SARS-CoV-2 tagged posts

Long COVID can result in increased risk for a variety of serious health problems for young people, including those affecting the kidney, gut, and cardiovascular system, according to a group of new studies led by investigators at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

“While most public attention has focused on the acute phase of COVID-19, our findings reveal children face significant long-term health risks that clinicians need to monitor,” said senior author Yong Chen, Ph.D., a professor in the Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology. The studies were conducted under the Researching COVID to Enhance Recovery (RECOVER) Initiative, a special project including more than two dozen health care institutions.

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Researchers have uncovered a link between COVID-19 and blood markers linked to faulty proteins in the brain. The analysis, led by researchers at Imperial College London and the UK Dementia Research Institute, found that people who had previously had COVID-19 were more likely to have increased levels of biomarkers linked to faulty amyloid proteins—a known hallmark for Alzheimer’s disease.

On average, the effects were comparable to four years of aging with the greatest effects seen in those hospitalized with severe COVID-19 or with underlying risk factors for dementia such as smoking or high blood pressure.

According to the researchers, the findings suggest that mild or moderate COVID-19 may acceler...

The LIAMT handheld processor features a window which the user can look through to view fluorescent virus detection signals. Credit: Advanced Science (2024). DOI: 10.1002/advs.202310066

Because of its high accuracy, laboratory-based polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing is the gold standard for infectious disease diagnostics. However, PCR technology requires highly trained staff and costly equipment, hindering its availability, especially in low-resource settings. New research suggests a different kind of test could be more streamlined without sacrificing performance.

A platform technology developed by researchers at the University of Connecticut uses similar techniques as PCR testing, but within a handheld device rather than several benchtop machines.

In a study publish...