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In this week's IUIS-Frontiers webinar series, Hans-Martin Jäck gave a talk on Prevention and Therapy of COVID-19 with Monoclonal Antibodies. Highlights of his talk include, on-going collaborative research on SARS-CoV-2 (humanised) murine models that produce human antibodies. He presented data the describes the development of spike protein-specific monoclonal Abs that have neutralisation capacity, as well as challenges with vaccines

Chen and colleagues reviewed findings on how aging alters immunity to respiratory viral infections with the aim of suggesting potential mechanisms of age-enhanced COVID-19 mortality. They present evidence that indicated that influenza infection is associated with increased monocyte infiltration in the lung, which leads to increased levels of IL-6 and IL-β, as well as reduced T cell and B cell responses. Reduced adaptive immune responses in older individuals (> 65 years) have been...

Dr Iva Kolarova from Charles University (Czech Republic), gave insights on the “Role of sand flies in Leishmania transmission and immune interactions”. In her talk she highlighted leishmaniasis epidemiology, causative agents, distribution, prevalence and populations at risk (350 million  people in 98 countries). She also mentioned that the risk factors of this disease include but are not limited to poverty, migration, climate changes and immunodeficiency. She also highlighted how the disease is transmitted...

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 ill COVID-19 patients with varying co-morbidities (46.7% with Hypertension; 30% with Type 2 diabetes; 10% with cardiovascular disease). Researchers observed that innate T cells from COVID-19 patients were highly pro-inflammatory characterised by high expression of IL-17 but not IFN-g, compared to healthy controls.

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 a transcriptomic, proteomic and metabolomic approach in peripheral blood to distinguish the range COVID-19 severity in 66 individuals with confirmed symptoms. There was “continuous activation of IFN-I signalling and neutrophils ...

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 effects of state-initiated interventions impacted reducing the doubling time to 15 days. The National response, which comprises 8 stages aims to flatten the curve. Stage 6 of the response on clinical care has provided new insights on the immune response, the role of the cytokine storm & the impact of dexamethasone...

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 ACE2. The affinity for viral binding may be linked to the level of ACE2 receptor expression in various tissues. In a recent Pre-print, authors analysed the association between polymorphisms in the ACE2 locus and COVID-19 severity.

Prof. Mohamed Ridha Barbouche from the Institut Pasteur de Tunis, gave insights on “Genetics of the immune response to Fungal Infections”. In his talk he highlighted the global fungal infection  burden (over 14.9 million cases per year with over 1.7 million deaths worldwide).These fungal infections are polyclinical, with well-known forms including: Invasive, Mucosal, Allergic, Chronic lung or deep tissue infection.

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 pseudotype neutralizing antibody assay to evaluate the neutralizing sensitivity of the S-D614 and S-G614 mutation to convalescent sera from COVID-19 patients.

As the world continues to make significant progress around SARS-CoV-2 vaccination research and effective therapies for severe COVID-19, significantly less attention has been given to the acute neuropsychiatric sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection borne out of recent reports and its potential to become a significant global disease burden post-COVID-19. Acute and sub-acute neuropsychiatric manifestations that have...