Professor Mohamed Ali is a virologist and the director of the Centre of Excellence for Influenza Viruses at the National Research Centre in Egypt, as well as a SJCEIRS collaborator. He was recently recognized with the prestigious State Merit Award from the Academy of Scientific Research and Technology in Cairo for his extensive research on… Read more »
Previous coronavirus epidemics have included superspreader events as important mechanisms of disease transmission. This study, using data from contact tracing in Hong Kong early in the pandemic, demonstrates how different events and interactions facilitate or prevent SARS-CoV-2 spread.
CEIRS scientists compare lymphoid tissue and blood cell samples to determine origins of vaccine response. This research hopes to improve influenza vaccine efficacy by creating broad-spectrum protection against various virus strains.
A consistent theme throughout the COVID-19 pandemic is assessing risk to healthcare workers. In a study published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases, CEIRS investigators determined that Dutch healthcare workers who were infected in the early stages of the outbreak were likely infected through community spread and not in a hospital setting. Understanding risk of disease spread in hospitals, or nosocomoal transmission, is critical in mitigating future hazards to the population.
Dr. Gavin Smith, of St. Jude CEIRS, discussed his recent COVID-19 research at Duke-NUS in Singapore. His group identified a variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes milder infections compared to the original virus. They found that patients infected with this variant had lower frequency of ICU admittance. Dr. Smith’s group also found that immune… Read more »
Dr. Sabra Klein, a member of Johns Hopkins CEIRS, was recently interviewed for a piece published in Scientific American, exploring how and why COVID-19 is more likely to cause severe disease in some people compared to others. The article discusses the biological and social reasons why older people, men, people with chronic conditions, and people… Read more »
Earlier this year, Dr. Aneesh Mehta, a Clinical Project Leader at Emory-UGA CEIRS, was named Chief of Infectious Diseases at Emory University Hospital and Emory University Orthopedics and Spine Hospital. Dr. Mehta is an Associate Professor of Medicine at the Emory University School of Medicine and contributes to many infectious disease centers and programs. As… Read more »
The CEIRS Network’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic includes generation of resources, reagents, and information for both other members of CEIRS as well as the broader scientific community. Recently, reagents developed by Dr. Florian Krammer at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, part of the Center for Research on Influenza Pathogenesis (CRIP), were… Read more »
Dr. Peter Palese, Professor at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and member of the Center for Research on Influenza Pathogenesis (CRIP), recently published a pre-print article describing a possible approach to developing a vaccine against SARS-CoV-2. The authors describe a proof-of-concept study where they inserted the immunogenic spike protein from SARS-CoV-2 into… Read more »
Investigators from John Hopkins CEIRS, Lauren Sauer and Dr. Andrew Pekosz both recently appeared on the Bloomberg TV show Bloomberg Surveillance to talk about different aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Lauren Sauer, Assistant Professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Johns Hopkins, appeared on Bloomberg Surveillance on August 12, discussing the current status of… Read more »
This project is funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health