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 »
News
Dr. Sabra Klein Contributes to Scientific American Piece on COVID-19 Severity
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 »
Dr. Aneesh Mehta Named Chief of Infectious Diseases at Emory University Hospital
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 »
CEIRS Supports Reagent Development for COVID-19 Seroprevalence Study in Spain
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 Publishes Pre-print Showing Proof-of-concept NDV-based Vaccine for COVID-19
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 »
JHCEIRS Investigators Discuss COVID-19 on Bloomberg TV
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 »
Dr. Aubree Gordon Discusses Upcoming Influenza Season and COVID-19
Dr. Aubree Gordon, an investigator with St. Jude CEIRS (SJCEIRS), was interviewed by WebMD Health News as part of an article their recent article on how the upcoming influenza season could impact COVID-19 in the United States. The article describes how, if proper COVID-19 precautions such as social distancing and wearing masks are followed, the… Read more »
JHCEIRS Investigators Receive Federal Funding for COVID-19 Plasma Trials
Drs. Andrew Pekosz and Sabra Klein of JHCEIRS are part of a collaboration at Johns Hopkins University that will evaluate the effectiveness of convalescent blood plasma therapy for COVID-19. The research team received $35 million in funding from the U.S. Department of Defense to support randomized clinical trials at twenty medical sites across the country…. Read more »
Study Shows SARS-CoV-2 Can Transmit Through the Air Between Ferrets
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, it becomes more important to determine the modes of transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Understanding whether SARS-CoV-2 can spread through the air will enable public health experts to identify the appropriate control measures to reduce the spread of the outbreak. In a study published in Nature Communications, CEIRS investigators showed that SARS-CoV-2 is transmitted between ferrets through direct contact and via respiratory droplets and aerosols between ferrets.
Dr. Troy Sutton Authors Piece on COVID-19 Research in a BSL-3 Laboratory
Dr. Troy Sutton, an Assistant Professor of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences at Penn State University and an investigator with JHCEIRS, authored an article published on The Conversation about working with SARS-CoV-2 in a biosafety level 3 containment laboratory. In the piece, Dr. Sutton describes the safety measures used to protect researchers working with dangerous pathogens… Read more »