A computational model of a human lung cell has been used to understand how SARS-CoV-2 draws on human host cell metabolism to reproduce by researchers at the University of Warwick. This study helps understand how the virus uses the host to survive, and enable drug predictions for treating the virus to be made.

The lives of patients hospitalised with COVID-19 are being saved by doctors who are using an existing medical treatment at an earlier stage.

Dr Luigi Sedda of Lancaster University analysed the results from the team at Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust (WWL). Their research has now been published in the prestigious medical journal BMJ Respiratory Open.

A new therapy for influenza virus infections that may also prove effective against many other pathogenic virus infections, including HIV and COVID-19, has been developed by Purdue University scientists.

In an average year, more than 2 million people in the United States are hospitalized with the flu, and 30,000 to 80,000 of them die from the flu or related complications.

The surface of the SARS-CoV-2 virus is studded with spike proteins. The virus needs these in order to dock onto proteins (ACE2 receptors) on the surface of the host cell. Before this docking is possible, parts of the spike protein have to be cleaved by the host cell's enzymes - proteases.

Results from an early-phase randomised clinical trial of a Chinese vaccine candidate based on the inactivated whole SARS-CoV-2 virus (CoronaVac) are published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases journal, finding the formulation appears safe and induces an antibody response in healthy volunteers aged 18 to 59 years.

The UK's vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 shows similar safety and immunogenicity results in healthy older adults (aged 56 years and over) to those seen in adults aged 18-55 years. The promising early stage results are published in The Lancet.

The phase 2 trial finds that the vaccine causes few side effects, and induces immune responses in both parts of the immune system in all age groups and at low and standard dose -

Until now, it was unclear whether a survived SARS-CoV-2 infection or COVID-19 leads to a persistent immunological memory and thus can protect against a new infection. Several studies had shown that SARS-CoV-2 specific antibodies are only detectable for a few months in many people who have survived COVID-19 and may therefore only provide temporary protection against re-infection.