2020 will be forever remembered for COVID-19. As the year draws to a close, Dr Estée Török looks back at how colleagues across the NHS and the research community worked tirelessly to fight back.
Dolutegravir, the current first-line treatment for HIV, may not be as effective as hoped in sub-Saharan Africa, suggests new research published on World AIDS Day. The study finds that this so-called ‘wonder drug’ may be less effective in patients resistant to older drugs.
The COVID-19 Genomics UK (COG-UK) Consortium has been backed by the Department for Health and Social Care Testing Innovation Fund to expand whole genome sequencing of positive SARS-CoV-2 virus samples to map how COVID-19 spreads and evolves. The £12.2M funding will facilitate the genome sequencing capacity needed to meet the increasing numbers of COVID-19 cases expected in the UK this winter.
Scientists at the University of Cambridge, in collaboration with Justus-Liebig University, Germany, have uncovered how the genome of SARS-CoV-2 - the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 - uses genome origami to infect and replicate successfully inside host cells. This could inform the development of effective drugs that target specific parts of the virus genome, in the fight against COVID-19.
The brain is uniquely protected against invading bacteria and viruses, but its defence mechanism has long remained a mystery. Now, a study in mice, confirmed in human samples, has shown that the brain has a surprising ally in its protection: the gut.
Simply comparing the total number of deaths across countries may provide a misleading representation of the underlying level of transmission of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, because of large differences in reported COVID-19 death rates in elderly populations in different countries.
Scientists have used genome sequencing to reveal the extent to which a drug-resistant gastrointestinal bacterium can spread within a hospital, highlighting the challenge hospitals face in controlling infections.
‘Mini-lungs’ grown from tissue donated to Cambridge hospitals have provided a team of scientists from South Korea and the UK with important insights into how COVID-19 damages the lungs. Writing in the journal Cell Stem Cell, the researchers detail the mechanisms underlying SARS-CoV-2 infection and the early innate immune response in the lungs.
Her plans to study the effects of social isolation on adolescents have become particularly pertinent this year. Sarah-Jayne Blakemore is a cognitive neuroscientist who has spoken out about the importance of supporting and empowering young people, not suppressing and blaming them, during the pandemic.
In late 2019, a new institute opened on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus. Its timing could not have been better - as the COVID-19 pandemic sent Britain into lockdown several months later, the institute found itself at the heart of the University’s response to this unprecedented challenge.
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