Monthly Archives: May 2020

Six weeks ago, with little fanfare, a network of geneticists launched an obscure but potentially game-changing initiative. Their aim: to learn why people with particular DNA profiles end up dying from the coronavirusor completely avoiding its effects. Ultimately, they want to devise ways for scientists to cook up new therapies that might alter how our nanosize genes operate as a way of reversing or accelerating the pathogens progress. Called the COVID-19 Host Genetics Initiative, the project now involves close to 700 scientists and researchers, worldwide, who are busily comparing DNA data from pandemic victims to literally millions of existing DNA profiles of millions of people.

To appreciate how our genes might be impacted by the onslaught of COVID-19, imagine this: that a tiny, invisible bug is hovering over the surface of a cell inside your bodysay a lung cell. You dont know it yet, but youve just been infected with SARS-Cov-2. Maybe it came from that jogger who whizzed past you on the sidewalk, or that tabletop you touched before rubbing your eyes. Whatever its source, there it is, circulating inside you: a fuzzy, sphere-shaped pathogen thats less than 1/1000 the width of a human hair. Prickly, with spikes on its outside, its searching for a place to plug into and enter your cell. Its a little like a key and a lock, where the key (the virus) wants to slip into the keyhole (a receptor on the cell) and then release a payload that will be up to no good.

Except that, in some people, the virus-key doesnt fit the lock and is blocked from entering the cell. In others, it slips right in, leading to illness and sometimes to rapid deterioration and even death. One potential differencesay geneticists who are working day and night to better understand how SARS-Cov-2 invades and attacks our cellsmight be because your DNA code differs from mine. Yours might inherently spurn the virus at the cellular level; mine might make me more susceptible.

So what determines who gets dangerously sick? We know that people who are older and have underlying diseases like diabetes and heart disease are at higher risk for having a bad response to COVID-19, explained Mark Daly, a 52-year-old geneticist and the director of the Institute for Molecular Medicine in Helsinki, Finland. Other factors include higher risk biases that involve ethnicity, class, vocation, geographic location, and the medical resources available at the time of treatment. And yet, according to Daly, this doesnt explain why relatively healthy people, including young people, are sometimes having severe and life-threatening reactions such as very high fevers, pneumonia, and difficulty with breathing that requires oxygen and sometimes a ventilator. Most likely this has something to do with differences in their genes.

Daly should know. With his Paul Reverelike ponytail, circular hippie glasses, and lean, determined face, hes a pioneer of modern genetics who was a key player during and after the Human Genome Project, the huge international effort in the 1990s and early 2000s that sequenced the first-ever human genome. And as the pandemic has been raging, Daly, a physicist, decided to help spearhead a remarkable hive-mind effort: the COVID-19 Host Genetics Initiative.

The project was announced on March 16 in a tweet posted by Dalys cohort Andrea Ganna: Goal: aggregate genetic and clinical information on individuals affected by COVID-19. The response was immediate. Within days, scientists from over 150 organizations in more than 30 countries on six continents agreed to join. Thats the ideal use of the hive mind: a conglomeration of big brains and, in this case, their disparate data sources, to solve one huge problem. Participants have come not only from Harvard and MIT (institutions with which Daly has ongoing affiliations) and the usual institutional suspects in North America, Europe, and the wealthier Asian countries, but also from the Qatar Genome Program, Vietnams SARS-Cov-2 Susceptibility Program, and CLHORAZbased in Burkina Faso.

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What Do Your Genetics Have to Do With Your Chances of Dying From Coronavirus? - Vanity Fair

Lou Siminovitch, circa 1963, studying viruses.

John Dirks is the emeritus president and scientific director of the Gairdner Foundation.

At a time when medical science is playing the key role in treating the global COVID-19 pandemic, it is only appropriate that we celebrate the 100th birthday of molecular biologist, scientific leader and genetics pioneer Dr. Louis Siminovitch today. After all, Lou as he is affectionately known is considered by many to have had the most substantial impact on Canadian medical science in our time.

The works of English architect Christopher Wren are so prominent in London that his bequest can be found, as the famous quote goes, if you just look around you, and the same can be said of Lou in Toronto, where a constellation of notable research institutes, hospitals and networks of top scientists will speak to his legacy. And when Lou has felt Canadian science was running behind in quality or slow to engage new advances like genomics, he has energetically stepped up to the plate to forcefully challenge the political and academic powers of the day through his powerful pen lots and lots of letters to turn things around.

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One can only stand in awe," said Henry Friesen, the founder of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, of the profound influence Lou Siminovitch has had in inspiring so many young students, building and developing major scientific institutions, and offering decision makers wise counsel in cultivating a more robust science culture in Canada.

So how did Lou become such a respected icon? He was born in Montreal of Eastern European parents who lived near the poverty line and had little interest in learning and culture. In high school, Lou was a so-so student, surrounded by many who spent their time in leftist politics. He entered McGill with an interest in chemistry and, stimulated by a top professor, made science his career choice.

Lou embarked on a PhD in physical chemistry, graduating in 1944. He married Elinore, who typed his thesis, and they moved to Ottawa and Chalk River. There, he worked on nuclear research, meeting every day with bright scientists such as Italian physicist Bruno Pontecorvo (who later defected to the Soviet Union), kindling Lous excitement in science.

Lou has a habit of riding the ways of fortune between opportunity, despair and joy. When his interest turned to biology he likes to say that he has a high mutation rate, seeking new challenges and new fields every 10 years he met French and Canadian scientist Louis Rapkine, who invited Lou to join his lab in Paris where he became a successful experimenter. But Rapkine died suddenly, leaving Lou with no mentor and no lab.

Instead, Lou managed to join the high-level lab of Andr Lwoff, Jacques Monod and Franois Jacob at the Pasteur Institute. Those three men shared the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1965, and in that period, Lou produced some of his most original scientific work. Collaborating with those giants, who rigorously explored big questions, branded Lou with the principle that defines him: Nothing less than excellence is good enough. What distinguishes Lou was that he has had no tolerance for compromise on excellence in science," said Calvin Stiller, a colleague of Lous for 50 years. "He literally snorts when he observes mediocrity; he senses bogus in a blink.

In 1953, ready to return to Canada, Lou joined the famed Connaught Laboratories in Toronto the city he has made his home, and where he began distinguishing himself through a parade of remarkable opportunities. In 1956, prominent Canadian histologist Arthur Ham appointed Lou to the Ontario Cancer Institute, where he established his independent research career with critical studies in the stem cell discovery and cancer research, and rapidly became the head of biological research. In 1968, he was invited to chair a new department in the University of Torontos medical school that incorporated genetics and immunology, two themes that had been missing in the faculty; this grew into a major research unit.

In 1978, Lou became head of genetics at SickKids hospital, again bringing in new talent and technologies, and setting the stage for world-class accomplishment in cloning genes like cystic fibrosis. And in 1984, while concurrently shaping a new research institute at the Baycrest geriatric centre for Joe Rotman, he was asked to develop a brand new research institute at Mount Sinai Hospital, with up-to-date molecular biology related to major diseases. He recruited stars like Tony Pawson, Janet Rossant and many more in the creation of the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute arguably the pinnacle of his achievements.

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Lou deeply influenced research development at the University of Toronto and many Canadian institutions, as well as the national and provincial research funding agencies. But in building all these institutions, he was the one sought out to lead he never applied for any position.

His advice is constantly and widely sought and usually heeded. Its impossible for me to convey how much I learned from Lou through all those years and how much I owe him," said David Naylor, the former president of the University of Toronto. The advice came at lunches where the real menu was on Lous cue cards with its list of topics to be discussed or at other times in long, meticulously argued emails. Many Canadian leaders had the same experience.

Highly esteemed, Lou has received many awards and honorary degrees, including the Companion of the Order of Canada, the Canada Gairdner Wightman Award and induction to the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame. Internationally, he is one of few Canadians elected to both the Royal Society of the U.K. and the U.S. National Academy. He was truly one of the great medical builders of his day, a list that includes John Evans, Fraser Mustard and Jacques Genest, to name just a few.

Lou placed major emphasis on cultivating talent, creating intellectual descendants and finding outstanding leaders who have truly innovated and not many make his A-list. Lous science will never die, in that he has generated not only ideas, but offspring who will continue to carry out his work," said Montreal physician Phil Gold.

Lou can be described in many ways. Hes a driver of excellence and deeply committed to the idea that science can solve societal problems. Hes an institution, remembering how things happened and still worrying about where Canada stands as a nation in the world of science today. Hes a disturber of the status quo and a skilled science politician. Hes a passionate family man and, prompted by his playwright wife, he became an avid pursuer of culture in the arts and humanities, and the Elinore & Lou Siminovitch Prize in Theatre was developed by friends. Clearly, Lou could bridge the sciences and the arts.

And he is still the same old Lou. He goes to the office most days, surrounding himself with pictures of great art, mentors and family. He reads voraciously, absorbing daily newspapers, journals such as Science and Nature, as well as the books of the day. As he always says: I am still here.

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As a centenarian who still stimulates and provokes, and who still yearns to build a better place, Lou deserves a public toast. We might not be able to do that right now, as we wrestle with the novel coronavirus and all its devastation. But as scientists fight the deadly infection, its a perfect time to remember the scientific foundations that this giant of Canadian medicine laid down. So on behalf of scientists from coast to coast to coast Canada has been good to me, he likes to say, and the same is true in reverse we raise a glass to you, Lou.

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Im still here: Celebrating the 100th birthday of Lou Siminovitch, a giant of Canadian science - The Globe and Mail

Hunters and wild meat lovers are being warned that the practice of eating wild meat could result in the spread of more viruses.

Dr Christine Carrington, Professor of Molecular Genetics and Virology and Head of the Department of Preclinical Sciences, Faculty of Medical Sciences at the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, said its believed that the novel coronavirus may have been transmitted to humans from bats.

Its almost certain that its ancestor was a bat virus but its still not clear whether that virus moved from bats directly to humans or from bats to another species and then to humans.

The real risk comes from wild animals. All the wild animals out there that have a lot of viruses in them. When we encroach on them or we consume them or we butcher them, theres always the chance of getting infected by viruses that they carry.

However, she said wild animals are not to blame, but humans who insist on hunting and eating them.

The problem is our encroachment into their habitats and our destruction of their habitats. What were doing is creating more opportunities for viruses to jump from animal populations into human populations.

She said another factor which led to the rapid spread of the virus is air travel, which allows human hosts to transmit viruses from country to country within hours.

When somebody gets infected the chance of them moving that virus and spreading it to other people is much greater now than it was before.

Armadillos, locally known as tattoos, are a popular wild meat option and can carry leptospirosis and leprosy.

According to Smithsonian, armadillosare the only other animals besides humans to hostthe leprosy bacillus.

Leptospirosisis a bacterial infection obtained from animals including cattle, sheep, goats and deer.

Leprosy (Hansen's disease) is an infectious disease which can affect the nerves of hands, feet, nose, skin and respiratory tract.

In 2011, theNew England Journal of Medicine publishedan articleformally linked the creature to human leprosy casespeople and armadillos tested in the study both shared the same exact strain of the disease.

Studies have shown that red howler monkeys can also become infected by malariaand yellow fever which are transmitted via mosquitos. Red howler monkeys are protected by law.

Hunting is prohibited by law fromMarch 1st to September 30th each year.

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Beware wild meat: UWI doctor looks at connection to virus spread - Loop News Trinidad and Tobago

NewsNarissa FraserYesterdayImage courtesy CDC

CHRISTINE Carrington, UWI professor of molecular genetics and virology, says reports of covid19 re-infection should be looked at "very carefully" as this possibility remains uncertain and unconfirmed.

At the Health Ministry's virtual press briefing on Thursday, Dr Carrington noted international reports of people who recovered from the virus but later tested positive. She said people have been using this as evidence of the possibility of re-infection, but cautioned that scientists are uncertain of this.

"It is possible that some of the genetic material from the virus remains in their body after they have been declared free of the virus itself. And that sort of 'genetic junk' that's left over can be detected by the test."

She said she recently read a study where samples were taken from supposedly re-infected patients to see if the virus detected was infectious, but it was not.

"It does not appear to be a true re-infection, it seems when people are infected they mount an immune response that protects them from further infection.

"What we don't know is how s that immune response is and how long it lasts."

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Virology professor: Possibility of covid19 re-infection still unconfirmed - Trinidad News

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Molecular Diagnostics In Infectious Disease Testing Market 2020 Strategic Insights and Impact Analysis | Arcxis Biotechnologies, Cepheid, Myconostica...

This story was written and produced by NJ Spotlight. It is being republished under a special NJ News Commons content-sharing agreement related to COVID-19 coverage. To read more, visitnjspotlight.com.

Clickhere for the original article published on April 30, 2020, written by Lilo H. Stainton.

Like leaders in other states hard-hit by the novel coronavirus, Gov. Phil Murphy has repeatedly stressed that New Jerseys public health and economic revival must be rooted in widespread, rapid-result testing of residents.

The governor called for doubling the Garden States testing capacity approximately 10,000 tests a day but has yet to detail what testing methods will be used and how these programs will be deployed across the Garden State. Since the outbreak began in early March, more than 116,000 residents have been diagnosed with COVID-19, including nearly 6,800 who died.

Having a robust and greatly expanded testing program in place is vital to our being able to begin to reopen responsibly our state, Murphy said last week during a daily press briefing that highlighted one of two COVID-19 tests developed by Rutgers University, one of which officials said could be scaled up in weeks to test 20,000 or even 30,000 people daily.

Without testing, we will not be able to take the necessary steps to contain future cases and prevent them from becoming boomerang outbreaks, he added.

Officials at the state Department of Health note that diagnostic tests which can tell if the virus is currently present in someones body are most useful for guiding public health actions, like deciding to quarantine infected individuals to prevent the spread of COVID-19. These tests can be performed in various ways, involving swabs or saliva, and are now in use at more than 100 public and private screening sites in New Jersey, officials said.

There is also growing interest in antibody tests, generally performed by analyzing blood or plasma to find out if someones body contains an immunoglobulin a protein developed by the immune system that indicates a person has at some point been infected. (Scientists are still studying how these antibodies may protect people against reinfection.) While the accuracy of some versions has been questioned, antibody screenings are now publicly available at some hospitals and labs in New Jersey and Trenton-based Capital Health is testing members of its workforce to give them peace of mind and to better understand the spread of the virus.

We realized the highest-risk group getting infected and dying was health care workers based on what we saw in Italy and New York, said Dr. Robert Remstein, director of accountable care at Capital. We said, we need to do something to protect our workforce beyond getting them personal protective equipment.

Patrick De Deyne, Capitals head of clinical research, said the program was developed weeks ago when testing options were extremely limited and it will eventually involve close to 2,000 staff members, from those on the COVID-19 wards to housekeeping professionals. Everyone is equally important, he said.

Some states have started to deploy public antibody testing, including California and New York, which conducted random screening on 3,000 people at grocery stores and big-box outlets. One in five residents of New York City were likely infected, the state found; rates were lower in other areas. New Jersey is considering similar efforts, officials suggest.

The two types of test provide very different information, but experts believe both will be important as New Jersey and other states move forward. Youve got two options here: the snapshot of a moment in time versus watching a movie, Murphy explained Wednesday, adding that state officials were working morning, noon and night on a testing strategy. I suspect we will firmly come down on we need both. And we need both for different reasons, he said.

In adiagnostic test, samples are taken from a patients respiratory system and analyzed for the presence of SARS-Cov-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Initially, this required a nasopharyngeal or oropharyngeal swab, in which a clinician took a sample from deep within a patients nasal cavity or the back of their throat.

Specimens are sent to a lab, assembled into a batch and run through a machine, a process that can take as little as 24 hours to 48 hours but stretched to beyond a week as the system became overloaded. The results are either positive someone has the virus or negative; the test cannot determine if someone has been infected in the past, but it can detect the virus in someone who is not showing symptoms, experts note.

These were the techniques used at some of the first public testing sites in New Jersey, operated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency in conjunction with state and local officials, and initially limited to individuals who had fever, coughing or other COVID-19 symptoms. To date, roughly 2.7% of state residents have been tested.

But the collection process is invasive and uncomfortable for patients and requires significant staff and personal protective equipment, or PPE, the masks, gowns and other gear health care workers wear to avoid becoming infected. And the delay in processing created problems for public health officials seeking to contain the spread.

Researchers at Rutgers University tackled several of these problems. In March, David Alland, director of the Public Health Institute at New Jersey Medical School, announced that his team had worked with a molecular diagnostics company to create a point-of-contact test that could be processed on site in45 minutes; the development was hailed as a game-changer in the coronavirus response. (Other even faster tests have since been developed elsewhere.)

In mid-April, Rutgers Professor Andrew Brooks, head of RUCDR a Rutgers genetics research group based in Piscataway announced his team had worked with a private lab to create a saliva-based diagnostic test, the first of its kind to receive federal approval. This version has the advantage of being noninvasive, thus requiring far fewer clinicians to collect samples and therefore less PPE; officials havechosen it for usein the states five centers for developmentally disabled adults and at 16 nursing homes in South Jersey. Processing the saliva does take 24 hours to 48 hours in a lab, however.

Another metric is theantibody or serologic test, which indicates exposure to the virus at some point in the past; different types of tests identify different forms of antibodies, which can change during the course of an immune response. But it could be another six months before experts can determine what level of protection these antibodies actually provide against reinfection, experts said.

At this time theres not enough information from these antibody tests to make a determination like a back-to-work determination, said Dr. Christina Tan, New Jerseys state epidemiologist.

While these tests arent useful in diagnosing a patient or making quarantine decisions, they can help researchers better understand the full impact of COVID-19, which can be spread by people who are asymptomatic. It can also be used to clear individuals who want to donate convalescent plasma in which white blood cells from those who had COVID-19 are given to new patients to help build their immunity.

But there are questions about the accuracy of these tests, and federal officials have approved just a handful of the more than 100 versions developed. People also react very differently to infections, with some producing more antibodies than others, further complicating the testing process.

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Explainer: COVID-19 Testing, Testing, One, Two, Three - The Village Green