Progress reported with the single-dose J&J vaccine; COVID-19 re-infections are considered rare

(Reuters) – The following is a summary of some of the latest scientific studies on the new coronavirus and attempts to find treatments and vaccines for COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus.

Vaccine against Johnson & Johnson is progressing through clinical trials

An experimental COVID-19 vaccine from Johnson & Johnson produced protective antibodies against the novel coronavirus in 90% of 805 volunteers at 29 days, and that increased to 100% by Day 57, according to data from an ongoing mid-phase study . Side effects such as fever, muscle aches and pain at the injection site quickly disappeared, researchers reported Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine. To be approved by regulatory agencies, the J&J vaccine must be effective, as shown by a lower risk of infections and serious illness in study participants who get it compared to those who don’t. Efficacy data from a major late phase of the vaccine with the vaccine should be expected in February. Experts expect the vaccine to show efficacy of 80% or more, which would exceed the 50% standard for regulatory approval, but would follow the approximately 95% achieved in trials of Moderna Inc’s already approved vaccines and Pfizer Inc with BioNTech SE. The J&J vaccine requires only a single dose and does not meet the cold storage requirements of the other vaccines. The likelihood of good results “is hopefully very high,” Paul Stoffels, the Chief Scientific Officer of the New Brunswick, NJ-based company, said this week. (bit.ly/2LpBhHm)

COVID-19 provides some immunity and re-infections are considered rare

Survivors of COVID-19 will most likely have some immune protection against the virus for at least five months, and reinfections in recovered patients are rare, with only 44 cases found among 6,614 previously infected people, according to researchers who lead a large ongoing health care study. workers in Great Britain. But when people get COVID-19 a second time, they often have no symptoms, and so they can still carry the coronavirus in their nose and throat and pass it on unknowingly, the researchers wrote in a report published Wednesday by Public Health England (PHE ) prior to peer review. Experts have said that people who contracted COVID-19 during the first wave of the pandemic may now be susceptible to infection again. “We now know that most of those who have had the virus and developed antibodies are protected against reinfection, but this is not complete and we do not yet know how long the protection lasts,” said study leader Susan Hopkins, senior medical adviser at PHE in London. If you think you have already had the disease and are protected, you can bet that it is very unlikely that you will develop serious infections. But there is still a risk of catching an infection and getting (these) transfers others. ” (bit.ly/3ihkuBZ; reut.rs/3ieWorA)

Coronavirus focuses on the energy motors of cells

Researchers have discovered an important line of attack used by the new coronavirus: it targets the mitochondria of an infected cell. These tiny organelles not only generate the energy that drives a cell’s biochemical reactions, but they also play an important role in immune function. “We knew that when the virus attacks cells, bad things happen – but we didn’t know why,” said Dr. Pinchas Cohen of the University of Southern California, whose team published his findings this month in the journal Scientific Reports. “Now we can say that when the virus attacks cells, it damages the mitochondria.” In test-tube experiments, the researchers found that the virus caused “dramatic changes and degradation” in the genes that regulate mitochondrial function, Cohen told Reuters. The implication, Cohen said, is that energy production in the cells and so-called innate immunity – the body’s first line of defense against germs – are then affected. Another implication is that having healthy mitochondria would help people fight off the virus if they become infected. “We know that a healthy diet and lifestyle promote mitochondrial health,” Cohen said, as mitochondrial function declines with age and many chronic conditions, including diabetes and heart disease. In the future, Cohen added, researchers can develop COVID-19 interventions to help improve mitochondrial health. (go.nature.com/3bFlCyc)

‘Nanobody’ combos block the coronavirus even when it mutates

Combining small antibodies called nanobodies into separate molecules to fight the new coronavirus may be more effective than targeting it with conventional antibodies or a few nanobodies, according to a new study. These “multivalent” nanobodies – which contain multiple building blocks of nanobodies – “are significantly better at neutralizing viruses” and preventing them from breaking into cells, study leaders Florian Schmidt and Paul-Albert König of the University of Bonn told Reuters. The fused nanobodies “help each other so that the result is better than just the sum of the two reactions.” The nanobody constructs can target multiple sites on the coronavirus, making it more difficult for the pathogen to develop mutations that make treatment ineffective, according to a report published Tuesday in the journal Science. Although the researchers saw many mutations that allowed the coronavirus to “escape” the effect of a single nanobody, “we found no escape mutants that could replicate in the presence of those nanobodies targeting two different surfaces at the same time.” Said Schmidt and König A spin-off company from the University of Bonn, called DiosCURE, expects to start testing the combined nanobody molecules in humans later this year. (Bit.ly/3nOvXKH)

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