sensor, Toll-like receptor 7 (TLR7), is associated with severe COVID-19 (13–15). The effects appear to be exclusive to males, because TLR7 is on the X chromosome, so inherited deleterious mutations in TLR7 therefore result in immune cells that fail to produce normal amounts of interferon, which correlates with more severe COVID-19. Our knowledge of the host cellular factors that control SARS-CoV-2 is rapidly increasing. These findings will undoubtedly open new avenues into SARS-CoV-2 antiviral immunity and may also be beneficial for the development of strategies to treat or prevent severe COVID-19.

Degrading viral RNAOnce inside a host cell, coronaviruses form double-membrane vesicles (DMVs) to replicate their RNA genome. When anchored to membranes, 2′-5′-oligoadenylate synthetase 1 (OAS1) detects double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) secondary structure and activates ribonuclease L (RNaseL), which degrades viral RNA. The OAS1 p42 isoform lacks the prenylation motif, so it is not membrane bound and RNaseL is not activated, leading to unrestrained viral replication and correlating with severe COVID-19.GRAPHIC: KELLIE HOLOSKI/SCIENCE Source: Shroggins SCIENCE 28 Oct 2021 Vol 374, Issue 6567 pp. 535-536 DOI: 10.1126/science.abm3921

References and Notes

1J. L. Casanova, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.112, E7118 (2015).GO TO REFERENCECROSSREFPUBMEDGOOGLE SCHOLAR2A. Wickenhagen et al., Science374, eabj3624 (2021).GO TO REFERENCECROSSREFPUBMEDGOOGLE SCHOLAR3H. Kristiansen, H. H. Gad, S. Eskildsen-Larsen, P. Despres, R. Hartmann, J. Interferon Cytokine Res.31, 41 (2011).GO TO REFERENCECROSSREFPUBMEDGOOGLE SCHOLAR4S. Lytras, W. Xia, J. Hughes, X. Jiang, D. L. Robertson, Science373, 968 (2021).GO TO REFERENCECROSSREFPUBMEDGOOGLE SCHOLAR5S. Zhou et al., Nat. Med.27, 659 (2021).GO TO REFERENCECROSSREFPUBMEDGOOGLE SCHOLAR6H. Zeberg, S. Pääbo, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.118, e2026309118 (2021).CROSSREFPUBMEDGOOGLE SCHOLAR7F. L. Mendez, J. C. Watkins, M. F. Hammer, Mol. Biol. Evol.30, 798 (2013).GO TO REFERENCECROSSREFPUBMEDGOOGLE SCHOLAR8A. R. Banday et al., medRxiv2021).GO TO REFERENCECROSSREFGOOGLE SCHOLAR9E. Pairo-Castineira et al., Nature591, 92 (2021).GO TO REFERENCECROSSREFPUBMEDGOOGLE SCHOLAR10J. K. Lim et al., PLOS Pathog.5, e1000321 (2009).GO TO REFERENCECROSSREFPUBMEDGOOGLE SCHOLAR11M. K. El Awady et al., J. Gastroenterol. Hepatol.26, 843 (2011).GO TO REFERENCECROSSREFPUBMEDGOOGLE SCHOLAR12F. W. Soveg et al., eLife10, e71047 (2021).GO TO REFERENCECROSSREFPUBMEDGOOGLE SCHOLAR13T. Asano et al., Sci. Immunol.6, eabl4348 (2021).GO TO REFERENCECROSSREFPUBMEDGOOGLE SCHOLAR14C. Fallerini et al., eLife10, e67569 (2021).CROSSREFPUBMEDGOOGLE SCHOLAR15C. I. van der Made et al., JAMA324, 663 (2020).GO TO REFERENCECROSSREFPUBMEDGOOGLE SCHOLAR

For more on COVID-19 Please see our Coronavirus Portal at

Coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2 Portal

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Moderna Vaccine Patent Application needs to include Names of Three NIH Scientists that Shared the Genome Sequence of SAR-Cov-2 with Moderna Early on

Posted in Coronavirus Gene Expression, COVID-19, Immune-Mediation (independent immunopathology: lung and reticuloendothelial system), Mechanisms of infection by SARS-CoV-2, Population Health Management, Genetics & Pharmaceutical, SARS-CoV-2, SARS-CoV-2 circulating variants , SARS-CoV-2 Viral Variants, T-cell response to SARS-CoV-2 infection, Vaccinology on November 11, 2021| Leave a Comment »

Moderna Vaccine Patent Application needs to include Names of Three NIH Scientists that Shared the Genome Sequence of SAR-Cov-2 with Moderna Early on

Reporter: Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN

UPDATED on 11/12/2021

Within the filing, Moderna said it had “reached the good-faith determination” that three NIH scientists — John Mascola, Barney Graham and Kizzmekia Corbett — “did not co-invent” the sequence that prompts the body’s immune response to the coronavirus spike protein. The NIH, meanwhile, says the trio worked with Moderna at the outset of the pandemic to design the component in question.

In response to an Endpoints News request for comment, a Moderna spokesperson said the company has “all along” recognized the role the NIH played in developing the Covid-19 shot. But the spokesperson insisted only Moderna scientists invented mRNA-1273 — the codename for the company’s vaccine.

In the new book A Shot to Save the World out last month detailing the inventions of the mRNA Covid-19 vaccines, Wall Street Journal reporter Gregory Zuckerman wrote the three NIH scientists in question designed a sequence for a vaccine and sent it to Moderna. The biotech then used it to confirm their own designs and produce that vaccine.

Zuckerman wrote:

On Thursday, January 23, Wang packed his material in a container, trying hard to ensure it didn’t leak, and shipped it all to Kizzmekia Corbett, the government scientist who was doing similar work with other’s in Graham’s lab. Corbett, Graham and John Mascola chose an ideal spike-protein design and sent it to Moderna. The company’s scientists, relying on McLellan and Wang’s earlier work, had built their own spike-protein design. It matched the one from the government scientists, confirming they made the right choice. Moderna took their chosen sequence, employed some sophisticated computer software, and built an mRNA molecule capable of producing the stabilized spike protein. This would become Moderna’s vaccine antigen.

SOURCE

Moderna and NIH can’t agree on who invented the lifesaving Covid-19 vaccine, and their feud is now public — report

What Moderna says: The company argues that the NIH scientists — John Mascola, Barney Graham and Kizzmekia Corbett — were not part of selecting the messenger RNA sequence that became the Covid-19 shot authorized today. That sequence patent is essentially the heart of the product.

Moderna “has recognized the substantial role that the NIAID has played” in the vaccine development by including those scientists on other patents but “just because someone is an inventor on one patent application relating to our COVID-19 vaccine does not mean they are an inventor on every patent application relating to the vaccine,” it tweeted.

“Moderna remains the only company to have pledged not to enforce its COVID-19 intellectual property during the pandemic,” the company added.

It’s far from over: Moderna, which never brought a product to market before its effective Covid-19 shot, has received nearly $10 billion in government funding for the vaccine — a figure that advocates return to repeatedly when pressing for global access to patents and production.

SOURCE

From: POLITICO Pulse <pulse@email.politico.com>
Reply-To: “POLITICO, LLC” <reply-fe8c1d737662017574-630320_HTML-638333449-1376319-0@politicoemail.com>
Date: Friday, November 12, 2021 at 10:02 AM
To: Aviva Lev-Ari <Avivalev-ari@alum.Berkeley.edu>
Subject: Moderna vs. The Government

11/9/2021 and 11/11/2021

The NIH told the New York Times earlier this week that three of its scientists — John Mascola, Barney Graham, who recently retired, and Kizzmekia Corbett, who has since moved over to Harvard — worked with Moderna to design the genetic sequence that prompts the vaccine to produce an immune response.

“I think Moderna has made a serious mistake here in not providing the kind of co-inventorship credit to the people who played a major role in the development of the vaccine that they are now making a fair amount of money on. We did our best to try to resolve this and ultimately failed but we are not done,” NIH Director Francis Collins told Reuters in an interview yesterday.

NIH ‘not done’ fighting Moderna over Covid vaccine patents, director Francis Collins says

Dr. Barney Graham, left, and his colleague at the time, Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett, right, explaining the role of spike proteins to President Biden at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., in February 2021

The vaccine grew out of a four-year collaboration between Moderna and the N.I.H., the government’s biomedical research agency — a partnership that was widely hailed when the shot was found to be highly effective. A year ago this month, the government called it the “N.I.H.-Moderna Covid-19 vaccine.”

The agency says three scientists at its Vaccine Research Center — Dr. John R. Mascola, the center’s director; Dr. Barney S. Graham, who recently retired; and Dr. Kizzmekia S. Corbett, who is now at Harvard — worked with Moderna scientists to design the genetic sequence that prompts the vaccine to produce an immune response, and should be named on the “principal patent application.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/09/us/moderna-vaccine-patent.html?referringSource=articleShare

If the three agency scientists are named on the patent along with the Moderna employees, the federal government could have more of a say in which companies manufacture the vaccine, which in turn could influence which countries get access. It would also secure a nearly unfettered right to license the technology, which could bring millions into the federal treasury.

“Omitting N.I.H. inventors from the principal patent application deprives N.I.H. of a co-ownership interest in that application and the patent that will eventually issue from it.”

According to the NYT article,

But experts said the disputed patent was the most important one in Moderna’s growing intellectual property portfolio. It seeks to patent the genetic sequence that instructs the body’s cells to make a harmless version of the spike proteins that stud the surface of the coronavirus, which triggers an immune response.

While it has not publicly acknowledged the rift until now, the Biden administration has expressed frustration that Moderna has not done more to provide its vaccine to poorer nations even as it racks up huge profits.

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Epidemiologic measurement on COVID-19 pandemic may have statistical biases which might affect next variant responses

Posted in Biomarkers: Inflammation, COVID-19, number of asymptomatic infections, Population Health Management, Genetics & Pharmaceutical, Population Health Management, Nutrition and Phytochemistry, SARS-CoV-2, SARS-CoV-2 Viral Variants, Treatment Protocols for COVID-19, tagged , , , , , , on November 7, 2021| Leave a Comment »

Epidemiological measurement on COVID-19 pandemic may have statistical biases which might affect next variant responses

Reporter: Stephen J. Williams Ph.D.

Source: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abi6602

From the jounal Science

Tackling the pandemic with (biased) data

CHRISTINA PAGEL AND CHRISTIAN A. YATESSCIENCE•22 Oct 2021•Vol 374, Issue 6566•pp. 403-404•DOI: 10.1126/science.abi66027,757

Accurate and near real-time data about the trajectory of the COVID-19 pandemic have been crucial in informing mitigation policies. Because choosing the right mitigation policies relies on an accurate assessment of the current state of the local epidemic, the potential ramifications of misinterpreting data are serious. Each data source has inherent biases and pitfalls in interpretation. The more data sources that are interpreted in combination, the easier it is to detect genuine changes in an epidemic. Recently, in many countries, this has involved disentangling the varying impact of rising but heterogeneous vaccination rates, relaxation of mitigations, and the emergence of new variants such as Delta.The exact data collected and their accuracy will vary by country. Typical data common to many countries are numbers of tests, confirmed cases, hospital and intensive care unit (ICU) admissions and occupancy, deaths, and vaccinations (1). Many countries additionally sequence a proportion of new positive tests to identify and track emerging variants. Some countries also now collect and publish data on infections, hospitalizations, and deaths by vaccination status (e.g., Israel and the UK). Stratifying all available data by different demographic factors (e.g., age, location, measures of deprivation, and ethnicity) is crucial for understanding patterns of spread, potential impact of policies, and efficacy of vaccines (age, timing of breakthrough infections, and prevalent variants).It is also necessary to be aware of what data are not being collected. For example, persistent symptoms of COVID-19 (Long Covid) were recognized as a long-term adverse outcome by the autumn of 2020. However, no simple diagnostic test has been associated with the up to 200 different reported symptoms (2). Counting Long Covid relies on a clinical diagnosis, based on a history of having had COVID-19 and a failure to fully recover, with development of some characteristic symptoms and with no obvious alternative cause (3). These features make it very difficult to measure routinely, and so it rarely is. As a result, Long Covid is often neglected in decision-making. Failure to account for the disease load associated with Long Covid may lead to an unnecessary long-term societal health burden.The feedback between different types of outcomes, different severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) variants, different mitigation policies (including vaccination), and individual risks (a combination of exposure and clinical risk) is complex and must be factored into both interpretation of data and the development of policy. Using all available data to quantify transmission is crucial to ensuring rapid and effective responses to early phases of renewed exponential growth and to evaluating mitigation measures. Relying too much on a single data source, or without disaggregating data, risks fundamentally misunderstanding the state of the epidemic.The inherent biases and lags in data are particularly important to understand from the point of view of policy-makers. Because of the natural time scales of COVID-19 disease progression (see the figure), policy changes can take several weeks to show up in the data. Purely reactive policy-making is likely to be ineffective. When cases are rising, increases in hospital admissions and deaths will follow. When a new variant is outcompeting existing strains, it is likely to become dominant without action to suppress. The precautionary principle suggests acting early and emphatically. Conversely, when releasing restrictions, governments must wait long enough to assess them before continuing with re-opening.The most up-to-date indicator of the state of the epidemic is typically the number of confirmed cases, as ascertained through testing of both symptomatic individuals and those tested frequently regardless of symptoms. Symptom-based testing is likely to pick up more adults and fewer younger individuals (4). Infections in children are harder to detect: children are more likely to be asymptomatic than adults, are harder to administer tests to (particularly young children), are often exposed to other viruses with similar symptoms, and can present with symptoms that are atypical in adults (e.g., abdominal pain or nausea). Children under 12 are not routinely offered the COVID-19 vaccination, and their mixing in schools provides ongoing opportunities for the virus to circulate, so it will be important for countries to track infections in children as accurately as possible. Other testing biases include accessibility, reporting lags, and the ability to act lawfully upon receiving a positive result. Substantial changes in the number of people seeking tests may further confound case figures (5). Case positivity rates may provide a more accurate reflection of the state of the epidemic (6) but are dependent on the mix of symptomatic and asymptomatic people being tested.SARS-CoV-2 variants have been an important driver of local epidemics in 2021. The four main SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern, to date, are B.1.1.7 (Alpha), B.1.351 (Beta), P.1 (Gamma), and B.1.617.2 (Delta). Some have been more transmissible (Alpha), some have substantial resistance to previous infection or vaccines (Beta), and some have elements of both (Gamma and Delta) (7). Currently, the high transmissibility of Delta combined with some immune evasion has made it the world’s dominant variant. Determining which variants pose a substantial threat is difficult and takes time, particularly when many variants cocirculate. This is especially true for situations in which a dominant variant is declining, and a new one growing. While the declining variant remains dominant, its decrease masks increases in the new variant because case numbers remain unchanged or fall overall. Only when a new variant becomes dominant does its growth become apparent in aggregated case data, by which time it is, by definition, too late to contain its spread. This dynamic has been observed across the world with Delta over the latter half of 2021.With multiple variants circulating, there are, effectively, multiple epidemics occurring in parallel, and they must be tracked separately. This typically requires the availability of sequencing data, which is unfortunately limited in most countries. Sequencing takes time and so is typically a few weeks out of date. These lags, and the uncertainty in sampling, can lead to hesitancy in acting. The rapid path to dominance of the Delta variant in the UK highlights the need for action when a quickly growing variant represents a few percent (or less) of overall cases.Hospital admissions or occupancy data do not suffer the same biases associated with testing behaviors and provide unequivocal evidence of widespread transmission, its geography, and demographics. However, hospital admissions lag infections more than reported cases do, rendering these data less useful for proactive decision-making. Hospital data are also biased toward older people, who are more likely to suffer severe COVID-19, and now, unvaccinated populations. ICU occupancy data show a younger age profile than admissions because younger patients have a better chance of benefitting from the invasive treatment procedures (8).Deaths are the most lagged indicator, typically occurring 3 or more weeks after infection and with an additional lag in registration and reporting. Death data should never be used to inform real-time policy decisions. Instead, death figures can act as an eventual measure of the success of a country’s epidemic strategy and implementation. The age distribution of those who eventually die from COVID-19 is different from other metrics of the epidemic—skewed furthest toward older age groups (9). Those with clinical risk factors (such as immunodeficiency, obesity, or existing lung conditions), high exposure (health care workers and low-income workers), and the unvaccinated are overrepresented in COVID-19 deaths.In countries with high vaccination rates, vaccination has had a substantial impact—reducing COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. However, when looking at the raw numbers in highly vaccinated populations, it can be the case that more fully vaccinated people are dying of COVID-19 than unvaccinated. If these raw statistics are misinterpreted—or worse, deliberately misused—they can damage vaccine confidence. More vaccinated people may die than unvaccinated because such a high proportion of people are vaccinated (10). This does not mean vaccines are not effective at preventing death. Looking at the rates of death in vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals separately within age groups demonstrates that vaccines provide considerable protection against severe disease and death. This example illustrates how important it is to curate and manage the way in which data are presented.

COVID-19 progressionAn approximate timeline from infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) to various outcomes. When current infections show up in different data sources depends on this timeline. Collecting data for Long Covid, asymptomatic infection, and vaccine history will improve understanding of the pandemic.GRAPHIC: N. CARY/SCIENCE

Each country has established its own vaccination priority lists and dosing schedules to best achieve its goals (11, 12). Each of these strategies will manifest differently in the data. Additionally, many countries are using multiple vaccines in tandem and administer them differently for different demographics. Some countries are vaccinating adolescents, and others are not or not offering them the full approved dose. Most vaccines require two doses, spaced between 3 and 12 weeks apart, except for the Johnson & Johnson single-dose vaccine. This matters, particularly as variants spread, because different vaccines have different effectiveness after one and two doses, different timelines to full effectiveness, and different effectiveness against variants (13).Data published on the vaccination delivery itself must thus go beyond the raw numbers of people vaccinated. Vaccine uptake must be reported by whether fully or partially (one-dose in a two-dose regimen) vaccinated and using the whole population as a denominator. It is vital to disaggregate vaccine data by age, gender, and ethnicity as well as location so that it is possible, for example, to understand the impact of deprivation on vaccine coverage or vaccine hesitancy in particular demographics. When interpreting vaccination data, it is important to remember that there is also a lag between delivery and the build-up of immunity.Data on reinfection and post-vaccination (breakthrough) infection are also important to determine the relative benefits of infection-mediated and vaccine-mediated immunity and the length of protection offered. Studies that show those who were immunized earlier were acquiring COVID-19 with higher rates than those vaccinated more recently may suggest waning vaccine protection (14). Such studies have already prompted vaccine booster programs in some countries. However, any study that suggests waning immunity must be extremely careful to ensure that the “early” and “recent” subgroups are properly controlled. Differences in prior exposure, affluence, education level, age, and other demographic factors between these cohorts may be enough to explain the disparities in SARS-CoV-2 infection rates, even in the absence of waning immunity. Waning immunity must also be reported separately for different outcomes; for example, there might be waning in terms of preventing symptomatic infection but far less or none in preventing death (15). Additionally, there are ethical concerns about mass booster programs in high-income countries while many lower-income countries have been unable to procure vaccines.Moving into the vaccination era, reported cases, hospitalizations, and deaths should also be disaggregated by vaccination status (and by which vaccine), which will be easier in countries where national linked datasets exist. Additionally, incorporating Long Covid into routine reporting and policy-making is crucial. Consistent diagnostic criteria and well-controlled studies will be vital to this effort. These elusive data will be of critical importance to navigate our way successfully out of the pandemic.

Acknowledgments

C.P. and C.A.Y. are both members of Independent SAGE: www.independentsage.org.

References and Notes

1M. Roser et al., Our World in Data (2021); https://bit.ly/3kepLgw.GO TO REFERENCEGOOGLE SCHOLAR2H. E. Davis et al., E. Clin. Med.38, 101019 (2021).GO TO REFERENCEGOOGLE SCHOLAR3M. Sivan, S. Taylor, BMJ371, m4938 (2020).GO TO REFERENCECROSSREFPUBMEDGOOGLE SCHOLAR4S. M. Moghadas et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.117, 17513 (2020).GO TO REFERENCECROSSREFPUBMEDGOOGLE SCHOLAR5J. Wise, BMJ370, m3678 (2020).GO TO REFERENCECROSSREFPUBMEDGOOGLE SCHOLAR6D. Dowdy, G. D’Souza, COVID-19 Testing: Understanding the “Percent Positive” (2020); https://bit.ly/3CeN8wl.GO TO REFERENCEGOOGLE SCHOLAR7C. E. Gómez et al., Vaccines (Basel)9, 243 (2021).CROSSREFPUBMEDGOOGLE SCHOLAR8A. B. Docherty et al., BMJ369, 1985 (2020).GO TO REFERENCECROSSREFPUBMEDGOOGLE SCHOLAR9Office for National Statistics, Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales by age and sex: covid-19 (2021); https://bit.ly/3Ci2obS.

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Comparative Study: Four SARS-CoV-2 vaccines induce quantitatively different antibody responses against SARS-CoV-2 variants

Posted in Coronavirus Gene Expression, COVID-19, Immune-Mediation (independent immunopathology: lung and reticuloendothelial system), Mechanisms of infection by SARS-CoV-2, Population Health Management, Population Health Management, Genetics & Pharmaceutical, SARS-CoV-2, SARS-CoV-2 circulating variants , SARS-CoV-2 Viral Variants, Serology tests for coronavirus antibodies, T-cell response to SARS-CoV-2 infection, Vaccinology, Virtual Drug Molecule Screening targeting SAR-CoV-2 proteins, Virus Infective Acute Respiratory Syndrome: SARS-CoV on October 16, 2021| Leave a Comment »

Comparative Study: Four SARS-CoV-2 vaccines induce quantitatively different antibody responses against SARS-CoV-2 variants

Reporter: Aviva Lev- Ari, PhD, RN

Marit J. van Gils, A. H. Ayesha Lavell, Karlijn van der Straten, Brent Appelman, Ilja Bontjer, Meliawati Poniman, Judith A. Burger, Melissa Oomen, Joey H. Bouhuijs, Lonneke A. van Vught, Marleen A. Slim, Michiel Schinkel, Elke Wynberg, Hugo D.G. van Willigen, Marloes Grobben, Khadija Tejjani, Jonne Snitselaar, Tom G. Caniels, Amsterdam UMC COVID-19 S3/HCW study group, Alexander P. J. Vlaar, Maria Prins, Menno D. de Jong, Godelieve J. de Bree, Jonne J. Sikkens, Marije K. Bomers, Rogier W. Sanders doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.09.27.21264163

Abstract

Emerging and future SARS-CoV-2 variants may jeopardize the effectiveness of vaccination campaigns. We performed a head-to-head comparison of the ability of sera from individuals vaccinated with either one of four vaccines (BNT162b2, mRNA-1273, AZD1222 or Ad26.COV2.S) to recognize and neutralize the four SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern (VOCs; Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta). Four weeks after completing the vaccination series, SARS-CoV-2 wild-type neutralizing antibody titers were highest in recipients of BNT162b2 and mRNA-1273 (median titers of 1891 and 3061, respectively), and substantially lower in those vaccinated with the adenovirus vector-based vaccines AZD1222 and Ad26.COV2.S (median titers of 241 and 119, respectively). VOCs neutralization was reduced in all vaccine groups, with the largest (5.8-fold) reduction in neutralization being observed against the Beta variant. Overall, the mRNA vaccines appear superior to adenovirus vector-based vaccines in inducing neutralizing antibodies against VOCs four weeks after the final vaccination.

Figure 2:Binding and neutralization titers post-vaccination against VOCs.

(A) Median with interquartile range of binding titers to wild-type and VOCs S proteins represented as mean fluorescence intensity (MFI) of 1:100,000 diluted sera collected four-five weeks after full vaccination for the four vaccination groups. The lower cutoff for binding was set at an MFI of 10 (grey shading). Vaccine groups are indicated by colors with BNT162b2 in green, mRNA-1273 in purple, AZD1222 in orange and Ad26.COV2.S in blue. (B) Median with interquartile range of half-maximal neutralization (ID50) titers of D614G and VOCs pseudoviruses for sera collected after full vaccination for the four vaccination groups. The lower cutoff for neutralization was set at an ID50 of 100 (grey shading). Vaccine groups are indicated by colors with BNT162b2 in green, mRNA-1273 in purple, AZD1222 in orange and Ad26.COV2.S in blue. (C) Median ID50 neutralization of D614G and VOCs plotted against the reported vaccine efficacy against symptomatic infection2–5,12–17. Vaccine groups are indicated by colors with BNT162b2 in green, mRNA-1273 in purple, AZD1222 in orange and Ad26.COV2.S in blue. Circles represent WT data, squares for Alpha, diamond for Beta, nabla triangle for Gamma and delta triangle for Delta. Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient with p value are indicated. The result of the AZD1222 phase 3 trial conducted in South Africa, demonstrating poor (10%) efficacy against Beta variant, is not shown.

SOURCE

 https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.09.27.21264163

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Will COVID become a disease of the young?

Posted in children, COVID-19, COVID-19, Immunology, SARS-CoV-2, Vaccinology, tagged , , , , , , on July 8, 2021| Leave a Comment »

Will COVID become a disease of the young?

Reporter: Danielle Smolyar, Research Assistant 3 – Text Analysis for 2.0 LPBI Group’s TNS #1 – 2020/2021 Academic Internship in Medical Text Analysis (MTA)

An increase of infections among youth who are unvaccinated in countries with high vaccination rates is getting noticed in the role of young people in the pandemic.

On June 21 is Ross Ministry of health recommended that all individuals between the ages of 12 and 15 should be vaccinated. This makes the nation one of the few that have been approved vaccinations for younger kids. This decision came about in response too many other countries with high rates of vaccination are experiencing an increase in numbers of infections that are found to be in younger age groups.

Israel’s vaccination campaign which has reached to more than 85% of the adult population to be vaccinated noticed that case numbers are dropping around a dozen daily in the month of June. At the end of June, they have realized that the cases began to rise to more than 100 cases a day. These cases were found in kids under the age of 16 which is why the government decided to allow vaccinations.

Ran Balicer, and epidemiologists at Israel’s largest healthcare provider in Tel Aviv said that the younger profile is not surprising.

image source: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01862-7

This trend that Israel started to notice is not just happening in Israel. The United States and the United Kingdom COVID-19, “become a disease of the unvaccinated, who are predominantly young”, says Joshua Goldstein, a demographer at the University of California, Berkeley. Stated in the article. 

This trend has been occurring in the countries where the older population were being vaccinated first. Follow the drop in age because they were vaccinating older people who are the most at risk for the disease.

This shift has shut attention to the studies of transmission in the younger age groups. Karin Magnusson immunologist said that it has come very important to understand the burden of the disease among the younger children. 

Magnusson on the impact of COVID-19 in children in Norway. On June 5 pre-print she reported that children see their doctor regularly up to six months after contracting Covid-19.

Balicer, is studying the virus spread in multi-generational households in Israel. Going beyond whether vaccinating children or not the patterns of COVID-19 infection have caused discussions about mask wearing to adolescence and kids in Israel. 

As stated in the article, “As the burden of cases shifts towards younger people, arguments for vaccinating adolescents will become slightly more compelling,” agrees Nick Bundle, an epidemiologist at the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control in Stockholm.” However, the risk of disease in children still is low and in other countries the total number of cases have declined.

Countries also need to consider the global contacts. As stated in the article, “Are we really better off giving the vaccine to kids in rich countries than to older people [in less wealthy countries] where it might have a much bigger impact on people’s lives?” says Jennie Lavine, who studies infectious-disease dynamics at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. “It seems hard for me to imagine a really good argument for that.”

Oh there is a downward shift and the average age of infected with COVID-19 in countries with high COVID-19 vaccination rates it may be short-lived. There could be a few scenarios where the shift could bounce back says Henrik Salje, who is an infectious disease epidemiologist at the University of Cambridge, UK. Many of the countries could start vaccinating the adolescence just like Israel and the United States are already doing so. 

Bundle says that COVID- 19 can still be present in younger kids. “But how big a problem that is, is not a simple thing to respond to.”

SOURCE: Mallapaty, S. (2021, July 8). Will COVID become a disease of the young? Nature News. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01862-7

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COVID and the brain: researchers zero in on how damage occurs

Posted in Cancer Researchers Fighting COVID-19, COVID-19, COVID-19, Human Antibody Response, Immunology, memory loss, Neurological Diseases, SARS-CoV-2, SARS-CoV-2 Viral Variants, Stroke, Treatment Protocols for COVID-19, tagged , , , , , , , , on July 8, 2021| Leave a Comment »

COVID and the brain: researchers zero in on how damage occurs

Reporter: Danielle Smolyar

Research Assistant 3 – Text Analysis for 2.0 LPBI Group’s TNS #1 – 2020/2021 Academic Internship in Medical Text Analysis (MTA)

Recent evidence has indicated that coronavirus can cause brain fog and also lead to different neurological symptoms. 

Since the beginning of the pandemic, researchers have been trying to understand how the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 affects the brain

Image Credit: Stanislav Krasilnikov/TASS/Getty

image source:https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01693-6?utm_source=Nature+Briefing

New evidence has shown how coronavirus has caused much damage to the brain. There is a new evidence that shows that COVID-19 assault on the brain I has the power to be multipronged. What this means is that it can attack on certain Brain cells such as reduce the amount of blood flow that the brain needs to the brain tissue.

Along with brain damage COVID-19 has also caused strokes and memory loss. A neurologist at yell University Serena Spudich says, “Can we intervene early to address these abnormalities so that people don’t have long-term problems?”

We’re on 80% of the people who have been hospitalized due to COVID-19 have showed brain symptoms which seem to be correlated to coronavirus.

At the start of the pandemic a group of researchers speculated that coronavirus they can damage the brain by infecting the neurons in the cells which are important in the process of transmitting information. After further studies they found out that coronavirus has a harder time getting past the brains defense system and the brain barrier and that it does not affect the neurons in anyway.

An expert in this study indicated that a way in which SARS-CoV-2 may be able to get to the brain is by going through the olfactory mucosa which is the lining of the nasal cavity. It is found that this virus can be found in the nasal cavity which is why we swab the nose one getting tested for COVID-19.

Spudich quotes, “there’s not a tonne of virus in the brain”.

Recent studies indicate that SARS-CoV-2 have ability to infect astrocytes which is a type of cell found in the brain. Astrocytes do quite a lot that supports normal brain function,” including providing nutrients to neurons to keep them working, says Arnold Kriegstein, a neurologist at the University of California, San Francisco.

Astrocytes are star-shaped cells in the central nervous system that perform many functions, including providing nutrients to neurons.

Image Credit: David Robertson, ICR/SPL

image source: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01693-6?utm_source=Nature+Briefing

Kriegstein and his fellow colleagues have found that SARS-CoV-2 I mostly infects the astrocytes over any of the other brain cells present. In this research they expose brain organoids which is a miniature brain that are grown from stem cells into the virus.

As quoted in the article” a group including Daniel Martins-de-Souza, head of proteomics at the University of Campinas in Brazil, reported6 in a February preprint that it had analysed brain samples from 26 people who died with COVID-19. In the five whose brain cells showed evidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection, 66% of the affected cells were astrocytes.”

The infected astrocytes could indicate the reasoning behind some of the neurological symptoms that come with COVID-19. Specifically, depression, brain fog and fatigue. Kreigstein quotes, “Those kinds of symptoms may not be reflective of neuronal damage but could be reflective of dysfunctions of some sort. That could be consistent with astrocyte vulnerability.”

A study that was published on June 21 they compared eight different brands of deceased people who did have COVID-19 along with 14 brains as the control. The results of this research were that they found that there was no trace of coronavirus Brain infected but they found that the gene expression was affected in some of the astrocytes.

As a result of doing all this research and the findings the researchers want to know more about this topic and how many brain cells need to be infected for there to be neurological symptoms says Ricardo Costa.

Further evidence has also been done on how SARS-CoV-2 can affect the brain by reducing its blood flow which impairs the neurons’ function which ends up killing them.

Pericytes can be found on the small blood vessels which are called capillaries and are found all throughout the body and in the brain. In a February pre-print there was a report about how SARS-CoV-2 can infect the pericyte in the brain organoids. 

David Atwell, a neuroscientist at the University College London, along with his other colleagues had published a pre-print which has evidence to show that SARS-CoV-2 odes In fact pericytes behavior. I researchers saw that in the different part of the hamsters brain SARS-CoV-2 blocks the function of receptors on the pericytes which ultimately causes the capillaries found inside the tissues to constrict.

As stated in the article, It’s a “really cool” study, says Spudich. “It could be something that is determining some of the permanent injury we see — some of these small- vessel strokes.”

Attwell brought to the attention that the drugs that are used to treat high blood pressure may in fact be used in some cases of COVID-19. Currently there are two clinical trials that are being done to further investigate this idea.

There is further evidence showing that the neurological symptoms and damage could in fact be happening because of the bodies on immune system reacting or misfiring after having COVID-19.

Over the past 15 years it has become evident that people’s immune system’s make auto antibodies which attack their own tissues says Harald Prüss in the article who has a Neuroimmunologist at the German Center for neurogenerative Diseases in Berlin. This may cause neuromyelitis optica which is when you can experience loss of vision or weakness in limbs. Harald Prüss summarized that the autoantibodies can pass through the blood brain barrier and ultimately impact neurological disorders such as psychosis.

Prüss and his colleagues published a study last year that focused on them isolating antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 from people. They found that one was able to protect hamsters from lung damage and other infections. The purpose of this was to come up with and create new treatments. During this research they found that some of the antibodies from people. They found that one was able to protect hamsters from lung damage and other infections. The purpose of this was to come up with and create new treatments. During this research they found that some of the antibodies can bind to the brain tissue which can ultimately damage it. Prüss states, “We’re currently trying to prove that clinically and experimentally,” says Prüss.

Was published online in December including Prüss sorry the blood and cerebrospinal fluid of 11 people who were extremely sick with COVID-19. These 11 people had neurological symptoms as well. All these people were able to produce auto antibodies which combined to neurons. There is evidence that when the patients were given intravenous immunoglobin which is a type of antibody it was successful.

Astrocytes, pericytes and autoantibodies we’re not the only  pathways. However it is likely that people with COVID-19 experience article symptoms for many reasons. As stated, In the article, Prüss says a key question is what proportion of cases is caused by each of the pathways. “That will determine treatment,” he says.

SOURCE: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01693-6?utm_source=Nature+Briefing

Original article: 

Marshall, M. (2021, July 7). COVID and the brain: researchers zero in on how damage occurs. Nature News. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01693-6

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Ramatroban, a Thromboxane A2/TPr and PGD2/DPr2 receptor antagonist for Acute and Long haul COVID-19

Posted in Coronavirus Gene Expression, COVID-19, Immune-Mediation (independent immunopathology: lung and reticuloendothelial system), Mechanism of Thrombosis with AZ & J&J COVID-19 Vaccines, Mechanisms of infection by SARS-CoV-2, Population Health Management, Genetics & Pharmaceutical, SAR-Cov-2 a vasculotropic (blood vessels) RNA Virus, SARS-CoV-2, SARS-CoV-2 circulating variants , SARS-CoV-2 Viral Variants, T-cell response to SARS-CoV-2 infection, Treatment Protocols for COVID-19, Vaccinology, Virtual Drug Molecule Screening targeting SAR-CoV-2 proteins, Virus Infective Acute Respiratory Syndrome: SARS-CoV on July 7, 2021| Leave a Comment »

Ramatroban, a Thromboxane A2/TPr and PGD2/DPr2 receptor antagonist for Acute and Long haul COVID-19

Author: Ajay Gupta, MD

From: “Gupta, Ajay” <ajayg1@hs.uci.edu>
Date: Wednesday, July 7, 2021 at 1:10 PM
To: Aviva Lev-Ari <AvivaLev-Ari@alum.berkeley.edu>
Cc: “Dr. Saul Yedgar” <saulye@ekmd.huji.ac.il>
Subject: Ramatroban, a Thromboxane A2/TPr and PGD2/DPr2 receptor antagonist for Acute and Long haul COVID-19

While corticosteroids may have a role in about 5% of hospitalized patients who have the cytokine storm, currently there is no effective treatment for mild or moderate COVID and long haul COVID. Massive increase in respiratory and plasma thromboxane A2 (TxA2) plays a key role in thromboinflammation and microvascular thrombosis, while an increase in respiratory and plasma PGD2 potentially suppresses innate interferon response, and acquired Th1 anti-viral response, while promoting a maladaptive type 2, anti-helminthic like immune response. Ramatroban is a potent dual receptor antagonist of Thromboxane A2/TPr and PGD2/DPr2 that has been used in Japan for the treatment of allergic rhinitis for past 20 years (Baynas®, Bayer Japan). We first disclosed use of ramatroban for COVID in a provisional patent application filed on 31st March, 2020; followed by the publication Gupta et al, J Mol Genet Med, 2020

Several experts, as outlined below in yellow highlighted text, have supported the idea of using ramatroban as an anti-thrombotic and immunomodulator in COVID-19.

1.     Prof. Louis Flamand, Nicolas Flamand, Eric Boilard Laval Univ. Quebec, Canada: There is a lipid-mediator storm in COVID-19 characterized by massive increases in thromboxane A2 and PGD2 in the lungs and plasma.  “Blocking the deleterious effects of             PGD2 and TxA2 with the dual DPr2/TPr antagonist Ramatroban might be beneficial in COVID-19 Archambault et al, FASEB, June 2021, doi: https://doi.org/10.1096/fj.202100540R

2. Prof. Garret A FitzGerald, Univ. Of Pennsylvania, Member National Academy of Sciences.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garret_A._FitzGerald “In the current pandemic there may be utility in targeting eicosanoids with existing drugs.  These approaches would likely be most effective early in the disease before the development of ARDS, where cytokines and chemokines dominate. Dexamethasone limits COX-2 expression and might diminish COVID-19 severity and mortality at least in part, by diminishing COX metabolites… Dexamethasone might improve severe COVID-19 by diminishing the prostaglandins / thromboxane storm in the lungs”. “Treatment with a PGD2/DPr2 inhibitor decreased viral load and improved morbidity by upregulating IFN-lambda expression. …..  Antagonism of the thromboxane receptor (TPr) prevents ARDS…. Early administration of well-tolerated TPr antagonists may limit progress to severe COVID-19 (Theken and FitzGerald, Science, 2021)

4.     Prof. Simon Phipps, Univ. of Queensland, Brisbane Australia “It has been hypothesized that DP2 antagonists be repurposed as a novel immunotherapy for the treatment of COVID-19, and this may be appropriate in mild to moderate cases where Th1 immunity is impaired.” (Ullah et al, Mucosal Immunology, 2021)

5.     Prof. Bruce D. Hammock, Distinguished Professor, Univ of California Davis, Member US National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Inventors; April 25, 2021. https://www.entsoc.org/fellows/hammock “I find your idea of blocking specific thromboxane receptors in preventing or reducing some of the devastating co-morbidity of COVID-19 very compelling. … A DPr2 receptor blocker is conceptually attractive in offering the potential of effective therapy and low risk due to a high therapeutic index.” E mail dated April 25, 2021.  (https://ajp.amjpathol.org/action/showPdf?pii=S0002-9440%2820%2930332-1    and http://ucanr.edu/sites/hammocklab/files/328012.pdf)

6. Ann E Eakin, PhD, Senior Scientific Officer, NIH-NIAID “very compelling data supporting potential benefits of ramatroban in both reducing viral load as well as modulating host responses” E Mail dated Nov 20, 2020

7. Prof. James Ritter, MA, DPhil, FRCP, FMedSci, Hon FBPhS https://www.trinhall.cam.ac.uk/contact-us/contact-directory/fellows-and-academics-directory/james-ritter/ “Very impressive, and fascinating” referring to ramatroban for COVID-19 in an e-mail dated Dec 21, 2020

Ramatroban is expected to reduce lung fibrosis in COVID-19 and therefore diminish clinical manifestations of Long haul COVID. Pang et al, 2021 “examined the effect of Ramatroban, a clinical antagonist of both PGD2 and TXA2 receptors, on treating silicosis using a mouse model. The results showed that Ramatroban significantly alleviated silica-induced pulmonary inflammation, fibrosis, and cardiopulmonary dysfunction compared with the control group.” https://www.thno.org/v11p2381.htm

Unfortunately, the animal models of COVID-19 are harsh, lack microvascular thrombosis and immune perturbations characteristic of human disease. These models may be good for testing antivirals but not for testing immunomodulators or anti-thrombotics. There is highly positive anecdotal experience with use of ramatroban in moderately severe COVID-19 (https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-474882/v1

Additionally, Ramatroban holds great promise in sickle cell disease, cardiovascular disease https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1527-3466.2004.tb00132.x, and community acquired pneumonia.

Best regards,

Ajay

Ajay Gupta, M.B.,B.S., M.D.

Clinical Professor,

Division of Nephrology, Hypertension and Kidney Transplantation

University of California Irvine  

President & CSO, KARE Biosciences (www.karebio.com)

E-mail:     ajayg1@hs.uci.edu

Cell:         1 (562) 412-6259

Office:     1 (562) 419-7029

Please see some of our recent publications in the COVID area.  

https://assets.researchsquare.com/files/rs-474882/v1/6d209040-e94b-4adf-80a9-3a9eddf93def.pdf?c=1619795476

https://www.uni-muenster.de/Ejournals/index.php/fnp/article/view/3395

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13543784.2021.1950687

https://www.amjmed.com/article/S0002-9343(20)30872-X/fulltext

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