Spinal cord nerve cells branching through the body resemble trees with limbs fanning out in every direction. But this image can also be used to tell the story of how these neurons, their jobs becoming more specialized over time, arose through developmental and evolutionary history. Salk researchers have, for the first time, traced the development of spinal cord neurons using genetic signatures and revealed how different subtypes of the cells may have evolved and ultimately function to regulate our body movements.
The findings, published in the journal Science on April 23, 2021, offer researchers new ways of classifying and tagging subsets of spinal cord cells for further study, using genetic markers that differentiate branches of the cells’ family tree.
“A study like this provides the first molecular handles for scientists to go in and study the function of spinal cord neurons in a much more precise way than they ever have before,” says senior author of the study Samuel Pfaff, Salk Professor and the Benjamin H. Lewis Chair. “This also has implications for treating spinal cord injuries.”
Spinal neurons are responsible for transmitting messages between the spinal cord and the rest of the body. Researchers studying spinal neurons have typically classified the cells into “cardinal classes,” which describe where in the spinal cord each type of neuron first appears during fetal development. But, in an adult, neurons within any one cardinal class have varied functions and molecular characteristics. Studying small subsets of these cells to tease apart their diversity has been difficult. However, understanding these subset distinctions is crucial to helping researchers understand how the spinal cord neurons control movements and what goes awry in neurogenerative diseases or spinal cord injury.
“It’s been known for a long time that the cardinal classes, as useful as they are, are incomplete in describing the diversity of neurons in the spinal cord,” says Peter Osseward, a graduate student in the Pfaff lab and co-first author of the new paper, along with former graduate student Marito Hayashi, now a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University.
Pfaff, Osseward and Hayashi turned to single-cell RNA sequencing technologies to analyze differences in what genes were being activated in almost 7,000 different spinal neurons from mice. They used this data to group cells into closely related clusters in the same way that scientists might group related organisms into a family tree.

The foods people buy at a workplace cafeteria may not always be chosen to satisfy an individual craving or taste for a particular food. When co-workers are eating together, individuals are more likely to select foods that are as healthy — or unhealthy — as the food selections on their fellow employees’ trays. “We found that individuals tend to mirror the food choices of others in their social circles, which may explain one way obesity spreads through social networks,” says Douglas Levy, PhD, an investigator at the Mongan Institute Health Policy Research Center at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and first author of new research published in Nature Human Behaviour. Levy and his co-investigators discovered that individuals’ eating patterns can be shaped even by casual acquaintances, evidence that corroborates several multi-decade observational studies showing the influence of people’s social ties on weight gain, alcohol consumption and eating behavior.
Previous research on social influence upon food choice had been primarily limited to highly controlled settings like studies of college students eating a single meal together, making it difficult to generalize findings to other age groups and to real-world environments. The study by Levy and his co-authors examined the cumulative social influence of food choices among approximately 6,000 MGH employees of diverse ages and socioeconomic status as they ate at the hospital system’s seven cafeterias over two years. The healthfulness of employees’ food purchases was determined using the hospital cafeterias’ “traffic light” labeling system designating all food and beverages as green (healthy), yellow (less healthy) or red (unhealthy).
MGH employees may use their ID cards to pay at the hospitals’ cafeterias, which allowed the researchers to collect data on individuals’ specific food purchases, and when and where they purchased the food. The researchers inferred the participants’ social networks by examining how many minutes apart two people made food purchases, how often those two people ate at the same time over many weeks, and whether two people visited a different cafeteria at the same time. “Two people who make purchases within two minutes of each other, for example, are more likely to know each other than those who make purchases 30 minutes apart,” says Levy. And to validate the social network model, the researchers surveyed more than 1,000 employees, asking them to confirm the names of the people the investigators had identified as their dining partners.
“A novel aspect of our study was to combine complementary types of data and to borrow tools from social network analysis to examine how the eating behaviors of a large group of employees were socially connected over a long period of time,” says co-author Mark Pachucki, PhD, associate professor of Sociology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Based on cross-sectional and longitudinal assessments of three million encounters between pairs of employees making cafeteria purchases together, the researchers found that food purchases by people who were connected to each other were consistently more alike than they were different. “The effect size was a bit stronger for healthy foods than for unhealthy foods,” says Levy.
A key component of the research was to determine whether social networks truly influence eating behavior, or whether people with similar lifestyles and food preferences are more likely to become friends and eat together, a phenomenon known as homophily. “We controlled for characteristics that people had in common and analyzed the data from numerous perspectives, consistently finding results that supported social influence rather than homophily explanations,” says Levy.
Why do people who are socially connected choose similar foods? Peer pressure is one explanation. “People may change their behavior to cement the relationship with someone in their social circle,” says Levy. Co-workers may also implicitly or explicitly give each other license to choose unhealthy foods or exert pressure to make a healthier choice.
The study’s findings have several broader implications for public health interventions to prevent obesity. One option may be to target pairs of people making food choices and offer two-for-one sales on salads and other healthful foods but no discounts on cheeseburgers. Another approach might be to have an influential person in a particular social circle model more healthful food choices, which will affect others in the network. The research also demonstrates to policymakers that an intervention that improves healthy eating in a particular group will also be of value to individuals socially connected to that group.
“As we emerge from the pandemic and transition back to in-person work, we have an opportunity to eat together in a more healthful way than we did before,” says Pachucki. “If your eating habits shape how your co-workers eat — even just a little — then changing your food choices for the better might benefit your co-workers as well.”
Story Source:
Materials provided by Massachusetts General Hospital. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Holly Elgison and Len Schillaci are a mixed vaxxed couple, and they are far from alone.“I was always going to get the vaccine, 100 percent,” said Ms. Elgison, a medical claims auditor in Valrico, Fla.Her husband, a disaster insurance adjuster, said he will pass. “To be honest with you, I think that the worst of Covid is behind us,” Mr. Schillaci said. “I’m good.”As the Biden administration seeks to get 80 percent of adult Americans immunized by summer, the continuing reluctance of men to get a shot could impede that goal.Women are getting vaccinated at a far higher rate — about 10 percentage points — than men, even though the male-female divide is roughly even in the nation’s overall population. The trend is worrisome to many, especially as vaccination rates have dipped a bit recently.The reasons for the U.S. gender gap are many, reflecting the role of women in specific occupations that received early vaccine priority, political and cultural differences and long standing patterns of women embracing preventive care more often generally than men.The gap exists even as Covid-19 deaths worldwide have been about 2.4 times higher for men than among women. And the division elucidates the reality of women’s disproportionate role in caring for others in American society.“It could matter to localized herd immunity,” said Alison Buttenheim, an associate professor of nursing at the University of Pennsylvania and expert on vaccine hesitancy. “While most experts are fretting about larger gaps by race, political party, religion and occupational group,” she said, many of which overlap with the gender disparities, “I haven’t heard of any specific initiatives to target men.”In Los Angeles County, where 44 percent of women over 16 have gotten their first shot — compared with 30 percent of men — officials are scrambling to figure out how to do just that.“We are very concerned about it and are planning to embark on some targeted outreach among men,” said Dr. Paul Simon, the chief science officer at the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, who said that the disparities are of particular concern for Black and Latino men. Only 19 percent of Black males in Los Angeles County and 17 percent of Latino males have received at least one dose of the vaccine, compared with 35 percent of Asian men and 32 percent of white men, according to the most recent data available from early this month.“We don’t fully understand it,” Dr. Simon said. “One of our messaging strategies will be that the vaccine is not only important for you but, in addition, is a means of protecting others in your family.”In Los Angeles County, 44 percent of women over 16 had gotten their first shot — compared with about 30 percent of men.Frederic J. Brown/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe early divisions in vaccine rates by gender could largely be explained by demographics. Americans over 70 got the first sets of doses, and women make up a larger proportion of that age group. In many states, health care workers and schoolteachers were also given vaccine priority: Women account for three-quarters of full-time health care workers and over 75 percent of public schoolteachers in the United States are female.The disparities show both where women do the paid and unpaid labor of life. For instance, women lost the majority of the earliest jobs in food services, retail businesses, health care and government jobs. The mothers among them have done most of the work in the shift to remote schooling and caring for parents and sick relatives.The combination may have increased their vaccine motivation in two ways: They are seeking to protect the rest of their family and they are desperate to get back in the work force. Indeed, just as women drove the job losses last year, they are leading the economic recovery now; roughly half a million women joined the labor force in March, in part because in-person schooling has resumed across much of the country.“In addition to women being disproportionately represented in several essential jobs,” said Pilar Gonalons-Pons, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Pennsylvania who specializes in gender issues, “they are also disproportionately represented as unpaid caregivers for older adults in their families and communities, and this can also be an additional motivation for getting the vaccine.”In many ways, the pattern with vaccines reflects longstanding gender differences when it comes to preventive health care. Women are on average more likely to get annual physicals than men, even when adjusted for pre-existing health conditions and other factors, and are more likely than men to get preventive care.Men are more likely than women to engage in behaviors that hurt their health — like heavy drinking, smoking and illicit drug use — and are more overweight compared to women. Men are less likely to visit doctors regularly and go to the emergency room in a crisis and to get basic dental care, according to federal data. Vaccines are no exception: Historically, influenza vaccination is much higher among females — about 63 percent compared to 53 percent — though the gap narrows in Americans over 75 years old.The coronavirus vaccine “is the latest expression of the tried-and-true gender gap we’ve long witnessed in preventive health care seeking patterns,” said Lindsey Leininger, a health policy researcher and clinical professor at Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College.But experts say that even in the context of general male health care recalcitrance, there may be some factors that are specific to this vaccine that are preventing more male shots in arms. Because the sign up has been cumbersome and confusing, men may have had less patience in navigating the system, which has largely taken place online, a process that women might find easier since they tend to get more of their health care information online.“We have to figure out if disparities are about access, if men are having more difficulty navigating the appointment systems,” Mr. Simon of Los Angeles said.Further, when it comes to the coronavirus — which has been the subject of rampant misinformation, evolving medical advice and politicization — other dynamics may be at work.“Some men have a sense that they are not necessarily susceptible,” Mr. Simon said health care workers have told officials. “They have weathered this for more than a year and have a sense of omnipotence.”Public health and academic experts have been long concerned with the “macho” effect that prevents men from getting all sorts of health care, and fear that it might be exacerbated with this vaccine. (Notably, in the most male service branch of the military, the Marines, about 40 percent of those who were offered the vaccine by the Defense Department have turned it down.)A selfie after receiving a Covid shot at the First Baptist Church of Glenarden in Upper Marlboro, Md., last month.Erin Schaff/The New York Times“This avoidance has been linked to masculinity ideals of men being strong, invincible and not asking for help,” said Kristen W. Springer, an associate professor in the Department of Sociology at Rutgers University in New Jersey who has done research on this trait.“In other words, these cultural ideals lead men to avoid important health care in order to act masculine,” she said. “Now that the vaccine is available to everyone, it will be interesting to watch male-female differences in vaccine uptake, because these will more likely reflect social and cultural ideas about gender and health, such as the cultural idea that ‘real men’ don’t need preventive health care.”At this stage, U.S. health authorities have not released data on nonbinary adults and vaccination.There may also be political connections. Women are far more likely than men to register as Democrats, and polls demonstrate that Republicans across the country have been far less likely than Democrats to embrace the vaccine.So who will men listen to? Not their wives and female friends or doctors, it seems. For their recent preprint study, Leah Witus and Erik Larson, professors at Macalester College in Saint Paul, Minn., watched videos with men and women that featured identical information about the vaccine. Among the 1,184 Americans who watched them, most were positively influenced by the male narrator while the female narrator got a far more mixed response.“The male-narrated version of the video increased vaccination intention in viewers,” said Ms. Witus, “but the female-narrated had mixed associations with vaccine propensity, and in some viewers, those that identified as conservative, actually decreased vaccination intention.”This may spell victory for Mr. Schillaci as he and his wife subtly joust for influence over their 20-year-old son’s vaccination decision. Mr. Schillaci has been sharing his views with his son, whom his wife is prodding to take a shot.“I would rather he got the shot, and I hope that he’ll consider it,” said Ms. Elgison.But Ms. Elgison’s own decision may benefit her son, even if he decides against the vaccine.As often happens in life, men may find their gaps covered by women. “To the extent most people live and socialize in a mixed-gender setting, the men will benefit from the higher coverage among women,” Ms. Buttenheim said.Ms. Elgison, however, still has a trump card she hopes might work. “I would like my son to get it so we can all travel together,” she said. “I explained to him that it’s possible that we could protect his dad.”

Note: Figures reflect weekly totals of positive flu tests, from public and clinical laboratories.·Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention […]

A synthetic DNA vaccine candidate for Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) developed at The Wistar Institute induced potent immune responses and afforded protective efficacy in non-human primate (NHP) models when given intradermally in abbreviated, low-dose immunization regimen. A similar vaccine candidate was previously shown to be safe and tolerable with a three-dose intramuscular injection regimen in a recently completed human phase 1 study and is currently in expanded studies of phase 1/2a trial.
New results were published today in JCI Insight.
“While several vaccine products are being advanced against MERS and other coronaviruses, low-dose delivery and shortened regimes are crucial to rapidly induce protective immunity, particularly during emerging outbreaks, as the current SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has emphasized,” said David B. Weiner, Ph.D., Wistar executive vice president, director of the Vaccine & Immunotherapy Center (VIC) and W.W. Smith Charitable Trust Professor in Cancer Research, who led the study.
Researchers evaluated the immunogenicity and protective efficacy of their MERS synthetic vaccine when delivered intradermally using a shortened two-dose immunization schedule compared with intramuscular delivery of higher doses in NHP.
“Given that human efficacy trials for MERS vaccines may be challenging due to the low number of yearly cases, animal models such as our NHP model are valuable as a bridge with human data coming from early-phase clinical trials,” said Weiner.
In this study, Weiner and team report robust antibody neutralizing antibodies and cellular immune responses in all conditions tested. A rigorous virus challenge experiment showed that all vaccination groups were protected against MERS-CoV compared to unvaccinated control animals. However, the low-dose regimen with intradermal delivery was more impactful in controlling disease and symptoms than the higher dose delivered intramuscularly in NHP models.
“To our knowledge, this is the first demonstration of protection with an intradermally delivered coronavirus vaccine,” said Ami Patel, Ph.D., Caspar Wistar Fellow at the Vaccine & Immunotherapy Center and one of the lead authors of the paper. “Intradermal delivery of synthetic DNA vaccines has significant advantages for rapid clinical development. It can be dose sparing and has higher tolerability in people compared with intramuscular injection. The positive results of this study are important not only for the advancement of this MERS vaccine but also for development of other vaccines.”
“Our team is also advancing a COVID-19 vaccine through clinical trials, and we were able to do so in a very short time thanks to our previous experience developing the MERS vaccine,” added Weiner.
Importantly, no evidence of adverse effects on the lungs was observed in any of the dosing groups compared to unimmunized control animals. Through the assessment of a large panel of blood cytokines, researchers showed significant decrease in all mediators of inflammation, which further suggests the vaccine prevents the destructive inflammation induced by coronaviruses.
“In the past twenty years, three new coronaviruses have emerged and caused human outbreaks. The current SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has further emphasized the importance of rapid infection control for coronaviruses and other emerging infectious diseases,” said Emma L. Reuschel, Ph.D., a staff scientist in the Weiner lab and co-first author on the study. “Vaccine candidates that are simple to deliver, well tolerated, and can be readily deployed in resource-limited settings will be important to achieve control of infection.”
Story Source:
Materials provided by The Wistar Institute. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Research has identified critical factors that enable dangerous bacteria to spread disease by surviving on surfaces in hospitals and kitchens.
The study into the mechanisms which enable the opportunistic human pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa to survive on surfaces, could lead to new ways of targeting harmful bacteria.
To survive outside their host, pathogenic bacteria must withstand various environmental stresses. One mechanism is the sugar molecule, trehalose, which is associated with a range of external stresses, particularly osmotic shock — sudden changes to the salt concentration surrounding cells.
Researchers at the John Innes Centre analysed how trehalose is metabolised by P. aeruginosa to define its role in protection against external stresses.
Combining analytical biochemistry and reverse genetics — using mutated bacteria lacking key functions — they show that trehalose metabolism in P. aeruginosa is connected to biosynthesis of the carbon storage molecule glycogen.
Experiments showed that disruption of either trehalose or glycogen pathways significantly reduced the ability of P. aeruginosa to survive on human-made surfaces such as kitchen or hospital counters.
The study found that while both trehalose and glycogen are important for stress tolerance in P. aeruginosa they counter distinct stresses: trehalose helps the bacteria to survive in conditions of elevated salt; glycogen contributes to survival in dry (desiccated) environments.
The findings raise the possibility of targeting the trehalose and glycogen pathways to limit pathogen survival on human-made surfaces.
“We have shown how a dangerous human pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa responds to environmental challenges, such as salt stress or drying out. Disrupting the production of certain stress-tolerance sugars in this bug significantly reduces its ability to survive on kitchen and hospital worksurfaces,” said corresponding author of the study Dr Jacob Malone.
An unexpected finding was how the bacteria operates different pathways for different stresses, said Dr Malone: “Conventional wisdom says that trehalose was responsible for both phenotypes, but we have shown that trehalose only protects against osmo-stress and glycogen is needed to protect against desiccation. We were also surprised to see such a marked drop in surface survival when we disrupted the pathways in the bugs.”
The next step for the research is to understand how trehalose and glycogen metabolic pathways are regulated in P. aeruginosa and closely related species. The group also wants to understand how glycogen accumulation allows the bacteria to survive in dry environments and provide more explanation of how and when different parts of the pathways are turned on and off.
P. aeruginosa is a significant pathogen in animals as well as humans. In humans it primarily affects immunocompromised individuals, where it is a major cause of pneumonia and hospital-acquired infections. Chronic P. aeruginosa infections occur in 80% of adult cystic fibrosis patients, where it is the primary cause of morbidity and mortality.
Story Source:
Materials provided by John Innes Centre. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Engineers have developed a new material that mimics human cartilage — the body’s shock absorbing and lubrication system, and it could herald the development of a new generation of lightweight bearings.
Cartilage is a soft fibrous tissue found around joints which provides protection from the compressive loading generated by walking, running or lifting. It also provides a protective, lubricating layer allowing bones to pass over one another in a frictionless way. For years, scientists have been trying to create a synthetic material with the properties of cartilage.
To date, they have had mixed results.
But in a paper published in the journal Applied Polymer Materials, researchers at the University of Leeds and Imperial College London have announced that they have created a material that functions like cartilage.
The research team believes a cartilage-like material would have a wide-range of uses in engineering.
Cartilage is a bi-phasic porous material, meaning it exists in solid and fluid phases. It switches to its fluid phase by absorbing a viscous substance produced in the joints called synovial fluid. This fluid not only lubricates the joints but when held in the porous matrix of the cartilage, it provides a hydroelastic cushion against compressive forces.

In rare cases, people who have been fully vaccinated against COVID and are immune to the virus can nevertheless develop the disease. New findings from The Rockefeller University now suggest that these so-called breakthrough cases may be driven by rapid evolution of the virus, and that ongoing testing of immunized individuals will be important to help mitigate future outbreaks.
The research, published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine, reports results from ongoing monitoring within the Rockefeller University community where two fully vaccinated individuals tested positive for the coronavirus. Both had received two doses of either the Moderna or the Pfizer vaccine, with the second dose occurring more than two weeks before the positive test. One person was initially asymptomatic and then developed typical COVID-19 symptoms; the other developed symptoms prior to testing. Both individuals recovered at home, an outcome consistent with evidence suggesting vaccination is effective in preventing severe disease.
Genome sequencing revealed multiple mutations in both viral samples, including the E484K variant in one individual, first identified in South Africa and Brazil, and the S477N variant in the other individual, which has been spreading in New York since November.
“These patients got vaccinated, had great immune responses, and nonetheless broke through with a clinical infection,” says Robert B. Darnell, The Robert and Harriet Heilbrunn Professor, who led the research with immunologist Michel C. Nussenzweig, virologist Paul Bieniasz, and geneticist Richard P. Lifton. The researchers were able to discern a quantifiable amount of virus in saliva samples from routine testing ongoing at Rockefeller, and sequence the viral RNA using a new coronavirus testing method developed in Darnell’s lab by postdoctoral associate Ezgi Hacisuleyman with help from senior research associate Nathalie Blachere. Since January, the university has required all employees working on-site to be tested weekly using this saliva-based PCR assay.
The observations suggest what is likely a small but ongoing risk among vaccinated individuals, and the possibility that they may continue to spread the virus.
“The idea that we could be entirely done with testing in the post-vaccine world is probably not a good one right now; for example, even fully vaccinated people who develop respiratory symptoms should consider getting tested for COVID-19,” says Darnell. “Conversely, exposure to individuals with known infection, even if fully vaccinated, should be taken seriously and again individuals should consider getting tested.”
“Given the scope of the pandemic, there’s a huge amount of virus in the world right now, meaning a huge opportunity for mutations to develop and spread,” he adds. “That is going to be a challenge for the developers of vaccines over the next months and years.”
Story Source:
Materials provided by Rockefeller University. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

In the arms race “humankind against bacteria,” bacteria are currently ahead of us. Our former miracle weapons, antibiotics, are failing more and more frequently when germs use tricky maneuvers to protect themselves from the effects of these drugs. Some species even retreat into the inside of human cells, where they remain “invisible” to the immune system. These particularly dreaded pathogens include multi-resistant staphylococci (MRSA), which can cause life-threatening diseases such as sepsis or pneumonia.
In order to track down the germs in their hidouts and eliminate them, a team of researchers from Empa and ETH Zurich is now developing nanoparticles that use a completely different mode of action from conventional antibiotics: While antibiotics have difficulty in penetrating human cells, these nanoparticles, due to their small size and structure, can penetrate the membrane of affected cells. Once there, they can fight the bacteria.
Bioglass and metal
The team of Inge Herrmann and Tino Matter has used cerium oxide, a material with antibacterial and anti-inflammatory properties in its nanoparticle form. The researchers combined the nanoparticles with a bioactive ceramic material known as bioglass. Bioglass is of interest in the medical field because it has versatile regenerative properties and is used, for example, for the reconstruction of bones and soft tissues.
They then synthesized flame-made nanoparticle hybrids made of cerium oxide and bioglass. The particles have already been successfully used as wound adhesives, whereby several interesting properties can be utilized simultaneously: Thanks to the nanoparticles, bleeding can be stopped, inflammation can be dampened and wound healing can be accelerated. In addition, the novel particles show a significant effectiveness against bacteria, while the treatment is well tolerated by human cells.
Recently, the new technology was successfully patented. The team has now published its results in the scientific journal Nanoscale in the “Emerging Investigator Collection 2021.”
Destruction of germs

As the COVID-19 pandemic has progressed, it has become clear that many survivors — even those who had mild cases — continue to manage a variety of health problems long after the initial infection should have resolved. In what is believed to be the largest comprehensive study of long COVID-19 to date, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis showed that COVID-19 survivors — including those not sick enough to be hospitalized — have an increased risk of death in the six months following diagnosis with the virus.
The researchers also have catalogued the numerous diseases associated with COVID-19, providing a big-picture overview of the long-term complications of COVID-19 and revealing the massive burden this disease is likely to place on the world’s population in the coming years.
The study, involving more than 87,000 COVID-19 patients and nearly 5 million control patients in a federal database, appears online April 22 in the journal Nature.
“Our study demonstrates that up to six months after diagnosis, the risk of death following even a mild case of COVID-19 is not trivial and increases with disease severity,” said senior author Ziyad Al-Aly, MD, an assistant professor of medicine. “It is not an exaggeration to say that long COVID-19 — the long-term health consequences of COVID-19 — is America’s next big health crisis. Given that more than 30 million Americans have been infected with this virus, and given that the burden of long COVID-19 is substantial, the lingering effects of this disease will reverberate for many years and even decades. Physicians must be vigilant in evaluating people who have had COVID-19. These patients will need integrated, multidisciplinary care.”
In the new study, the researchers were able to calculate the potential scale of the problems first glimpsed from anecdotal accounts and smaller studies that hinted at the wide-ranging side effects of surviving COVID-19, from breathing problems and irregular heart rhythms to mental health issues and hair loss.
“This study differs from others that have looked at long COVID-19 because, rather than focusing on just the neurologic or cardiovascular complications, for example, we took a broad view and used the vast databases of the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) to comprehensively catalog all diseases that may be attributable to COVID-19,” said Al-Aly, also director of the Clinical Epidemiology Center and chief of the Research and Education Service at the Veterans Affairs St. Louis Health Care System.