Category: COVID-19 Immunology
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Characterization of a Sharp Disease-State Shift between Mild and Moderate COVID-19
Analyses of immune dysfunction in severe COVID-19 patients have revealed dysregulated immune responses including abnormal myeloid cell subsets (Schulte-Schrepping et al., 2020; Silvin et al., 2020), HLA class II downregulation on monocytes (Wilk et al., 2020), lymphopenia (Cao, 2020), and elevated levels of inflammatory cytokines (Del Valle et al., 2020). However, presentation of COVID-19 is…
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The Implication of Immunological Memory in SARS-CoV-2 Resistance
In the past month or so, we have seen time and time again studies and news stations reporting that immunity to SARS-CoV-2 begins to wane within a few weeks of infection and is largely absent by 3 months post-infection. As scary as this sounds, it does not necessarily mean that there is no hope for…
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Zoonotic transmissible SARS-CoV-2 mutant identified in Danish mink
On Wednesday November 4th, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen announced that a zoonotically transmissible mutant strain of SARS-CoV-2 had been discovered on mink farms in northern Denmark[1]. The Danish State Serum Institute had reported their findings to the World Health Organization and the European Center for Disease Control a week earlier, although the data have…
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Secondary Lymphoid Organ Alterations Underlying SARS-CoV-2 Humoral Response
Longitudinal studies of antibody-mediated immunity have revealed that humoral immunity is often short-lived and appears to lack durability (Brouwer et a.l. 2020; Long et al. 2020). Thus far, much of the understanding of the immune response to COVID-19 has largely focused on peripheral blood samples from COVID-patients with diverse disease severity. Kanoko et.al investigated the…
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SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine Development: Immunological Considerations and Perspectives
As we move ever closer to that ultimate triumph of science over nature – a successful vaccine for COVID-19 – it is increasingly important that we, and especially those in the business of vaccine development, harbor an understanding of how the biology of SARS-CoV-2 interacts with our own, and how we may leverage that interaction…
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The Underlying Immunological Mechanisms of Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children
Several inflammatory conditions and sequelae have been associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection and COVID-19, from cytokine release syndrome (Jose, Manuel 2020), to Kawasaki disease (Jones et al. 2020), and immune thrombocytopenic purpura (see updates for 6/8/2020). Though distinct in etiology and presentation, these complications have in many cases warranted hospitalization and treatment apart from treatment for…
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Neutralizing Autoantibodies Predict COVID-19 Disease Course and Severity
OCTOBER 8, 2020 BY PARKER DAVIS Though the disease course of COVID-19 follows a relatively predetermined and predictable progression, any number of comorbidities that a patient possesses may serve to derail or modify the patient’s clinical trajectory. From hypertension, to diabetes, to various cardiac and cerebrovascular diseases, these underlying pathologies are some of the prime factors that…
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Herd Immunity in the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic
This week, I wanted to focus on the idea of herd immunity: what it is, how efforts have panned out in the current pandemic, and what the scientific community proposes as we move forward. Like other aspects of the pandemic, the idea of herd immunity is one that has become politically charged, with proponents and…
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Identification of a COVID-19 Immune Signature, and Correlations with Disease Course and Severity
Thus far in the pandemic, we’ve seen an array of clinical presentations of COVID-19, including reports of SARS-CoV-2-specific T cell responses, severe lymphopenia, cytokine storm, not to mention the swath of completely asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic individuals (Huang et al., 2020; Ju et al., 2020; Kuri-Cervantes et al., 2020; Laing et al., 2020, Yang, Gui,…