Category Archives: Molecular Genetics

The global pandemic has led us to connect through screens more than ever for learning, working, and checking in with family and friends.

Now, starting May 4, you'll be able to connect with and learn from University of Toronto experts in a new weekly video series hosted by U of T alumna Samantha Yammine, the neuroscientist and science communicator better known as Science Sam on social media.

Yammine will host 3Qs at the Uwith some of the university's top researchers, asking each onethree questions in an effort to better understand their area of expertise.

Join me each week for 3Qs at the U, where we will talk with some amazing experts from all three U of T campuses about some interesting ideas, says Yammine, who completed two degrees at U of T, including a PhD in molecular genetics.

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'Science Sam' to explore U of T research with new 3Qs at the U video series - News@UofT

In a report released today, Stephen Unger from Needham maintained a Buy rating on NeoGenomics (NEO Research Report), with a price target of $33.00. The companys shares closed last Tuesday at $27.97.

According to TipRanks.com, Unger is a 5-star analyst with an average return of 13.5% and a 75.4% success rate. Unger covers the Healthcare sector, focusing on stocks such as Myriad Genetics, Thermo Fisher, and PerkinElmer.

NeoGenomics has an analyst consensus of Strong Buy, with a price target consensus of $33.00, implying an 8.7% upside from current levels. In a report issued on April 21, Stephens also resumed coverage with a Buy rating on the stock with a $33.00 price target.

See todays analyst top recommended stocks >>

The company has a one-year high of $34.97 and a one-year low of $18.53. Currently, NeoGenomics has an average volume of 930.8K.

Based on the recent corporate insider activity of 51 insiders, corporate insider sentiment is negative on the stock. This means that over the past quarter there has been an increase of insiders selling their shares of NEO in relation to earlier this year. Last month, Steven C. Jones, a Director at NEO bought 125,000 shares for a total of $597,500.

TipRanks has tracked 36,000 company insiders and found that a few of them are better than others when it comes to timing their transactions. See which 3 stocks are most likely to make moves following their insider activities.

NeoGenomics, Inc. is a clinical laboratory, which specializes in cancer genetics diagnostic testing and pharma services. It operates through the following two segments: Clinical and Pharma Services. The Clinical Services segment offers clinical cancer testing services to community-based pathologists. The Pharma Services segments supports pharmaceutical firms in their drug development programs by supporting various clinical trials and research. The Clinical Services Segment provides various clinical testing services to community-based pathology practices, hospital pathology labs and academic centers with reimbursement from various payers including client direct billing, commercial insurance, Medicare and other government payers, and patients. The Pharma Services segment: provides comprehensive testing services in supports pharmaceutical clients oncology programs from discovery to commercialization. Its services include cytogenetics, fluorescence in-situ hybridization, flow cytometry, immunohistochemistry, anatomic pathology and molecular genetic testing. The company was founded by Michael T. Dent on October 29, 1998 and is headquartered in Fort Myers, FL.

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Needham Keeps a Buy Rating on NeoGenomics (NEO) - Analyst Ratings

Intensivists caution against the use of premature novel therapies in lieu of traditional critical care principles in patients with COVID-19 in a recent correspondence letter in the American Journal of Respiratory Cell and Molecular Biology.

In A Call for Rational Intensive Care in the Era of COVID-19, Benjamin Singer, MD, Assistant Professor of Medicine and Biochemistry & Molecular Genetics, Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Department of Medicine, at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, and co-authors write that the intensive care unit is already optimized for the care of COVID-19 patients and that departures from standard of care require evidence

The COVID-19 pandemic is unprecedented, resulting in a surge of critically ill patients that have tested the resources of medical centers around the country. The overwhelming patient demand and dwindling resources combined to trigger a cascade of emotions, stress, and fatigue. As hospital staff mobilize to meet the growing demand of COVID-19 patients, some clinicians are making note of a pattern that has emerged where proven interventions are neglected or even rejected.

Intensivists caution against novel therapies in lieu of traditional critical care principles. Credit: ATS

Dr. Singer, who is also associate editor of the American Journal of Respiratory Cell and Molecular Biology, argues that this is not the time to abandon reason. Instead, he calls for a rational approach to translating science to the bedside as we care for patients with severe COVID-19. We want to come out of the COVID-19 pandemic knowing what works and what doesnt work for severe viral pneumonia patients.

He added that physicians continuously learn from their patients by making observations and so far what theyve learned is that the most effective treatment for COVID-19 patients is supportive therapy. Until there are clinical trials that offer clear direction on a different treatment approach, state-of-the-art supportive care is the best option.

Off-label and off-study use of novel or repurposed therapeutics prevents potential benefits or harms from being clearly defined and puts some of our most vulnerable people at risk, cautioned Dr. Singer.

Reference: A Call for Rational Intensive Care in the Era of COVID-19 by Benjamin D. Singer, MD; Manu Jain, MD; G.R. Scott Budinger, MD and Richard G. Wunderink, MD, 21 April 2020, American Journal of Respiratory Cell and Molecular Biology.DOI: 10.1165/rcmb.2020-0151LE

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Clinicians Treating COVID-19 Warn: Dont Rush to Try Novel Therapies - SciTechDaily

As the UKs independent academy for science, the Royal Society seeks to promote excellence in science through its fellowships and foreign memberships. Each year, the Royal Society elects up to 52 new Fellows and up to 10 new Foreign Members, recognising scientists who have made substantial contributions to the improvement of knowledge in the sciences.

Professor Gordon Brown, Director of the MRC Centre for Medical Mycology at the University of Exeter, is an international leader in the fields of innate immunity and medical mycology. Professor Browns work is recognised for significantly advancing our understanding of host-pathogen interactions, and his research has helped to bring mycology into the mainstream interest of the immunology community.

Dr Francois Guillemot is a Senior Group Leader focused on molecular neurobiology at the Francis Crick Institute. Dr Guillemots Group aims to learn exactly how cells of the nervous system form, where and at what stage in development, in order to generate new ideas for therapies to treat brain disorders.

Professor Andrew Jackson is a clinical geneticist and Programme Leader at the MRC Human Genetics Unit at the University of Edinburgh and is the Deputy Chair of the MRC Molecular and Cellular Medicine Board. Professor Jacksons research has focussed on the identification of genes for inherited neurological disorders and in defining the functional role of the proteins they encode, in particular human disease genes acting in growth and inflammation, involved in fundamental cellular processes.

Dr William Schafer is a Group Leader in the Division of Neurobiology at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology. Dr Schafers research addresses basic questions about how ion channels and signaling molecules function in the context of neural circuitry to produce behaviour and he is recognised for being instrumental in developing optical approaches for measuring neural activity, and applying these methods to investigate how individual genes affect the activities of neurons in defined neural circuits, and how this impacts behaviour.

Visit the Royal Society website for a full list of the Fellows and Foreign Members elected in 2020.

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MRC scientists elected Fellows of the Royal Society - Cambridge Network

Clockwise from top left, Dmitri Basov, Lawrence Goldstein, Terence Hwa, Clifford Kubiak, Kimberly Prather

The National Academy of Sciences elected five professors affiliated with the University of California San Diego to membership in the prestigious National Academy of Sciences, one of the highest honors bestowed on U.S. scientists and engineers.

UC San Diego faculty members Dmitri Basov, Lawrence Goldstein, Terence Hwa, Clifford Kubiak, and Kimberly Prather whose work spans fields ranging from medicine and biological sciences to atmospheric chemistry and physics were recognized Monday in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research, according to the Academy. They were among 120 American scientists and 26 international members named this year.

For a young institution such as ours, having five professors inducted into the National Academy of Sciences speaks volumes of the innovative and visionary nature of this university and our well-respected and accomplished faculty, said UC San Diego Chancellor Pradeep K. Khosla. I am proud to see the career accomplishments of these five professors recognized on such a distinguished national platform, alongside the countrys other leading researchers.

This brings the total number of National Academy of Sciences members from UC San Diego to 86.

Dmitri Basov is an affiliated UC San Diego professor in the Department of Physics, where he served as chair between 2010 and 2015. He is also a Higgins professor in the Department of Physics at Columbia University, where he is the principal investigator of the Basov Infrared Laboratory, the director of the DOE Energy Frontiers Research Center on Programmable Quantum Materials and co-director of the Max Planck Society New York Center for Nonequilibrium Quantum Phenomena. His research interests include physics of quantum materials, superconductivity, two-dimensional materials and infrared nano-optics. Basov has received numerous prizes and awards including a Sloan Fellowship (1999), the Genzel Prize (2014), a Humboldt research award (2009), the Frank Isakson Prize, American Physical Society (2012), Moore Investigator (2014), the K.J. Button Prize (2019) and the Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowship (U.S. Department of Defense, 2019).

Basov earned his PhD at the Lebedev Physical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (1991). He served as postdoctoral research associate at McMaster University (1992-96) and as an assistant physicist at Brookhaven National Laboratory (1996) before joining UC San Diego.

Lawrence Goldstein, PhD, is Distinguished Professor in the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine and Department of Neurosciences in the UC San Diego School of Medicine. He founded and directed the UC San Diego Stem Cell Program and the Sanford Stem Cell Clinical Center at UC San Diego Health and is founding scientific director of the Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine. He was instrumental in the development and passage of Proposition 71 in 2004, which created an unprecedented $3 billion fund and infrastructure for stem cell medical research in California.

For more than 25 years, Goldsteins research focus has been to unravel how molecular motors interact with and control the behavior of axonal vesicles in neurons, and how defects in these processes underlie neurological conditions, such as Alzheimers disease (AD).In 2012, his lab was the first to create stem cell-derived in vitro neurons of sporadic and hereditary AD, giving researchers a much-needed method for studying the diseases causes and pathologies and a new tool for developing and testing drugs to treat a disorder that afflicts 5.4 million Americans.

More recently, this work has led to the identification of new cellular targets in AD drug development and a deeper understanding of AD genetics and disease progression. He is among the nations leading scientific figures in promoting AD research and evidence-based treatments.

Terence Hwa is the Presidential Chair and Distinguished Professor in the Department of Physics with a joint appointment in the Division of Biological Sciences. Trained in theoretical physics, Hwa launched a biology wet-lab 15 years ago and developed a unique quantitative approach to studying bacterial physiology. During this time, the Hwa Research Group established a number of bacterial growth laws and formulated a principle of proteomic resource allocation. This line of study culminated in a theory of bacterial growth control, accurately predicting bacterial behaviors and gene expression for a variety of environmental and genetic perturbations, and resolving a number of long-standing mysteries in microbiology. Hwas research team continues to extend its quantitative approaches to characterize bacterial species singly and in consortium, to uncover underlying principles governing the spatiotemporal dynamics of microbial communities.

Hwa is a champion of interdisciplinary research. In 2001, he launched an extended program at the Kavli Institute of Theoretical Physics in Santa Barbara, which has been regarded as a watershed event in bringing physicists to post-genome biology. He is also the founder and co-director of the Quantitative Biology specialization program at UC San Diego. Hwa received fellowships and awards from the Sloan, Beckman, Guggenheim and Burroughs-Wellcome Foundations, and is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Academy of Microbiology. Hwa received his PhD in physics from MIT. After postdoctoral research at Harvard University in condensed-matter physics, he joined UC San Diegos physics faculty in 1995.

Clifford Kubiak is a Distinguished Professor and former chair of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, who holds the Harold C. Urey Chair in Chemistry. His Kubiak Research Group at UC San Diego is especially known for its work on developing catalysts for the electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide. Kubiak is also a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Chemical Society (ACS). He has received several awards including the prestigious ACS Award in Organometallic Chemistry (2018), the Tolman Medal (2018), the Basolo Medal for Outstanding Research in Inorganic Chemistry (2015), the Inter-American Photochemical Society, Award in Photochemistry (2013) and the ACS Award in Inorganic Chemistry (2012). Kubiak has held visiting appointments at Tohoku University, University of Chicago and University of Erlangen, and he was a visiting associate in chemistry at the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis at Caltech. He has served on the Editorial Advisory Boards of Accounts of Chemical Research, Inorganic Chemistry and Materials Science in Semiconductor Processing. He is the author of more than 290 scientific articles.

Before joining UC San Diego in 1998, Kubiak was a faculty member at Purdue University (1982-98). Before that he was a postdoctoral associate with Mark S. Wrighton at MIT (1980-81). He received his PhD in chemistry from the University of Rochester (1980), where he worked with Richard Eisenberg.

Kimberly Prather is a Distinguished Professor who holds a joint appointment between UC San Diegos Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. Prathers research focuses on understanding the influence of atmospheric aerosols on clouds, human health, and climate. Early in her career, she developed a technique known as aerosol time-of-flight mass spectrometry that is widely used in atmospheric field studies around the world to determine the origin and chemistry of aerosols. She is the founding director of the National Science Foundation Center for Aerosol Impacts on Chemistry of the Environment (CAICE), the largest federally funded center in the history of UC San Diego. CAICE researchers replicate ocean/atmosphere interactions in a laboratory setting to study the influence of ocean biology on atmospheric chemistry, clouds, and climate.

Prather joined UC San Diego in 2001. She was elected as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a fellow of the American Geophysical Union in 2010. In 2019, she became the first woman at UC San Diego to be elected as a member of the National Academy of Engineering. Previously this year, she won the 2020 Frank H. Field and Joe L. Franklin Award for Outstanding Achievement in Mass Spectrometry from the American Chemical Society. She received her PhD in chemistry from the University of California, Davis.

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Five UC San Diego Professors Elected to National Academy of Sciences - UC San Diego Health

The human body is composed of billions of cells, each of which is made and maintained through countless interactions among its molecular parts. But which interactions sustain health and which ones can cause disease when they go awry?

The human genome project has provided us with a parts list for the cell, but only if we can understand how these parts go together, or interact, can we really begin to understand how the cell works and what goes wrong in disease.

To answer these questions, scientists needed a reference map of interactionsan interactome between gene-encoded proteins, which make up cells and do most of the work in them.

Almost a decade in the making, the human protein map is now available thanks to a joint effort, involving over 80 researchers in the United States, Canada, Spain, Belgium, France and Israel, led byMarc Vidal,David HillandMichael Calderwood, at the Center for Cancer Systems Biology (CCSB) at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, andFrederick Roth, a professor of molecular genetics and computer science at U of Ts Donnelly Centre.

The largest of its kind, the human reference interactome (HuRI) map charts 52,569 interactions between 8,275 human proteins, as described in astudypublished inNature.

Humans have about 20,000 protein-coding genes but scientists still know remarkably little about most of the proteins they encode. Fortunately, this information can be gleaned from interaction data thanks to the guilt by association principle, according to which two proteins that have similar interacting partners are likely involved in similar biological processes.

People can look up their favourite protein and get clues about its function from the proteins it interacts with.

The data are already revealing new cellular roles for human proteinsinvolved in programmed cell death, release of cellular cargo and other essential processes, for example.

And, by integrating protein interaction data with tissue-specific gene expression, the teams have been able to identify protein networks behind the development and maintenance of different tissues, revealing new therapeutic targets for diverse diseases.

Furthermore, using HuRI as a reference, they were also able to see how disease-causing protein variants bring about network rewiring to reveal molecular mechanisms behind those particular disorders.

Genome sequencing can identify the variants carried by an individual that make them susceptible to disease, but it doesnt reveal how the disease is caused, says Calderwood. Changes in the interactions of a protein is one possible mechanism of disease, and this map provides a starting point to study the impact of disease associated variants on protein-protein interactions.

The Toronto and Boston teams previously did two smaller studies mapping a total of ~14,000 protein interactions. Now HuRI has interrogated proteins encoded by nearly all human protein-coding genes and expanded the map four-fold.

To create HuRI, the researchers co-expressed in pairs almost all human proteins in yeast cells. When the two proteins interact, or bind one another, they form a molecular switch which boosts yeast cell growtha sign that an interaction has occurred.

The team tested all possible pairwise combinations among 17,500 proteins for their ability to interact with each other in three separate versions of a yeast-based assay, each done in triplicate, amounting to a staggering three billion separate tests. The results yielded ~53,000 high-confidence binary interactions between more than 8,000 proteins, which were verified by other methods. The majority of interactions had never been detected before.

Although the largest map of its kind to date, the map remains incomplete, representing between 2-11 per cent of all human protein interactions. Roth said that one reason why many interactions were missed is probably because yeast cells lack certain human-specific molecular factors that are needed for proper protein function.

Despite these limitations, HuRI has more than tripled the number of known interactions between human proteins and will serve as an important resource for the research community. Already 15,000 people have visited the data web portal, which was built byMiles Mee,Mohamed Helmy, andGary Bader, also a professor in the Donnelly Centre, since HuRI was made available on bioRxiv, an open-source online publisher, in April 2019.

We already had lots of people download the whole dataset and so I imagine well see the iteration of our previous paper, which has already been cited over 800 times and it is less than a third of the size of HuRI, says Roth.

The research was primarily supported by the National Institutes of Healths National Human Genome Research Institute, but had additional support internationally from other sources.

Reference: Luck et al. (2020).A reference map of the human binary protein interactome. Nature.DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2188-x.

This article has been republished from the following materials. Note: material may have been edited for length and content. For further information, please contact the cited source.

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Largest Map of Protein Connections Holds Clues to Health and Disease - Technology Networks

SALT LAKE CITY, April 08, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Myriad Genetics, Inc. (MYGN), a global leader in personalized medicine, announced today that due to the impact of the global COVID-19 pandemic, the company is withdrawing its fiscal year 2020 financial guidance.

Prior to mid-March we were experiencing volume trends consistent with our expectations across all products; however, recent social distancing guidelines have had a significant impact on test volume trends in late March and into the fiscal fourth-quarter, said R. Bryan Riggsbee, interim president and CEO and chief financial officer at Myriad Genetics. Our priority as an organization during the coronavirus pandemic has been to maintain business continuity and access to testing, while ensuring the safety of our employees and customers. As an organization we have taken steps to advance these dual aims, and I am very proud of how the Myriad team has responded to the crisis.

In responding to the pandemic, Myriad has made several changes to its business practices to promote the safety of both customers and employees including ceasing in-office sales calls and implementing virtual selling, granting all non-essential personnel the ability to work from home, enabling direct sample collection for patients and implementing policies to improve laboratory personnel safety.

While the uncertain timeframe of the Coronavirus pandemic makes it difficult to predict future business trends for the company, the company will provide an update on its business, including the impact of COVID-19, on its next quarterly earnings call.

About Myriad GeneticsMyriad Genetics, Inc. is a leading personalized medicine company dedicated to being a trusted advisor transforming patient lives worldwide with pioneering molecular diagnostics. Myriad discovers and commercializes molecular diagnostic tests that determine the risk of developing disease, accurately diagnose disease, assess the risk of disease progression, and guide treatment decisions across six major medical specialties where molecular diagnostics can significantly improve patient care and lower healthcare costs. Myriad is focused on three strategic imperatives: transitioning and expanding its hereditary cancer testing markets, diversifying its product portfolio through the introduction of new products and increasing the revenue contribution from international markets. For more information on how Myriad is making a difference, please visit the Company's website: http://www.myriad.com.

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Myriad, the Myriad logo, BART, BRACAnalysis, Colaris, Colaris AP, myPath, myRisk, Myriad myRisk, myRisk Hereditary Cancer, myChoice, myPlan, BRACAnalysis CDx, Tumor BRACAnalysis CDx, myChoice HRD, Vectra, Prequel, ForeSight, GeneSight and Prolaris are trademarks or registered trademarks of Myriad Genetics, Inc. or its wholly owned subsidiaries in the United States and foreign countries. MYGN-F, MYGN-G.

Safe Harbor StatementThis press release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements relating to maintaining the Companys global leadership in precision medicine and the Company's strategic directives under the caption "About Myriad Genetics." These "forward-looking statements" are based on management's present expectations of future events and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially and adversely from those described or implied in the forward-looking statements. These risks include, but are not limited to: the risk that sales and profit margins of the Companys existing molecular diagnostic tests and pharmaceutical and clinical services may decline or will not continue to increase at historical rates; risks related to the Companys ability to successfully transition from its existing product portfolio to our new tests; risks related to changes in the governmental or private insurers reimbursement levels for the Companys tests or the Companys ability to obtain reimbursement for its new tests at comparable levels to its existing tests; risks related to increased competition and the development of new competing tests and services; the risk that the Company may be unable to develop or achieve commercial success for additional molecular diagnostic tests and pharmaceutical and clinical services in a timely manner, or at all; the risk that the Company may not successfully develop new markets for its molecular diagnostic tests and pharmaceutical and clinical services, including the Companys ability to successfully generate revenue outside the United States; the risk that licenses to the technology underlying the Companys molecular diagnostic tests and pharmaceutical and clinical services tests and any future tests are terminated or cannot be maintained on satisfactory terms; risks related to delays or other problems with operating the Companys laboratory testing facilities; risks related to public concern over the Companys genetic testing in general or the Companys tests in particular; risks related to regulatory requirements or enforcement in the United States and foreign countries and changes in the structure of the healthcare system or healthcare payment systems; risks related to the Companys ability to obtain new corporate collaborations or licenses and acquire new technologies or businesses on satisfactory terms, if at all; risks related to the Companys ability to successfully integrate and derive benefits from any technologies or businesses that it licenses or acquires; risks related to the Companys projections about the potential market opportunity for the Companys products; the risk that the Company or its licensors may be unable to protect or that third parties will infringe the proprietary technologies underlying the Companys tests; the risk of patent-infringement claims or challenges to the validity of the Companys patents; risks related to changes in intellectual property laws covering the Companys molecular diagnostic tests and pharmaceutical and clinical services and patents or enforcement in the United States and foreign countries, such as the Supreme Court decisions Mayo Collab. Servs. v. Prometheus Labs., Inc., 566 U.S. 66 (2012), Assn for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, Inc., 569 U.S. 576 (2013), and Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank Intl, 573 U.S. 208 (2014); risks of new, changing and competitive technologies and regulations in the United States and internationally; the risk that the Company may be unable to comply with financial operating covenants under the Companys credit or lending agreements; the risk that the Company will be unable to pay, when due, amounts due under the Companys credit or lending agreements; and other factors discussed under the heading "Risk Factors" contained in Item 1A of the Companys most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, as well as any updates to those risk factors filed from time to time in the Companys Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q or Current Reports on Form 8-K. All information in this press release is as of the date of the release, and Myriad undertakes no duty to update this information unless required by law.

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Myriad Withdrawing Financial Guidance for FY2020 Due to Business Impact from Coronavirus Pandemic - Yahoo Finance

A team of researchers at Sinai Health Systemand the University of Toronto is in the early stages of developing a blood test that can identify who is immune to COVID-19 on a mass scale.

The test is an adaptation of an ELISA assay (enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay)and has the potential to enable hospitals and other institutions to screen up to 10,000 samples at once, allowing entire workforces to be tested efficiently.

The blood-based test, whichthe team hopes to test on volunteers within the next two weeks, does not directly detect the live virus and is not intended to replace current tests for infection.

Anne-Claude Gingras, project co-lead, said the test works by detecting antibodies in the immune system of infected patients. Those antibodies persist in blood even after the virus has been completely eliminated.

The entire city has come together to make this possible, said Gingras, a senior investigator at Sinai Healths Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute (LTRI) and a professor of molecular genetics at U of T. This test is being developed with the goal of monitoring the percentage of the population that has been infected and to help in identifying those individuals that may have protective immunity.

The project is a collaboration between Gingras and Jeff Wrana, also a senior investigator at LTRI and a professor of molecular genetics at U of T, and other researchers from the Faculty of Medicine.

The team includes James Rini, a professor of biochemistry and molecular genetics who was key to producing proteins for the assay, and Professors Jennifer Gommerman and Mario Ostrowski from the department of immunology, who helped supply samples from pre-pandemic subjects as well as patients infected early in the pandemic who have since recovered.

The new ELISA test can provide valuable information about the spread of SARS-CoV-2 in Canada, said Karen Maxwell, an assistant professor of biochemistry who is helping to co-ordinate COVID-19 research at U of T.

This test will allow us to track the true spread and magnitude of the disease, Maxwell said. Determining who has been infected and has antibodies will be important information for making decisions about how and when we return to our normal activities.

The test will make use of the robotics platform at LTRI. Jim Woodgett, director of research at LTRI and a professor of medical biophysics at U of T, said such advances are possible thanks to close collaboration between scientists across institutions.

Sinai Health and the University of Toronto are ideally positioned to develop this critically important antibody-based test, Woodgett said. This research group is eager to contribute in any way possible to help Canada overcome this historic public health challenge.

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Researchers at U of T, Sinai Health working on blood test to screen thousands for COVID-19 immunity - News@UofT

UCTV roundtable explores the biological roots and spread of the global SARS-CoV-2 virus

Of the hundreds of coronaviruses known to exist, many are relatively harmless. Coronaviruses infect your nose, sinuses and upper throat but often result in nothing more than a common cold (see Know Your Coronaviruses).

So what makes the new SARS-CoV-2, the virus that has caused a global pandemic, such a society-altering threat?

Probing the biological basis of the novel virus and evolutionary spread of the COVID-19 disease it causes, a panel of UC San Diego biologists gathered for a special roundtable analysis hosted by UCTV. The program is available here: A Deep Look into the Biology and Evolution of COVID-19.

Roundtable moderator Suresh Subramani, distinguished professor emeritus in the Division of Biological Sciences and director of the Tata Institute for Genetics and Society, framed the program by highlighting three major areas of concern surrounding the pandemic and how it impacts our daily lives: the rapid spread of the virus over the past three months; the ominous morbidity and mortality rates of the disease, which threaten to overwhelm global health care systems; and the immense reservoir of carriers of the disease.

Dissecting COVID-19: Biology Professor Opens Infectious Disease Course to Public Audiences

It is estimated that there may be tenfold more asymptomatic carriers of the disease, which means that there could be over seven-and-a-half million carriers worldwide, said Subramani. This is a disease that is spreading very rapidly across the globe, so these faculty are here to share their knowledge regarding the biology of the virus and why this pandemic has brought the world to its knees.

Emily Troemel, a professor who studies host-pathogen interactions in the Section of Cell and Developmental Biology, kicked off the discussion by describing basic biological aspects of coronaviruses, including how health workers test for the presence of SARS-CoV-2 infection and facets scientists have learned about the virus genome.

Coronaviruses, as Troemel noted, feature RNA-based genomes, unlike most of life on the planet, which feature DNA genomes. RNA genomes in coronaviruses are positive-sense, which are similar to the cells own messenger RNA and allows these viruses to immediately hijack the protein synthesis machinery of host cells. This feature enables these viruses to quickly and effectively take over host cells and rapidly expand.

Knowing that it has RNA in its genome helps us understand how we test for the presence of coronavirus, said Troemel. In addition, we are able to look at changes in the sequence in the viral genome and thats enabling us to track the spread of this virus around the globe. We can learn about how the biology of the virus is changing and how it may be altering the way it interacts with host cells, and also potentially different ways that we could treat it. Its part of an amazing open science effort with an unprecedented level of information acquisition and information sharing among researchers.

Credit: iStock.com/ChakisAtelier

Matt Daugherty, an assistant professor in the Section of Molecular Biology, studies the evolutionary arms race that pits the immune systems of hosts on one hand and pathogens on the other. He covered aspects such as how SARS-CoV-2 and other viruses enter the human population and become pandemics; how SARS-CoV-2 relates to past and present epidemic viruses in the human population; and, based on what scientists have learned from other viruses, what we can expect in terms of long-term immunity and co-existence with SARS-CoV-2.

We as a species are always being exposed to viruses, Daugherty noted.

Since SARS-CoV-2 is so new, there are many key unknowns related to human immune defenses against it, Daugherty said. Even with coronaviruses that cause common colds, its unclear whether humans develop long-term immunity to these viruses or need to continually develop new immunities.

One thing I take comfort in with all of these other viruses is knowing that we arent constantly dealing with influenza pandemics and other pandemic viruses, and thats because of the largely effective role of our immune system in dealing with these viruses once the immune system has been prepared, said Daugherty.

For a virus that originated in an animal species to successfully infect humans, it needs to adapt to a range of genetic differences between the original host species and humans. But effective vaccines can ultimately thwart such pathogens.

We have really good ways of making effective vaccines, and the hope is that this will hold for SARS-CoV-2 as well, said Daugherty. I take some comfort in knowing that these types of pandemics do pass and we will get through this.

Justin Meyer, an assistant professor in the Section of Ecology, Behavior and Evolution, discussed concepts related to science and societys ability to predict future pandemics. These include variables that contribute to the spread of pathogens; the increased likelihood of future pandemics; and predictions for where the next pandemic is likely to occur.

Factors that boost the risk of pandemics include human exposure to pathogens through meat consumption and contact with wild animals, increased human encroachment in wild areas and the exotic animal trade. Increased urbanizationmore people living in close proximity means more opportunities for viruses to spreadand the rising consequences of climate change, also increase pandemic risks.

Were augmenting the temperature of the earth and environments in a way that were making ourselves more susceptible to diseases, said Meyer. When we warm the earth, we create more habitats for mosquitoes that carry vectors like malaria by increasing their range. They can spread to new human populations..... By increasing temperatures, were increasing flooding and there are many pathogens that are waterborne, such as cholera, which we will be exposing more and more people to.

During the roundtable discussion, Subramani prompted the scientists with a handful of questions, including: Since many coronaviruses are relatively harmless, what makes SARS-CoV-2 so damaging to the lungs? What is the appropriate vaccine target for SARS-CoV-2 and in what time framefrom validation to FDA approvalis a vaccine likely? Can we look to drug targets where vaccines have been developed for related viruses and would that timeline be the same? Is there any evidence that SARS-CoV-2 has a mutation rate that is extraordinarily high?

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A Deep Look into the Biology and Evolution of COVID-19 - UC San Diego Health

Once dismissed as a conspiracy theory, the notion that the new coronavirus spread from a research lab in Wuhan, China has gained more mainstream backing in academia, the media, and at least one government.

There is a credible alternative view based on the nature of the virus, a senior British government official told The Daily Mail. Perhaps it is no coincidence that there is that laboratory in Wuhan. It is not discounted.

Authorities around the world say Wuhan, the capital of Chinas Hubei province, is where the new coronavirus that causes the disease COVID-19 originated.

A South China University of Technology report from February says: the killer coronavirus probably originated from a laboratory in Wuhan.

David Ignatius, a liberal columnist with The Washington Post, presented the plausibility that a lab worker spread the virus; other media outlets quoted medical experts affirming the same possibility.

Still, there is much skepticism.

Wuhan has 11 million people. Its likely they have several labs experimenting on animals and researching diseases, Dean Cheng, senior research fellow for Asian studies at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal. We [the United States] have labs across the country working on various diseases.

Cheng also contended that Chinas own conduct of message shifting, denial, and blame only helped the spread of rumors and conspiracy theories as well as the coronavirus.

China started by saying, Nothing to say here, and pushed implausible statements, Cheng said.

After a tragic occurrence, humans have a tendency to search for conspiracy theories, said Thomas Spoehr, a retired Army lieutenant general who directs the Center for National Defense at The Heritage Foundation.

We should look for the simplest explanation, and believing this escaped from a lab is not the simplest explanation, Spoehr told The Daily Signal. Like other forms of influenza, this mutated into something unfortunate.

Spoehr said Chinese government officials did invite suspicion with their actions.

Like a witness at a trial that has a reputation for not being truthful and honest with facts, a jury is not likely to believe them, Spoehr said. In this case, people are more likely to assume the worst about China and believe [the new coronavirus] started in a lab.

Here are four things to know about the Wuhan lab theory.

First, what its almost certainly not.

Although early internet gossip pushed the coronavirus as a biological weapon engineered in a Chinese lab, many experts say there is no credible evidence of that.

A study in mid-March by Scripps Research, published by the journal Nature Medicine, strongly states that COVID-19also referred to as SARS-CoV-2follows the natural process similar to related strains of coronavirus.

This evidence for natural evolution was supported by data on SARS-CoV-2s backboneits overall molecular structure, a statement from Scripps Research says, adding:

If someone were seeking to engineer a new coronavirus as a pathogen, they would have constructed it from the backbone of a virus known to cause illness. But the scientists found that the SARS-CoV-2 backbone differed substantially from those of already known coronaviruses and mostly resembled related viruses found in bats and pangolins.

A leading expert on bioweapons is definitive on the matter.

There is no evidence whatsoever that this is a bioweapon or that it was accidentally released from the Wuhan lab, said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research Policy at the University of Minnesota and author of Living Terrors: What Our Country Needs to Survive the Coming Bioterrorist Catastrophe.

Today, with the genetics we have on these viruses and how we can do testing, we can almost date them almost like carbon testing so radiocarbon and you want to know how old a block is or something like that, Osterholm said during an interview in March on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast.

Osterholm said the new coronavirus clearly jumped from an animal species, probably the third week of November to humans.

I dont believe that theres any evidence linking this to an intentional release or an accidental release, or that its an engineered bug. Its not, he said.

But the theory that the coronavirus came from an animal does not entirely back up the prevailing wisdom that the virus originated in a wet market in Wuhan, according to recent studies.

About 1.5 million cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed around the world, with 100,000 deaths. The U.S. government has projected at least 100,000 deaths in America before the pandemic passes.

But far deadlier pathogens exist. If the Chinese wanted to develop a biological weapon, Cheng said, its likely its communist government would have aimed for something far more lethal than COVID-19.

The prevailing wisdom that the virus was spread by people who ate contaminated animals at the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan, Ignatius wrote in the Post, is shaky.

He noted that bats werent sold at the seafood market, although that market or others could have sold animals that had contact with bats.

Wuhan authorities closed that seafood market and disinfected it without swabbing individual animals and cages, or drawing blood from workers, according to The New York Times.

It is absolutely clear the market had no connection with the origin of the outbreak virus, and, instead, only was involved in amplification of an outbreak that had started elsewhere in Wuhan almost a full month earlier, Richard Ebright, a Rutgers University professor of chemistry and chemical biology, told CNN.

A study published Jan. 24 found that the early coronavirus cases were not connected to the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan. The study was published in February by The Lancet, a weekly peer-reviewed medical journal.

The study found that the first case was reported Dec. 1, 2019 by an elderly man who had no contact with the Huanan Seafood Market.

One of the reports co-authors, Wu Wenjuan, a senior doctor at Wuhans Jinyintan Hospital, reportedly said the man had Alzheimers disease, lived four or five buses from the seafood market, and because he was sick he basically didnt go out.

Research labs exist close to the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan, prompting what Ignatius referred to as a competing theory.

Less than 300 yards from the seafood market is the Wuhan branch of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Ignatius wrote in the Post:

Researchers from that facility and the nearby Wuhan Institute of Virology have posted articles about collecting bat coronaviruses from around China, for study to prevent future illness. Did one of those samples leak, or was hazardous waste deposited in a place where it could spread?

COVID-19 also could have occurred as a laboratory accident, with, for example, an accidental infection of a laboratory worker, Ebright, of Rutgers University, told the Post columnist.

Coronaviruses in bats were being studied in Wuhan only at Biosafety Level 2, which provides only minimal protection, Ebright said. Biosafety Level 4 is the highest level of security.

In a December video from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention lab, staffers are seen collecting bat coronaviruses with inadequate [personal protective equipment] and unsafe operational practices, the Rutgers microbiologist is quoted as saying in the Post.

Cheng noted that COVID-19 is a new strain of coronavirus, and that Chinese researchers likely didnt anticipate the need for the highest security level.

We could require a SWAT team every time you make a police call just as you could always have maximum security in labs, but it would become very costly, Cheng said.

In the interview with CNN, Ebright said, The possibility that the virus entered humans through a laboratory accident cannot and should not be dismissed.

Ebright stressed that there were no signatures of human manipulation, but said a lab worker might have contracted the disease and accidentally spread it.

Chinese news articles from 2017 and 2019 described in heroic terms how Wuhan CDC researcher Tian Junhua, capturing bats in a cave, forgot to take protective measures and that bat urine dripped from the top of his head like raindrops, Ignatius wrote, quoting the articles.

ResearchGate published the South China University of Technology study, which said: It is plausible that the virus leaked around and some of them [lab workers] contaminated the initial patients in this epidemic, though solid proofs are needed in future study.

The study concluded:

In summary, somebody was entangled with the evolution of 2019-nCoV coronavirus. In addition to origins of natural recombination and intermediate host, the killer coronavirus probably originated from a laboratory in Wuhan. Safety level may need to be reinforced in high risk biohazardous laboratories. Regulations may be taken to relocate these laboratories far away from city center[s] and other densely populated places.

One of the Wuhan CDC researchers quarantined himself after being exposed to bat blood, and also found a tick on the bat that could have spread the disease, according to the university report.

At a time when China was suppressing information on COVID-19, the authors withdrew the report.

The Wall Street Journal reported in February that co-author Botao Xiao said he had withdrawn the paper because, The speculation about the possible origins in the post was based on published papers and media, and was not supported by direct proofs.

Aside from any evidence about starting in a labanecdotal or otherwiseChinas early response to the coronavirus may have been a reason that suspicion spread more quickly than the disease itself.

The misinformation from delayed what would have been an early response from the international community. Later, mid-level Chinese government officials accused the U.S. Army of planting the virus in Wuhan.

Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., was one of the earliest members of Congress to raise alarm about the coronavirus.

Cottons office wasnt ready to weigh in on the origins of the virus or whether Congress would investigate. But the senator said China is responsible for spreading misinformation about COVID-19.

China must be held accountable for unleashing this plague on the world, Cotton told The Daily Signal in a written statement, noting he has introduced legislation to do just that.

In early January, eight Chinese doctorsincluding Dr. Li Wenliangwarned about the coronavirus. The government brought them in for questioning and condemned them for making false statements.

Also in early January, Chinas National Health Commission directed that COVID-19 samples from Wuhan be removed and destroyed, Caixin Global reported.

Also that month, the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission stopped releasing daily updates of new COVID-19cases, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Government officials and state-run media later shifted the message, raising questions as to whether the virus originated in China or elsewhere.

The World Health Organization parroted many of the Chinese propaganda points in its slow response to the disease. This prompted a likely congressional investigation of WHO.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration is considering defunding WHO for its botched response to the original outbreak.

Asked Wednesday at a press briefing whether China withheld critical information, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo avoided a direct answer.

You know, this is not the time for retribution, but it is still the time for clarity and transparency, Pompeo said, adding:

Were still working on this problem set. Theres still data that these good people need so that they can perform their analysis of how to both develop therapeutics and a vaccine and to understand where this virus is. So, every country, China included, every country needs to be transparent about whats gone on in their country.

But Pompeo added of the virus: It started in China, and so they had that special responsibility to get it right quickly and fast.

After a tragic occurrence, there is a tendency to search for conspiracy theories, said Thomas Spoehr a former former Army lieutenant general and now the director of Center for National Defense at The Heritage Foundation.

We should look for the simplest explanation and believing this escaped from a lab is not the simplest explanation, Spoehr told The Daily Signal. Like other forms of influenza, this mutated into something unfortunate.

Spoehr said China did invite the suspicion.

Like a witness at a trial that has a reputation for not being truthful and honest with facts, a jury is not likely to believe them, Spoehr said. In this case, people are more likely to assume the worst about China and believe it started in a lab.

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Could COVID-19 Have Come From Chinese Lab? 4 Things to Know - Daily Signal