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This week we highlight IUIS webinar by Elizabeth Mann and Madhvi Menon, who discussed findings from their recent longitudinal immune profiling study with admitted COVID-19 patients across four hospitals in…

A recent preprint article in Medrxiv explored whether inflammation in COVID-19 is a direct response to presence of the virus in organs or an independent immuno-pathologic process. Post-mortem tissue samples…

The D614G mutation in the spike protein of SARS-Co-V2 was described recently and has now become the dominant viral strain in global circulation and has also been shown to result…

Corticosteroid treatment for severe COVID-19 could be regarded as a “heavy approach” to relieving the devastating effects of acute respiratory distress syndrome, and would potentially inhibit the signalling pathways leading…

There are a number of studies emerging that show people infected with SARS-CoV-2 make robust T cell responses that target the spike protein, membrane antigens and nucleocapsid, with immunodominant responses…

A recent correspondence in NEJM shows that antibodies to SAR-CoV-2 wane rapidly in mild disease, raising the question around the durability of potential protective immunity. Blood samples were analysed longitudinally…

A recent article in Science used high dimensional cytometry to investigate the network of immune cell interactions and how they are connected in patients with COVID-19. Peripheral immune cells were…

In a pre-peer reviewed publication in MedRxiv, investigators found in critically ill COVID-19 patients that heightened extrafollicular B cells responses which lead to rapid activation of B cells resulting in…

One of the hallmarks of COVID-19 immunopathology is cytokine release syndrome (CRS) and T cell dysfunction. These immune functions are partly triggered by SARS-CoV-2 activation of the mTOR pathway. Omarjee…

Professor Adrian Hayday shares an overview of a completed deep immunophenotyping of 100 COVID-19 patients and controls (figure below), in the 13th IUIS webinar. Highlights of the webinar include the…

In addition to pulmonary pathology, gastrointestinal tract (GIT) symptoms have also been observed in COVID-19 patients and are more associated with severe compared to mild pathology. How does SARS-CoV-2 infection…

Recent Pre-print by Jouan and colleagues analysed the biology of innate T cells: mucosal associated invariant T (MAIT) cells, γδ T and invariant natural killer (iNK) T cells in critically…

Dysregulated immune responses along with metabolic dysfunction can lead to multiple organ failure, which seems to be a hallmark of COVID-19 severity. In a recent pre-peer reviewed paper, authors used…

Since the first case of COVID-19 on 5 March 2020 in South Africa, the epidemic grew exponentially with a doubling time of 2 days for the first 3 weeks until…

The SARS-CoV-2 uses the human angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptor to enter a variety of cell types, notably in the upper and lower respiratory tract, although many cell types express…

Authors in a pre-peer reviewed publication analyzed the Spike gene sequences of SARS-CoV-2 submitted to the Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data (GISAID) database (https://nextstrain.org/ncov). They used a lentiviral…

In a recent IUIS Webinar, Eric Vivier presented data on longitudinal analysis of immune responses in the blood and bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) of patients at various stages of COVID-19…

Dexamethasone is a corticosteroid that was put into clinical trial to identify whether it could modulate immune-mediated lung injury and reduce progression to respiratory failure and death in COVID-19 patients.…

A recent publication in Nature Medicine investigated the acute antibody response to SARS-CoV-2 infection. Virus-specific IgG and IgM were measured in serum samples from asymptomatic and symptomatic individuals. In the…

Authors in a pre-peer reviewed article established a quantitative RT-PCR assay for SARS-CoV-2 in breastmilk with a limit of detection of 250 copies per mL. They applied this to a…

A recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine made a genome wide association analysis of 1980 patients with varying severities of COVID-19 to identify genetic factors associated with…

With an impending second wave of SARS-CoV-2 infections predicted, one important question is whether a person infected once can develop enough durable protective immunity to prevent re-infection when exposed again.…

A recent study in Cell focused on defining the host response to SARS-CoV-2 and other human respiratory viruses in cell lines, primary cell cultures, ferrets, and COVID-19 patients. The authors…

IUIS webinar by Sharon Lewin and Katherine Kedzierska show how immunity to SARS-CoV2 has demonstrated the breadth of concomitant immune responses associated with recovery in patients with mild to moderate…

Investigators in the Bergamo province of northern Italy found a 30-fold increased incidence of Kawasaki disease and they report in The Lancet that children diagnosed after the SARS-CoV-2 had a…

A research letter published in JAMA network showed that BCG vaccination in childhood had no protective effect against SARS-CoV-2 infection in adulthood. The authors report on a cohort of Israeli…

A recently published article in Cell showed the presence of SARS-CoV-2−reactive CD4+ T cells in up to 60% of unexposed individuals – suggesting the presence of cross-reactive T cells. The…

A recent pre-peer reviewed article in medRxiv reports on the dynamics of neutralizing antibody responses to the receptor-binding domain (RBD) of the spike protein. Investigators examined 44 COVID-19 patients and…

A recent tour de force of our current knowledge of immunity elicited by SARS-CoV-2 and progression to COVID-19 severe disease is given in a recent Immunity article. The authors review…

Chloroquine and it’s analogue hydrochloroquine were proposed as candidate therapeutics against COVID-19, and were one of the drug regiments tested in the World Health Organisation (WHO) Solidarity Trial. However, on…

A cohort study published in JAMA Network Open found that SARS-CoV-2 can be present in the semen of patients with COVID-19 and may still be detected in the semen of…

Recent pre-peer manuscript, a study examined 10 terminally-ill, critical COVID-19 patients treated with to identify which cytokines and potential therapies could be applied to prevent this cytokine release syndrome (CRS).…

21th MayDid you watch the IUIS Webinar on Adaptive Immunity: Memory, Protection and Immunopathology in COVID-19 by Professor Andreas Radbruch (Director of the  German Rheumatism  Research  Centre Berlin). Prof Radbruch presented…

In a pre-peer reviewed bioRxiv manuscript, authors show that the adenovirus-vectored vaccine ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, encoding the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2, is immunogenic in mice, showing a robust humoral and cell-mediated…

It has been well described how SARS-CoV-2 infects lung tissue and causes severe acute respiratory syndrome, but now there is evidence to emerge that the intestine may also be involved…

Munster, et al. showed that SARS-CoV-2 causes respiratory disease in infected rhesus macaques, with disease lasting 8-16 days. Pulmonary infiltrates, a hallmark of human disease, were visible in lung radiographs…

In a recent article by Song et al., titled “Expression of ACE2, the SARS-CoV-2 receptor, and TMPRSS2 in prostate epithelial cells” analysed publicly available single-cell RNA sequencing dataset and identified…

Which proteins do IgM and IgG Abs recognise on the SARS-CoV-2 virus? Can these Abs provide protection or facilitate inflammation and disease progression? The simple answer is that we don’t…

Effective host immune responses are required for optimum viral control. Immune reactions to a viral threat, on the contrary, could also be harmful to the host if the response is…

In a recent pre-peer reviewed bioRxiv manuscript, Bette Korber and colleagues have used a newly developed analysis pipeline to track mutations in the Spike protein; being the target of drug…

IUIS Webinar on Interferons as 1st responders by Professor Eleanor Fish (University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada)."Can antivirals that target the host and not the virus improve outcomes for COVID-19 patients?"Highlights…

Study by Kiesha Prem and colleagues (1) indicate the effects of extending or relaxing physical distancing control measures on the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak in Wuhan, China. They use…

Investigators in a brief communication in Nature Medicine utilised the Covid19 cell atlas database to identify gene expression of the SARS-CoV-2 entry receptor ACE2 and other genes potentially associated with…

A recent commentary in Nature Reviews Immunology cites the role of complement in acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and that possibly targeting the inhibition of the complement cascade may be…

Did you watch the IUIS Webinar on The Global Scientific Response to COVID-19 by Giuseppe Ippolito (Scientific Director at the National Institute for Infectious Diseases in Rome, Italy)."Giuseppe Ippolito shares…

Scientists in Japan found that the combination of FDA-approved drugs, Nelfinavir (a protease inhibitor) and Cepharanthine (an anti-inflammatory) showed a synergistic inhibition of SARS-CoV-2 replication in vitro. Additional studies have…

On 28 February 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) upgraded the global risk of the spread of COVID-19 to very high.Dr Leung and colleagues Dr Lam and Dr Cheng discuss…

Webinar by Prof. Danny Altmann from Imperial College London reviews new and exciting studies on COVID-19 antibody immunology and emerging data from all around the world. We have written articles…

There is a great deal of uncertainty prevailing across the globe over the current COVID-19 pandemic, and clinicians and scientists are working hard to find a cure to treat this…

Zhang et al, investigated the infection of SARS-CoV-2 in cats by detecting specific serum Abs. A cohort of serum samples were collected from cats in Wuhan, including 102 sampled after…

Although SARS-CoV-2 shares 96.2% identity with the coronavirus RaTG13, which was detected in horseshoe bats in Yunnan province (1), it has not previously been detected in humans or other animals.…

In a short span of time, COVID-19 has become a rapidly spreading communicable disease forcing the WHO to declare it as the “Public Health Emergency of International Concern” on January…

Due to the heterogeneity of disease symptoms in those infected with the COVID-19-causing virus, SARS-CoV-2, Liu and colleagues (Liu et al., 2020) set out to elucidate whether there were differences…

According to Casadevall A and Pirofski using convalescent sera as passive antibody (Ab) therapy may be an option for the prevention and treatment of COVID-19 that could be available as…

Natural Killer (NK) cells and CD8+ Cytotoxic T Lymphocytes (CTLs) play key roles in the control of viral infections. Zheng et al have studied the function of these lymphocytes in…

The recent emergence of SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19, has again heightened the need for laboratories to review their biosafety practices and to update them with the new recommendations.

An alternative method for diagnosing SARS-CoV-2 infection would be using serological tests that detect SARS-CoV-2-specific antibody (Ab) responses. However, no SARS-CoV-2 serological assays are available at point of care..

In previous zoonotic coronavirus events (SARS & MERS), near-identical strains of the virus were found in animal intermediate hosts; however, a near-identical strain of SARS-CoV-2 has yet to be found…

Wu et al investigated the presence of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in respiratory and faecal samples among patients with confirmed COVID-19 (n=74). Of these, 33 had no SARS-CoV-2 RNA in their faecal…

Opinion While rigorous peer review ensures studies are held to high standards, it is not a short process, with some papers taking months or even years to get published. However,…

Bin et al isolated and characterized 206 potential therapeutic and prophylactic monoclonal Abs from 8 COVID-19 patients. The isolated Abs were found to prevent RBD-ACE-2 interaction and to have high…

Cao et al., describe a promising clinical outcome of three patients presenting with severe COVID-19 and treated with high-dose intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIg). According to the authors "All patients were clinically…

In an attempt to avoid repeating the mistakes of the 2014–16 West African Ebola epidemic, where clinical trials were set up late, leading to the under-recruiting of patients – in…

In an unprecedented effort to obtain scientific data during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, the World Health Organization (WHO) has announced the new SOLIDARITY trial that would include thousands of patients from…

Biological factors that determine susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 and severity of COVID-19 are yet to be fully understood. A pre-print released in medRxiv by Zhao et al suggests that the ABO…

Retrospective analysis of COVID-19 patient history showed that 12-22% and 23-30% of severe COVID-19 patients also had diabetes and hypertension, respectively. This and other reports suggest that hypertension and diabetes…

Lin et al., 2020 have described a hypothetical model of SARS-CoV-2 pathogenesis based on the immune response against SARS, MERS and influenza infection. In all cases, lymphopenia accompanied by the…