Bioscience News - GEG Tech top picks

A new study published by researchers at CHU Sainte-Justine in the medical journal Nature Medicine conclued that convalescent plasma did not reduce the risk of intubation or death at 30 d in hospitalized patients with COVID-19. Transfusion of convalescent plasma with unfavorable antibody profiles could be associated with worse clinical outcomes compared to standard care.

A team of French researchers has come up with an anti-Covid solution which is an alternative to a vaccination and which could be ready for use  in the form of a nasal spray. They have created a peptide, made up of natural amino acids which lures the virus to it by mimicking the ACE2 lock, and so prevents it from entering into human cells. They have tested it on pulmonary cells and found it has worked without any toxic reaction to humans. These first-in-class blocking peptide mimics represent powerful tools that might be used in prophylactic and therapeutic approaches to fight the coronavirus disease 2019.

The recent emergence of new SARS-CoV-2 variants B.1.1.7 in the UK11 and B.1.351 in South Africa12 is of concern because of their purported ease of transmission and extensive mutations in the spike protein. This study reports that B.1.1.7 is refractory to neutralization by most mAbs to the N-terminal domain (NTD) of the spike and relatively resistant to a few mAbs to the receptor-binding domain (RBD). It is not more resistant to convalescent plasma or vaccinee sera. Findings on B.1.351 are more worrisome in that this variant is not only refractory to neutralization by most NTD mAbs but also by multiple individual mAbs to the receptor-binding motif on RBD, largely owing to an E484K mutation. Moreover, B.1.351 is markedly more resistant to neutralization by convalescent plasma (9.4 fold) and vaccinee sera (10.3-12.4 fold). B.1.351 and emergent variants13,14 with similar spike mutations present new challenges for mAb therapy and threaten the protective efficacy of current vaccines.