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Coronavirus outbreak

The mRNA vaccine era is just starting, according to Dr Özlem Türeci and Dr Uğur Şahin, the co-founders of Germany’s BioNTech. Image credit - BioNTech SE 2020, all rights reserved
coronavirus outbreak | interview | health | frontier research
08 April 2021

Q&A: BioNTech vaccine is only ‘mRNA 1.0’. This is just the beginning, say co-founders

The successful development of mRNA vaccines for Covid-19 is ‘transformational’ and opens the doors to new types of vaccines for other infectious diseases as well as cancer, according to Dr Özlem Türeci and Dr Uğur Şahin, the co-founders of Germany’s BioNTech.

'We need to make sure that any of the vaccines and medicines we approve to try to change the situation are safe and that people can trust those medicines. It had to be a careful scientific evaluation,' explains Dr Fergus Sweeney, EMA. Image credit - Diana Polekhina / Unsplash
coronavirus outbreak | health
07 April 2021

How a year of coronavirus activity unfolded at the EU's medicines regulator

The speed with which coronavirus vaccines have been developed surprised everyone and could transform public health into the future, says Dr Fergus Sweeney, head of the clinical studies and manufacturing taskforce at the European Medicines Agency (EMA). Here he gives us a glimpse at the work of the regulator over the past year as part of the fight against Covid-19.

The variants that cause most concern around the world are still essentially the same virus and cause the same disease. Image credit - Erik Mclean / Unsplash
coronavirus outbreak
29 March 2021

Covid-19 variants: Five things to know about how coronavirus is evolving

The Sars-CoV-2 virus is changing in ways that are making it more transmissible, increasing the severity of disease it causes and allowing it to infect people who should have immunity. These variants are causing concern among global health experts, particularly as there are signs that some vaccines may be less effective against them. 

An antibody (CoV-X2) was constructed by the ATAC team from two potent monoclonal antibody candidates derived from humans, chosen from a shortlist of over 100 antibodies. Image credit - Louis Reed / Unsplash
coronavirus outbreak | health
25 March 2021

The new antibody that may be able to stay ‘one step ahead’ of coronavirus mutations

A new antibody that can mount a double attack on the Sars-CoV-2 virus by binding to two different sites on the spike protein is starting human trials, leading to hopes of an antibody therapy that can maintain its effectiveness even against new variants of coronavirus.

The team at the Rega Institute at KU Leuven have already identified some molecules that could form the basis for drug treatments for Covid-19. Photo credit - KU Leuven / Layla Aerts
coronavirus outbreak
04 March 2021

‘Needle in a haystack’: The hunt for coronavirus drug compounds in a Belgian biosafety lab

Professor Johan Neyts, a virologist at the Rega Institute for Medical Research at KU Leuven in Belgium, leads a team searching for drugs that can help us in the fight against Covid-19. His laboratory is part of two projects that are screening millions of compounds to find some that block the coronavirus from replicating and so keep patients from falling sick. He told Horizon about why this search is so important and how it might keep us safe from future pandemics.

Identifying which treatment is effective in severely ill patients can be difficult as they undergo multiple interventions. Image credit - Olga Kononenko/Unsplash
coronavirus outbreak
18 February 2021

How a trial that mirrors intensive care practices is pinpointing life-saving coronavirus treatments

Two anti-inflammatory drugs – tocilizumab and sarilumab – as well as steroids, have been identified as potential life-saving coronavirus treatments thanks to a trial set up in the wake of the 2009 swine flu pandemic that mirrors the way that people receive multiple treatments while in intensive care.

In the late 19th century a flu-like illness that caused loss of taste and smell likely came from the 'common cold' coronavirus in circulation today, according to Prof. Marc Van Ranst, an expert on coronaviruses. Image credit - Rob Stevens/KU Leuven
interview | coronavirus outbreak | health
27 January 2021

Q&A: Why history suggests Covid-19 is here to stay

A mysterious flu-like illness that caused loss of taste and smell in the late 19th century was probably caused by a coronavirus that still causes the ‘common cold’ in people today, according to Professor Marc Van Ranst at KU Leuven in Belgium, an expert on coronaviruses.

Data on the impact of delaying the second dose of mRNA vaccines is still missing, says Mariola Fotin-Mleczek, chief technology officer of CureVac, which is in the late stages of developing a vaccine using this technology. Image credit - U.S. Secretary of Defense/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>
coronavirus outbreak | health
22 January 2021

Five things you need to know about: Delaying the gap between Covid-19 vaccine doses

As the first coronavirus vaccines started to be rolled out at the end of a tumultuous 2020, UK officials unexpectedly endorsed stretching the gap between the first and second vaccine dose by up to three months – an approach also considered by other countries.

With a 2020 that focused on coronavirus, we asked some of our interviewees from the year what they expect to see happen in their scientific field in 2021. Image credit - Gabriella Clare Marino/Unsplash
health | coronavirus outbreak | environment
04 January 2021

2021: Beyond coronavirus - what’s in store for science in the year ahead?

There was one science story that dominated 2020 and coronavirus is likely to remain a dominant theme in 2021. But from vaccine rollout to lessons for future pandemics and – that other big challenge that we’re facing – climate change, how will the year in science play out? We asked a selection of our interviewees about lessons from 2020 and what needs to happen in their fields in the coming year.

coronavirus outbreak | health
18 December 2020

PCR, antigen and antibody: Five things to know about coronavirus tests

To diagnose and contain the spread of coronavirus, testing is critical. There are two types of Covid-19 tests — those that are designed to detect whether you have the infection now, or those crafted to check whether you have been previously infected by the virus — SARS-CoV-2 — that causes the disease. Like any other product these tests have varying degrees of accuracy and reliability, and can be used to achieve different aims.

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