News by Subject Biology

DOAC (direct oral anticoagulant) pills are used in the treatment of atrial fibrillation by preventing blood clots. Even though blood clots are thought to contribute to complications from the new coronavirus infection, users of this class of drug do not seem to be protected against severe COVID-19, reports a large Swedish registry study from Karolinska Institutet published in The Journal of Internal Medicine.

A team co-led by a scientist at the University of California, Riverside, has developed a method to study how HIV mutates to escape the immune system in multiple individuals, which could inform HIV vaccine design.

A research team co-led by a scientist at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology has developed a method to study how HIV mutates to escape the immune system in multiple patients, which could inform HIV vaccine design.

Survivors from a wide range of cancers are more likely than people in the general population to be hospitalised or die from seasonal influenza even several years after their cancer diagnosis, according to new data published in EClinicalMedicine. Given that flu and COVID-19 are both epidemic respiratory viruses with broadly similar risk factors, the findings suggest that cancer survivors are also likely to be at raised risk of severe COVID-19 outcomes.

Scientists have conducted a 'molecular dissection' of a part of the virus that causes foot-and-mouth disease, to try and understand why the pathogen is so infectious. A team of scientists from the University of Leeds, UK, and University of Ilorin, in Nigeria, has investigated the significance of the unusual way the virus's genome - or genetic blueprint - codes for the manufacture of a protein called 3B. The protein is involved in the replication of the virus.

Scientists at Keele University and King's College London have found that 64% of people would be likely to have a COVID-19 vaccination when one became available.