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Scientists at Scripps Research have characterized 30 antibodies that recognize a wide range of coronaviruses — successfully blocking not only all the SARS-CoV-2 variants that were tested, but other, related viruses including SARS-CoV-1, which caused the original SARS outbreak with high mortality in 2003, one found only in bats and another from pangolins. The antibodies were all isolated from people with “hybrid immunity” who had been infected with SARS-CoV-2 and subsequently vaccinated against the virus.
The new details on the antibodies, published today in Nature Immunology, are a step toward the next generation of coronavirus vaccines, which may help ward off a broader swath of viruses than the current vaccines specific to SARS-CoV-2.
“It’s very encouraging that despite SARS-CoV-2 mutating, there are still parts of the virus you can target for broad vaccination strategies,” says senior author Raiees Andrabi, PhD, an investigator in the Department of Immunology and Microbiology.
At the same time researchers work to develop new treatments and vaccines for the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, many are also hoping to prevent the next pandemic. Coronaviruses — a broad group of viruses which also cause some common colds — have been responsible for COVID-19 as well as previous outbreaks caused by SARS-CoV-1 and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) virus. A vaccine that helps the immune system recognize not only many SARS-CoV-2 variants, but other SARS-causing coronaviruses, could stop these viruses from spreading throughout the population.
In the new study, Andrabi and his colleagues compared antibody responses elicited in 21 people who had recovered from COVID-19, 10 people who had been vaccinated against COVID-19, and 15 with hybrid immunity from both. People with hybrid immunity showed the strongest and broadest spectrum of antibodies, able to neutralize — or block — five variants of SARS-CoV-2 (Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta and Omicron), SARS-CoV-1, as well as a pangolin coronavirus and one from horseshoe bats in China. No antibodies from the vaccination-only or infection-only group could neutralize all the viruses.
The team isolated 107 antibodies from two hybrid immunity donors, screening for molecules that could bind to both SARS-CoV-1 and SARS-CoV-2 spike proteins. Then, they homed in on 30 of those antibodies, many of which also neutralized the bat and pangolin coronaviruses for a closer look.
Most of those 30 antibodies, they found, recognized the same part of the viruses’ structures, called the receptor-binding domain on the spike protein. Certain segments of the receptor-binding domain, the finding suggested, were not changing as different coronaviruses evolved. The 30 antibodies also had similarities when it came to how they were produced by the body, an important clue for researchers in how to design vaccines that prompt the immune system to produce the same antibodies.
To show that the antibodies did not just bind to the viruses in the lab, but could actually impact the immune system’s ability to fight each pathogen, Andrabi’s group, in collaboration with co-senior authors Ralph Baric and Lisa Gralinski at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, observed what happened when mice treated with three of the most potent antibodies — known as CC25.36, CC25.53 and CC25.54 — were exposed to SARS-CoV-2, SARS-CoV-1, or the horseshoe bat virus SHC014-CoV. For all three viruses, the mice that had been treated with the antibodies had significantly lower levels of virus in their lungs compared to control mice.
“We saw amazing protection against these three viruses,” says Andrabi. “That tells us that if we are able to induce these antibodies by vaccination, they will likely give you broad protection against diverse SARS-like viruses.”
“Now that we know these antibodies work, the next goal is to design vaccines and to try to elicit similar broadly-neutralizing antibodies by vaccination in approaches that have been pioneered at Scripps Research for HIV,” says Dennis Burton, PhD, co-senior-author and chair of the Department of Immunology and Microbiology.
In addition to Andrabi, authors of the study, “Targeted isolation of diverse human protective broadly neutralizing antibodies against SARS-like viruses,” include Wan-ting He, Rami Musharrafieh, Ge Song, Katharina Dueker, Sean Callaghan, Peter Yong, Nathan Beutler, Jonathan Torres, Reid Volk, Panpan Zhou, Meng Yuan, Hejun Liu, Fabio Anzanello, Tazio Capozzola, Mara Parren, Elijah Garcia, Ian Wilson, Andrew Ward, Thomas Rogers, and Dennis Burton of Scripps Research; Long Ping Tse, David Martinez, Alexandra Schafer, Ralph Baric and Lisa Gralinski of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Stephen Rawlings and Davey Smith of University of California, San Diego; and Yana Safanova of Johns Hopkins University.
This work and the researchers involved were supported by funding from the National Institutes of Health (CHAVD UM1 AI44462 (D.R.B., I.A.W., A.D.B), the IAVI Neutralizing Antibody Center, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (INV-004923), the Translational Virology Core of the San Diego Center for AIDS Research (CFAR) grant (NIH AI036214, 5T32AI007384, AI149644, AI157155, and R21 AI145372), the John and Mary Tu Foundation, the James B. Pendleton Charitable Trust, a Pfizer NCBiotech Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellowship in Gene Therapy, a Burroughs Wellcome Fund Postdoctoral Enrichment Program Award and a Hanna H. Gray Fellowship from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

A University of Queensland-led study has found millions of COVID-19 patients may have undiagnosed acute kidney injury (AKI).
AKI is a condition where the kidneys suddenly fail to filter waste from the blood, which can lead to serious illness or even death.
Existing data indicates approximately 20 per cent of patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19 develop AKI, rising to roughly 40 per cent for those in intensive care.
But UQ PhD candidate and kidney specialist Dr Marina Wainstein said the true numbers could be double those figures.
“Doctors look at the amount of urine a patient passes and the level of a compound called creatinine in the blood, which rises when the kidneys aren’t working well,” she said.
“However, if that creatinine rise occurs before a patient presents to hospital, we can miss the AKI diagnosis and fail to manage the patient appropriately in those early, critical days of hospitalisation.”
Dr Wainstein said when researchers also measured the fall in creatinine levels, which often follows the initial rise, the rate of AKI diagnosis in COVID-19 patients doubled.

Inflammatory bowel disease is accompanied by a number of changes in the intestines, such as a change in epithelial permeability, a change in the composition of the microorganisms, and altered levels of antimicrobial substances that are secreted by cells lining the gut. Finding out whether changes are a cause or an effect of the inflammation is difficult. Sahar El Aidy, a microbiologist at the University of Groningen (the Netherlands), together with colleagues from San Diego (US), have now teased out the causal chain leading to inflammation. Their results were published in the journal Gut Microbes on 29 May.
The scientists used mice in which the gene that is responsible for the production of the antimicrobial compound catestatin was knocked out using genetic techniques. In normal mice, catestatin is secreted by cells lining the gut and kills susceptible bacterial strains. The same team, led by Sahar El Aidy, associate professor of Microbiology at the University of Groningen recently described how the composition of gut microbes had changed in these knock-out mice and that signs of inflammation of the intestines were visible.
Metabolites
In their follow-up experiments, the scientists used faecal transplants to find out whether the change in microbial composition is indeed the cause of the inflammation or if it is a result of the observed inflammation. Both knock-out mice and normal mice (wild-type) were given a laxative that removed most of the bacteria from their intestines. ‘We used a laxative, rather than antibiotics, because these drugs could hamper recolonization after the faecal transplant,’ explains El Aidy.
Knock-out mice were given faeces from wild-type mice and vice versa. After two weeks, samples were taken to assess the microbial composition in the intestines. ‘The results showed that the composition had shifted towards that of the donor, which means that the faecal transplants were successful.’ Analysis of the metabolites inside the gut showed that the production of short-chain fatty acids, molecules that affect the function of the gut, was reduced in the knock-out mice. ‘This was largely restored by the faecal transplant from wild-type mice,’ says El Aidy.
Fibrosis
The reduction in short-chain fatty acid production was the result of a change in the microbial community in the intestines, which was in turn caused by the absence of catestatin. ‘Our experiments showed that the epithelial permeability of the intestines, which is higher in the knock-out mice, is restored by the faecal transplant. Also, the extent of fibrosis resulting from inflammation was reduced.’ These results show that the changes in the microbial composition that are caused by the absence of catestatin are responsible for the inflammatory response in the knock-out mice.
Target
This is an important step towards a treatment for inflammatory bowel disease, explains El Aidy: ‘Using transcriptome analysis, we have pinpointed a pattern of gene expression that is associated with the changes that are caused by the removal of catestatin and that was similar to that seen in inflammatory bowel disease. We could link this expression pattern to a number of microbial species, which are, therefore, candidates for being responsible for the changes.’
However, their plan is not to treat patients with faecal transplants. ‘This process has shown contradictory results in humans,’ she says. ‘This might be due to the fact that we didn’t know what constitutes a healthy microbial composition in humans.’ Instead, the results from the new study have given them tools to target specific bacterial strains that are affected by the removal of catestatin. ‘This is what was missing in previous attempts to restore a healthy intestinal microbial community.’
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Researchers from the Zoonosis Science Center at Uppsala University have identified a new coronavirus. Their study of approximately 260 bank voles caught around Grimsö, Örebro County, shows that the virus is well established in Sweden’s red-backed voles. The finding has been published in the journal Viruses.
“Between 2015 and 2017, we consistently found what we have called the ‘Grimsö Virus’ in 3.4 per cent of these voles, which would suggest that the virus is widespread and common in Sweden’s bank voles,” says Åke Lundkvist, Professor in virology and head of the Zoonosis Science Center at Uppsala University. He led the study together with researcher Jiaxin Ling and Anishia Wasberg, a doctoral student and the first author.
Researchers from the Zoonosis Science Center, ZSC, map zoonotic viruses to increase the understanding of the interaction between viruses and host animals. Unlike the SARS-CoV and MERS coronaviruses that originate in bats, seasonal coronaviruses, such as HCoV-OC43 and HCoV-HKU1, appear to have spread to humans from rodents like rats, mice and voles. The objective is to increase knowledge and develop methods that can effectively limit major virus outbreaks and avoid infection spreading from animals to humans.
In a new study published in the journal Viruses, researchers from ZSC examined red-backed voles caught around Grimsö in Örebro County between 2015 and 2017 and tested them for coronavirus. Using an RNA sequencing method, they identified a new coronavirus known as the ‘Grimsö Virus’ belonging to the betacoronavirus family that also includes SARS-CoV, MERS and SARS-CoV-2.
Rodents already carry several zoonotic microorganisms, such as Hantaviruses and Tularemia, meaning they play a key role in how infectious diseases are spread. In recent years, there has been a dramatic increase in infectious diseases that can be linked to small mammals, like rodents, and research around the ecology of these host animals is an essential component in the work to prevent future outbreaks.
The bank vole (Myodes glareolus) is one of Europe’s most common rodents. Previous studies have found several coronaviruses circulating amongst animals in countries like the United Kingdom, Poland, France and Germany.
“We still do not know what potential threats the Grimsö Virus may pose to public health. However, based on our observations and previous coronaviruses identified among bank voles voles, there is good reason to continue monitoring the coronavirus amongst wild rodents,” says Professor Åke Lundkvist.
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New findings led by researchers atthe American Cancer Society (ACS) show the number of women in the United States who reported having a recent (in the past year) breast cancer or cervical cancer screening dropped by 2.13 million (6%) and 4.47 million (11%) respectively in 2020 compared to 2018. The study is the first of its kind to evaluate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on cancer screenings nationally using population-based data. The results are published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Open Network.
“COVID-19 pandemic had an immediate impact in March and April of 2020, as screenings initially dropped by close to 80%,” said Dr. Ahmedin Jemal, senior vice president, surveillance & health equity science at the American Cancer Society and senior author of the study. “Many people caught up on screenings later in 2020, but overall, the COVID-19 pandemic kept screenings down over the course of the entire year. As we move forward, it’s crucial to get people back into their doctor’s offices to get screened.”
The study also found that between 2018 and 2020 colonoscopies for colorectal cancer detection in the past year dropped by 16% for both men and women but was offset by an increase in stool testing of 7%. This showed the promise of at-home testing to maintain population-wide screening rates during a major healthcare disruption.
In other study findings: Hispanic and lower-income people experienced sharper drops in past-year breast and cervical cancer screening, reflecting newly emerging barriers and exacerbation of long-standing barriers to cancer screening. Asian/Pacific Islander women had a 27% drop in past-year breast cancer screening, the largest drop for any race. Hispanic women had a 17% drop in past-year cervical cancer screening. The drop in screening in the past year nearly doubled for non-high school graduates compared to college graduates. Non-high school graduates dropped by 11% for breast cancer screening and 17.7% for cervical cancer screening, compared to 6.1% and 9.5% respectively for college graduates.”The impact of these drops on stage at diagnosis and survival is not yet known, but it is something we need to monitor closely,” said Jemal. “It is imperative that we understand the impact of lower screening rates on cancer outcomes among people of color and people of lower socioeconomic standing and also work to improve access to health care and cancer screenings for everyone.”
“Regular screening for cancer can help save lives. This important study is further evidence of how critical it is to get people back on track with their regular screening tests following COVID-19,” said Dr. William Dahut, chief scientific officer at the American Cancer Society. “Screening campaigns like our Get Screened campaign continue to aim to increase cancer screening rates by raising awareness about the need for recommended screenings for breast, cervical, colorectal, prostate, and lung cancers.”
Dahut adds, “Screening is safe, effective, and accessible. Facilities that offer screening services have COVID-19 safety precautions in place. Many states have low or reduced-cost screening programs to help ensure that everyone has access, even people who don’t have insurance or a primary care doctor.”
Other ACS authors include: Jessica Star, Dr. Priti Bandi, Adair Minihan, Dr. Xuesong Han, and Dr. Robin Yabroff. Dr. Stacey Fedewa, now at Emory University, is lead author of the study.
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Your chance of breaking a bone sometime within the next year is nearly 4%. If you’re unlucky enough to need a bone replacement, it’ll probably be based on a metal part. Unfortunately, metal parts are sometimes toxic over time, and will not help your original bone regrow. Calcium phosphate ceramics — substitutes for the bone mineral hydroxyapatite — are in principle an ideal alternative to conventional metals because bone can eventually replace the ceramic and regrow. However, applications of such ceramics in medical settings have been limited by insufficient control over the rate of absorption and replacement by bone after implantation.
Now, in a study recently published in Science and Technology of Advanced Materials, researchers from TMDU and collaborating partners have studied the effect of the carbon chain length of a phosphate ester ceramic containing calcium ion on the rate of its transformation into hydroxyapatite mediated by alkaline phosphatase which presents in our bones. This work will help move bone regeneration research from laboratories to medical use.
“Medical professionals have long sought a means of healing bone fractures without using implanted medical devices, but the underlying science that can make this dream a reality isn’t yet fully elaborated,” explains lead author Taishi Yokoi. “Our careful analysis of the effect of the ceramic’s ester alkyl chain length on hydroxyapatite formation, in a simulated body fluid, may help develop a novel bone-replacement biomaterial.”
The researchers report two main findings. First, most of the studied ceramics underwent chemical transformations into particulate or fibrous hydroxyapatite within a few days. Second, smaller alkyl groups facilitated faster chemical reactions than larger alkyl groups. Because the rate-limiting step of hydroxyapatite formation is dissolution of the ceramic, the greater solubility imparted by smaller alkyl groups sped up production of hydroxyapatite. Such knowledge gives a means of tailoring the speed of bone regrowth.
“We now have specific chemical knowledge on how to tailor the rate of hydroxyapatite growth from calcium phosphate ceramics,” says Yokoi. “We expect that this knowledge will be useful for bench researchers and medical practitioners to more effectively collaborate on tailoring bone reformation rates under medically relevant conditions.” The results of this study are important for healing bone fractures after surgery. By using chemical insights to optimize the rate of bone reformation after implantation of calcium phosphate ceramics, patient outcomes will improve, and returns to the hospital years later for further repairs will be minimized.
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A Cleveland Clinic study shows that among adults with obesity, weight loss achieved with bariatric surgery was associated with a 32% lower risk of developing cancer and a 48% lower risk of cancer-related death compared with adults who did not have the surgery. The research is published by JAMA.
Approximately 42% of American adults have obesity, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Obesity increases the risk of developing 13 types of cancer that account for 40% of all cancers diagnosed every year in the United States, according to the CDC.
Ali Aminian, M.D., lead author of the study and director of Cleveland Clinic’s Bariatric & Metabolic Institute, said that bariatric surgery is currently the most effective treatment for obesity. “Patients can lose 20 to 40% of their body weight after surgery, and weight loss can be sustained over decades. The striking findings of this study indicate that the greater the weight loss, the lower the risk of cancer,” said Dr. Aminian.
The SPLENDID (Surgical Procedures and Long-term Effectiveness in Neoplastic Disease Incidence and Death) research is a matched-cohort study that included more than 30,000 Cleveland Clinic patients. A group of 5,053 adult patients with obesity who had bariatric surgery between 2004 and 2017 were matched 1:5 to a control group of 25,265 patients who did not have surgery for their obesity.
After 10 years, 2.9% of patients in the bariatric surgery group and 4.9% of patients in the non-surgical group developed an obesity-associated cancer. The International Agency for Research on Cancer describes 13 types of cancer as obesity-associated cancers such as endometrial cancer, postmenopausal breast cancer, and cancers of the colon, liver, pancreas, ovary and thyroid.
After 10 years, 0.8% of patients in the surgery group and 1.4% of patients in the non-surgical group died from cancer. Those findings indicate that bariatric surgery is associated with a 48% lower risk of dying from cancer.
Researchers noted that the benefits of bariatric surgery were seen in a wide range of study participants, including both women and men, young and old, and Black and white patients. In addition, benefits were similarly observed after both gastric bypass and gastric sleeve operations.
“According to the American Cancer Society, obesity is second only to tobacco as a preventable cause of cancer in the United States,” said the study’s senior author, Steven Nissen, M.D., Chief Academic Officer of the Heart, Vascular and Thoracic Institute. “This study provides the best possible evidence on the value of intentional weight loss to reduce cancer risk and mortality.”
Numerous studies have shown the health benefits of bariatric or weight-loss surgery in patients with obesity. The Cleveland Clinic-led STAMPEDE study showed that following bariatric surgery, significant weight loss and control of type 2 diabetes last over time. The SPLENDOR study showed that in patients with fatty liver, bariatric surgery decreases the risk of the progression of liver disease and serious heart complications.
The SPLENDID study adds important findings to the literature focused on the link between obesity and cancer. Given the growing epidemic of obesity worldwide, these findings have considerable public health implications.
“Based on the magnitude of benefit shown in our study, weight loss surgery can be considered in addition to other interventions that can help prevent cancer and reduce mortality,” said Jame Abraham, M.D., chairman of the Hematology and Medical Oncology Department at Cleveland Clinic. “Further research needs to be done to understand the underlying mechanisms responsible for reduced cancer risk following bariatric surgery.”
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Millions of Americans suffering from anxiety and insomnia are prescribed a class of sedatives known as benzodiazepines.
Known under the popular trade names Xanax, Valium and Ativan, these medications have been widely prescribed beginning in the 1970s. However, long-term treatment with these medications have also been associated with serious clinical risks, including falls, respiratory problems, cognitive impairments and harmful interactions with other medications.
Many physicians are now appropriately working with patients to taper these medications, but the tapers themselves often create a new set of problems: Severe physical withdrawal symptoms such as tremors and high blood pressure; dangerous psychiatric conditions such as depression and suicidal thoughts; and the recurrence of the underlying conditions of anxiety and insomnia that the medication was originally intended to treat. The underlying conditions often return much worse than before.
Now, a group of physician-scientists at Oregon Health & Science University and the VA Portland Health Care System have coined a new term for this phenomenon: Complex persistent benzodiazepine dependence, or CPBD.
“This is really a dangerous situation,” said Christopher K. Blazes, M.D., assistant professor of psychiatry in the OHSU School of medicine and the director of OHSU’s addiction psychiatry fellowship. “We now know that long-term benzodiazepine prescribing is rarely indicated, but we are still left with the problem of helping those who have been on these medications for years to safely get off them. The process of discontinuation can be very challenging and even dangerous. There may even be some circumstances, when attempts to discontinue fail, that restarting safe doses may be indicated.”
Blazes and co-authors Linda Peng, M.D., assistant professor of medicine (general internal medicine and geriatrics) in the OHSU School of Medicine, and Thomas W. Meeks, M.D., assistant professor of psychiatry in the OHSU School of Medicine and the Portland VA, published a viewpoint in the journal JAMA Psychiatry establishing and clinically defining CPBD.

A data-driven simulation model designed to help policymakers to better understand and address the nation’s rampant opioid crisis has been developed by a team of scientists at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). In a study in the journal PNAS, researchers report that the model, known as SOURCE (Simulation of Opioid Use, Response, Consequences, and Effects), presents the most detailed model to date of the crisis by capturing how the interconnections between stages of prescription and illicit opioid use, from initiation and addiction treatment to relapse and overdose mortality, have evolved over time.
“The opioid crisis is so complex that it demands a dynamic simulation tool that can generate reliable data and a big picture perspective on this major public health challenge,” says senior author Mohammad Jalali, PhD, with the MGH Institute for Technology Assessment. “SOURCE provides a dynamic understanding of the trajectory of the opioid crisis that can serve as a framework for projecting future scenarios and informing public policy planning.”
Opioid overdose has been responsible for over half a million deaths in the U.S. over the past 21 years. Opioid deaths have grown sharply since 2013, claiming nearly 70,000 victims in 2020 alone, driven in large part by the illicit spread of fentanyl, a powerful opioid that is often mixed with heroin to lethal effect. Millions of people suffer from opioid use disorder, triggering severe health, social, and economic consequences for the country. In 2017, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine called for development of a quantitative system model to help understand the crisis and guide policy analysis and decision-making. In response, a team of researchers from MGH and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) developed SOURCE.
SOURCE uses national data on opioid use from 1999 to 2020 to track stages of use and misuse of opioids, including use initiation, treatment, relapse and death by overdose. “Unlike other national models of the crisis, SOURCE replicates how the risks of opioid misuse have evolved over time in response to various behavioral and other factors, and how they may change in the future, providing a platform for projecting and analyzing potential policy impacts and solutions,” explains co-author Tse Yang Lim, PhD, with Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Among the factors driving these changes are social influence — that is, the spread of drug use behaviors through social exposure — and risk perception, whereby fear of the perceived risk of overdose death can discourage initiation of drug use. SOURCE has also quantified the impact of increased distribution of the overdose reversal drug naloxone, as well as the proliferation of the deadly synthetic substance fentanyl, on overdose death rates. Overall, SOURCE projects that deaths from opioid overdose will increase over the next few years before trending downward as opioid use disorder decreases.
Using SOURCE, the researchers are examining potential strategies to address the opioid crisis as part of an ongoing modeling effort, while continuing to refine the model to reflect the still-evolving nature of the crisis. “Despite the projected decline, opioid deaths over the next 10 years will still exceed half a million people,” emphasizes co-author Erin Stringfellow, PhD, with MGH. “Fentanyl’s poisoning of the unregulated drug supply will continue to be a severe problem, which is why leaders across the country need to be working as hard as they can to keep people who use drugs safe.”
Jalali is an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School. Tse Yang Lim is a recent PhD graduate from MIT. Stringfellow is a postdoctoral research associate at the MGH Institute for Technology Assessment. Co-authors include Keith Humphreys, professor and section director for Mental Health Policy at Stanford University, as well as several researchers from the FDA.
The study was supported by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
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Australian doctors are more likely to be sued for medical negligence if they are unhappy, overworked, working in rural areas, or if they have suffered a recent injury or illness according to new research from the University of Melbourne.
Published today in the British Medical Journal, the Australian-first study also found that doctors with an “agreeable” personality were less likely to be sued.
The research team led by Dr Owen Bradfield and Professor Matthew Spittal, analysed the responses of over 12,000 Australian doctors to the Medicine in Australia Balancing Employment and Life (MABEL) survey between 2013 and 2018.
Doctors who completed the survey answered questions about their age, sex, specialty, personality, health, life satisfaction, working conditions, and whether they had previously been sued.
“This allowed us to analyse and correlate work, health and personality factors with a doctor’s risk of being sued,” Dr Bradfield said.
Just over five per cent of the doctors surveyed reported being named in a medical negligence claim during this period. The findings were more pronounced for male doctors than female.