Need a boost for the new year? Pacific Northwest geeks share the different things that inspire them
December 30, 2020 at 9:48 pm
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Need a little inspiration to make it out of 2020 and into 2021? We’ve been asking data scientists, video game designers, engineers, doctors, students and startup founders all year where they find theirs.
We’ve read more than enough about what has bummed us out over the past year. It might seem difficult to find something or someone that will make things look better or provide a motivating force in the coming months.
Fred Hutch researchers are racing to find out whether the new COVID-19 vaccines, which are proven to stop disease symptoms, also block transmission of the virus. If the vaccines are only "symptom-reducing," those who take it might still become infected and possibly contagious. New studies may be needed to find the answers quickly.
A form of inflammatory cell death called panoptosis triggers the storm of cytokines, or inflammatory proteins, that causes critical illness in COVID-19, researchers say. During inflammatory cell death, cells spew out their contents instead of neatly packaging them away as happens during routine cell death, Thirumala-Devi Kanneganti of St. Jude Children s Research Hospital told Reuters. Neighboring cells see the cytokines released and the other unexpected debris as a sign of danger, and they can respond by secreting more cytokines, allowing the cytokine storm to build.
Her team identified a synergy between two cytokines, TNF-alpha and IFN-gamma, as the cause of panoptosis in COVID-19. Mice given TNF-alpha and IFN-gamma developed the symptoms and organ damage of COVID-19 and died rapidly, Kanneganti said.