A new study, released on the bioRxiv* preprint server, shows that rapamycin, an immunosuppressive drug used in some cancers, and its analogs, may have an undesirable effect on viral entry into the host cells. This finding could inform their use to treat symptomatic coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). There is a serious lack of effective antivirals […]
Overwhelming evidence SARS-CoV-2 is airborne
Researchers in the United States, UK, and Canada have published a commentary challenging the suggestion that the transmission of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) may not be airborne. The novel SARS-CoV-2 virus is the agent responsible for the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic that continues to pose a significant threat to global public […]
Can universal vaccines and treatments against future SARS-CoV-2 variants be developed?
Evolutionary ecology theory offers avenues to anticipate the future behavior of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pathogen. The repeated emergence of more infectious and possibly more virulent variants of SARS-CoV-2 shows that the virus is adapting under selective pressure. Although there has been a lot of discussion on how biodiversity-related events facilitate […]
Study shows how D614G variant gains upper hand over original SARS-CoV-2 virus
Prior to the emergence of new mutants of the coronavirus, such as the British variant B.1.1.7, the SARS-CoV-2 variant named D614G had already mutated from the original SARS-CoV-2 pathogen that triggered the pandemic. D614G has rapidly spread to become the most abundant variant worldwide and this D614G mutation remains in all the new emerging variants. […]