Page 19 - Pathogen Readiness News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

(P van Dokkum/NASA/ESA via AP) One of the most subtle threats to any civilization is a decline in its ability to approach the unknown. The undiscovered is as important as the known. If the knowns are compiled in an encyclopedia, the compendium of things “we don’t know about” has been called by some the reversopedia. Vital as it is, how one may reasonably ask, is whether it’s possible to a map of the terra incognita? The lists of unsolved problems that every field of inquiry– astronomy, biology, chemistry, computer science, physics, etc.– seems to throw up continuously, allows us t...

By STEPHANIE DUTCHEN Are children really spared the worst effects of COVID-19? What’s the likelihood that an expectant or new mother will pass SARS-CoV-2-or antibodies that protect against it-to her fetus through the placenta or to her infant through breastfeeding? Are COVID-19 vaccines as safe and effective for children as they are for adults? What about vaccination during pregnancy or breastfeeding? Now that vaccines, along with mask wearing, physical distancing, and other precautions, are slashing the number of older adults in the U.S. who are hospitalized with or die...

Compromised immunity can allow SARS-CoV-2 to evade the immune system The vast majority of people infected with SARS-CoV-2 clear the virus, but those with compromised immunity--such as individuals receiving immune-suppressive drugs for autoimmune diseases--can become chronically infected. As a result, their weakened immune defenses continue to attack the virus without being able to eradicate it fully. This physiological tug-of-war between human host and pathogen offers a valuable opportunity to understand how SARS-CoV-2 can survive under immune pressure and adapt to it. Now, a new study led by...

Read Time: The vast majority of people infected with SARS-CoV-2 clear the virus, but those with compromised immunity—such as individuals receiving immune-suppressive drugs for autoimmune diseases—can become chronically infected. As a result, their weakened immune defenses continue to attack the virus without being able to eradicate it fully. This physiological tug-of-war between human host and pathogen offers a valuable opportunity to understand how SARS-CoV-2 can survive under immune pressure and adapt to it. Now, a new study led by Harvard Medical School scientists offers a look...

Claverly Hall complete; Apthorp scheduled to finish this summer BACOW:  All of us hope that by fall we will have returned to some semblance of normality but we’re also planning for contingencies. If this virus has taught us anything, it is that we need to be flexible, and adaptable. GAZETTE: Along those same lines, the pandemic has fundamentally changed the nature of work for so many. Do you have a sense of what work will look like at Harvard going forward?   BACOW: I think we’ve learned that people can work far more effectively from remote locations than we ever might have imagined. I...