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interview | coronavirus outbreak | health
26 June 2020

Q&A: ‘We are only at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic’ – Prof. Peter Piot

We’re only at the start of the coronavirus pandemic although the second wave may take a different form to the first one, says veteran virologist Professor Peter Piot, who has spent the past 40 years tracking down and fighting viruses.

E.coli can cause disease but it also lives in our gut and has a range of toxins that helps keep the populations of the various bacteria in balance. Image credit - NIAID/Wikimedia commons, licenced under CC BY 2.0
health | frontier research
23 June 2020

Bacteria are always at war. Understanding their use of weapons may lead to antibiotic alternatives

A small glimmer of light passes from one bacterium to another. Under the microscope it might not look like much, but there’s a deadly battle underway: the second cell has just been hit by a poisoned spear.

The way anxiety affects our perception of changes to our body, such as breathing, could pave the way for more targeted anxiety treatments. Image credit - www.pxfuel.com/Public domain
health
22 June 2020

What anxiety does to our breathing

Stressful situations can cause anxiety, our body’s natural response to stress. But feelings of apprehension can also be accompanied by physical effects such as rapid breathing, increased heart rate and nausea. How our brain perceives these physical changes – in particular, breathing – could be key to better understanding anxiety disorders and treating them.

People are very bad at assessing their own sense of smell and often don't realise how important it is until it's gone, say scientists. Image credit - Pixabay/Engin Akyurt, licenced under Pixabay licence
coronavirus outbreak | health | frontier research
18 June 2020

Why does coronavirus make people lose their sense of smell?

To begin with, it was just anecdotal reports. Ear, nose and throat specialists from around the world were sharing their experiences on online message boards – they were all seeing a spike in patients experiencing anosmia, a loss of smell.

The immune system is changing all the time and Dr Aleksandra Walczak wants to distinguish between genuine responses and random fluctuations. Image credit - B. Eymann - Académie des sciences
interview | coronavirus outbreak | health | frontier research
16 June 2020

Q&A: How physics could explain why people respond differently to coronavirus infection

Some people’s immune systems contain pre-existing protection against coronavirus, indicating that they have encountered a similar infection to Covid-19 before, according to Dr Aleksandra Walczak, a physicist at École Normale Supérieure in Paris, France.

Researchers are using virtual reality to test participants’ reactions to threats such as dogs or falling rocks to understand more about the brain mechanisms linked to anxiety. Image credit - needpix.com, public domain
health | frontier research
15 June 2020

By recreating phobias and panic attacks, neuroscientists aim to improve anxiety therapies

Tracking the brain’s reaction to virtual-reality-simulated threats such as falling rocks and an under-researched fear reduction strategy may provide better ways of treating anxiety disorders and preventing relapses.

Prof. Baldwin says there are still many gaps in our knowledge of how to treat anxiety disorders, especially when therapy and anti-depressants do not work. Image credit - David Baldwin
interview | health
09 June 2020

Q&A: When and how does anxiety become a problem?

Short-term anxiety is a normal response to stress, but more needs to be done to understand and treat longer-term anxiety disorders, which affect the lives of millions of people across Europe and impose a significant economic burden on society, according to Professor David Baldwin, head of the mental health group at the University of Southampton, UK.

Covid-19 has shown us that countries that we thought were well prepared for something like coronavirus, were not, says Prof. McInnes. Image credit - Aberystwyth University
interview | coronavirus outbreak | health | frontier research
04 June 2020

Q&A: Coronavirus has shown the need for a global health system – but revealed its weaknesses too

We are seeing a failure of global health governance in response to Covid-19 because there are too many agencies with different interests, according Professor Colin McInnes, pro-vice chancellor at Aberystwyth University in Wales, UK, who says global institutions such as the World Health Organization and World Bank should stand together in crises.

Stockholm-based researchers with the CoroNAb project are investigating the coronavirus antibodies produced by alpacas including Tyson, the small one pictured here, for potential use in human therapies. Image credit - Preclinics, Potsdam
coronavirus outbreak | health
26 May 2020

Alpacas and antibodies: How scientists hope to stop coronavirus in its tracks

Efforts to design a safe vaccine for Covid-19 are moving forward at full throttle, yet experts agree that it’s likely to be a year, at least, before an immunisation is ready. Meanwhile, scientists around Europe are exploring ingenious ways – including with the help of alpacas – to use the latest techniques in molecular manipulation to repair coronavirus-induced lung damage or to block the virus before it wreaks havoc.

If researchers could find the most effective antibody against coronavirus, it could act as both a cure and temporary vaccine. Image credit - NIH Image Gallery, Public Domain Mark 1.0
coronavirus outbreak | health | frontier research
14 May 2020

‘The aim is to find the monoclonal’: the hunt for the antibody to treat Covid-19

Transfusing antibodies from Covid-19 survivors into seriously ill patients could provide a quick treatment win, but a more selective approach may both treat and prevent the disease. A single, highly-effective antibody that is mass-produced like a drug could combine the benefits of antivirals and a vaccine for at-risk individuals such as health workers.

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