SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus causing the global COVID-19 pandemic, uses a protein called polymerase to replicate its genome inside infected human cells. Terminating the polymerase reaction will stop the growth of the coronavirus, leading to its eradication by the human host's immune system.

A study of COVID-19 in the quarantined Italian town of Vò, where most of the population was tested, reveals the importance of asymptomatic cases.

The authors of the new research, from the University of Padova and at Imperial College London, published today in Nature, suggest asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic people are an important factor in the transmission of COVID-19.

A new study from researchers at La Jolla Institute for Immunology (LJI) and Erasmus University Medical Center (Erasmus MC) shows that even the sickest COVID-19 patients produce T cells that help fight the virus. The study offers further evidence that a COVID-19 vaccine will need to elicit T cells to work alongside antibodies.

An international team of researchers has analysed how SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, hijacks the proteins in its target cells. The research, published in the journal Cell, shows how the virus shifts the cell's activity to promote its own replication and to infect nearby cells. The scientists also identified seven clinically approved drugs that could disrupt these mechanisms, and recommend that these drugs are immediately tested in clinical trials.

A team from Lawson Health Research Institute and Western University are the first in the world to profile the body's immune response to COVID-19. By studying blood samples from critically ill patients at London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC), the research team identified a unique pattern of six molecules that could be used as therapeutic targets to treat the virus. The study is published this week in Critical Care Explorations.

Many epidemiologists believe that the initial COVID-19 infection rate was undercounted due to testing issues, asymptomatic and alternatively symptomatic individuals, and a failure to identify early cases.

Now, a new study from Penn State estimates that the number of early COVID-19 cases in the U.S. may have been more than 80 times greater and doubled nearly twice as fast as originally believed.

Mayo Clinic researchers and collaborators have found investigational convalescent plasma to be safe following transfusion in a diverse group of 20,000 patients. The findings - from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Expanded Access Program for COVID-19 - are reported in Mayo Clinic Proceedings.