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Inspired by llamas, scientists make potent anti-coronavirus agent

Inspired by a unique kind of infection-fighting antibody found in llamas, alpacas, and other camelids, a research team at the University of California, San Francisco, has synthesized a molecule that they say is among the most potent anti-coronavirus compounds tested in a lab to date

Found: genes that sway the course of the coronavirus

Scientist have pinned down common gene variants that are linked to the most severe cases of COVID19 and the reason why some people get very sick and others show only mild symptoms. This discovery leads to discovery of existing drugs that could be repurposed to help sick patients.

What Does It Mean to Say a New Drug ‘Works’?

In the midst of a global crisis, scientists are trying to solve an epistemologically intractable question. Defining whether a drug “works” has never been easy, a task vexed by methodological uncertainty, commercial pressures, statistical errors, or sometimes straight-out bad practices. Facing a new disease, researchers have to rethink what success even means. Is it lower mortality? Less disability upon recovery? Faster recovery? The answers are cryptic because the questions are just educated guesses.

Confusion spreads over selection of priority groups for Covid-19 vaccines

On Tuesday, the National Academy of Medicine, tasked by top U.S. health officials, named an expert panel to develop a framework to determine who should be vaccinated first, when available doses are expected to be scarce. But that panel is ostensibly encroaching on the role of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, a panel that has made recommendations on vaccination policy to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for decades, including drawing up the vaccination priority list during the 2009 H1N1 flu pandemic.

Remdesivir: How does the drug treat coronavirus and is it available in the UK?

Health officials in the US have announced that the Trump administration has bought almost the entire world’s stock of the Covid-19 drug remdesivir. Despite its ability to shorten the recovery times (by around four days) of some coronavirus patients, remdesivir has not been found to significantly improve an individual’s chances of surviving the disease.

Regeneron Starts Phase 3 Trial For Coronavirus Antibody Cocktail

Regeneron Pharmaceuticals has started late-stage clinical trials evaluating REGN-COV2, its investigational double antibody cocktail for the treatment and prevention of COVID-19. A Phase 3 trial will evaluate REGN-COV2's ability to prevent infection among uninfected people who have had close exposure to a COVID-19 patient.

Decades of research on an HIV vaccine boosts the bid for one against coronavirus

Those decades of research into HIV have taught scientists an enormous amount about the immune system, honed vaccine technologies now being repurposed against the coronavirus and created a worldwide infrastructure of clinical trial networks that can be pivoted from HIV to the pathogen that causes the disease covid-19.

Moderna coronavirus vaccine shows promising results in early clinical trial

An experimental coronavirus vaccine developed by Moderna provoked an immune response without major side effects in an early-stage clinical trial, scientists reported Tuesday in the New England Journal of Medicine.The vaccine is the first developed by a U.S. company to publish clinical trial results.

Coronavirus Drug and Treatment Tracker

Below is an updated list of 19 of the most-talked-about treatments for the coronavirus. While some are accumulating evidence that they’re effective, most are still at early stages of research. We also included a warning about a few that are just bunk.