Culture

In a policy brief published today in its namesake journal (DOI: 10.1111/jgs.16477), the American Geriatrics Society (AGS) offered a roadmap to guide federal, state, and local governments addressing COVID-19 concerns for a critical--and critically impacted--group: Older adults in nursing homes and long-term care. The brief outlined recommendations based on the latest research and guidance, encompassing actions on resource needs, patient transfers, priorities for public health, and opportunities to better empower health workers on the frontlines of COVID-19 care.

"As we've already learned, outbreaks in nursing homes are a foreseeable consequence of this pandemic, even with experts working as valiantly as they are," notes AGS President-Elect Annie Medina-Walpole, MD, AGSF. "We hope this brief can help policymakers, advocates, and clinicians look at but also beyond the circumstances we can control--and those we can't--to prioritize the innovation, collaboration, and compassion that can put key patients and public health first. That's a cardinal direction for planning in crisis and in calm, for nursing home residents but also for us all as we age."

More than 15,000 nursing homes care for the oldest and most chronically ill Americans, who are also among the most susceptible to COVID-19 and its complications. In reviewing existing research and recommendations, the AGS suggested orienting expertise towards several focal points where tangible action can make a difference:

The AGS called for President Trump to exercises his full authority under the Defense Production Act so the U.S. can move quickly to increase production and distribution of important supplies. These include personal protective equipment and COVID-19 tests, but also supplies for symptom management and end-of-life care.

The AGS reinforced the importance of carefully considering transfers between nursing homes, hospitals, and other care settings. AGS experts noted, for example, that individuals who test positive for COVID-19 should not be discharged to a nursing home unless the facility can safely and effectively isolate the patient and implement adequate infection control for staff and residents. The AGS also urged the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to develop guidance regarding transfers to emergency departments, where direction is still needed.

According to AGS experts, more also must be done to integrate key players in public health. These include geriatrics and palliative care experts with the requisite skills in advanced illness care, but also nursing home administrators and those with experience in local coordination and data analysis, which must include information from nursing homes--a key to confronting COVID-19 in communities across the U.S.

The AGS also reinforced the importance of supporting health professionals, our nation's frontline defense for treating and preventing the spread of COVID-19. The AGS encouraged Congress to advance paid family, medical, and sick leave for the whole health workforce, for example, while also enhancing COVID-19 screening and training to protect staff availability.

Finally, as part of ongoing efforts to protect America's economy, the AGS reminded legislators to consider the value of supportive tax relief and payment opportunities targeting long-term care. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), for example, should ensure payment to nursing homes caring for residents with COVID-19 can meet the costs of enhanced precautions, just as Congress should also structure tax relief to support nursing home employers and the nurses, therapists, and direct care workers who care for older adults.

Improper removal of faulty brain cells during neurodevelopment may cause lifelong behavioral issues, new research from the University of Virginia School of Medicine suggests. The finding also could have important implications for a wide range of neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

UVA neuroscientists have discovered that an unexpected form of cellular cleanup takes place in developing brains. If this process goes wrong - happening too little or too much - it can cause permanent changes in the brain's wiring. In lab mice, this results in anxiety-like behavior, and it may play a role in neurological conditions such as autism in humans.

"You don't want [brain] cells to have genomic compromises. You don't want damaged DNA. So this would be a normal mechanism to expel those cells from being incorporated into the central nervous system," explained researcher Catherine R. Lammert. "When the damage isn't recognized, the cells that have DNA damage live on in the CNS [central nervous system] and can be seen by accumulation of DNA damage in the brain."

Understanding Brain Development

The cellular cleaner the researchers spotted, the AIM2 inflammasome, has been associated primarily with the body's immune response to infections but has not been extensively studied in the brain. But there it plays a critical role in ensuring the developing brain is assembled properly and functions correctly, Lammert discovered in collaboration with principal investigator John Lukens, PhD.

"Neurodevelopment is a very complicated process," said Lammert, a graduate student whose specialized skills were instrumental in the discovery. "This form of cell death actually plays a role in removing unwanted cells from the brain to establish a healthy CNS with the correct connections and the right number of cells."

More than half the neurons created during brain development end up dying, so proper cleanup is essential, noted Lukens, of UVA's Department of Neuroscience. "Too much or too little is thought to underlie everything from autism to intellectual disability - any type of neurodevelopmental disorder," he said.

For example, ataxia is a condition that causes people to lose control of their movements. "There's a potential that this pathway could be contributing to the neuronal loss that is seen in ataxia," said Lukens, a researcher with UVA's Center for Brain Immunology and Glia (BIG). "On the one hand, you need it [the cleanup] but if you have too much of it, it can have negative consequences, like, potentially, ataxia. A lot of the early-onset neurodegenerative diseases are associated with mutations in DNA damage repair proteins, and this pathway could also be involved."

The discovery came about somewhat serendipitously, the result of an observation of the behavior of lab mice while the researchers were investigating traumatic brain injury. But following that unexpected lead has given scientists a better understanding of brain development, and that understanding may one day yield new treatments for neurological diseases.

Lukens, a member of UVA's Carter Immunology Center, cautioned that such treatments are likely a long way off, but he said a therapy based on the discovery might have widespread applications. "Hitting this pathway in the mature brain would likely provide a treatment strategy for any neurodegenerative disease associated with DNA damage," he said. "And that's all the major heavy hitters: Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's, ALS."

The Belle II experiment has been collecting data from physical measurements for about one year now. After several years of rebuilding work, both the SuperKEKB electron-positron accelerator and the Belle II detector have been improved compared with their predecessors in order to achieve a 40-fold higher data rate. Scientists at 12 German research institutions are involved in constructing and operating the detector, developing evaluation algorithms, and analyzing the data. Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) supported this project by developing and programming special electronics for monitoring the pixel vertex detector.

With the help of Belle II, scientists are looking for traces of new physics that can be used to explain the unequal occurrence of matter and anti-matter and the mysterious dark matter. One of the so far undiscovered particles that the Belle II detector is looking for is the Z? boson - a variant of the Z boson, which acts as an exchange particle for the weak interaction.

As far as we know, about 25 percent of the universe consists of dark matter, whereas visible matter accounts for just under 5 percent of the energy budget. Both forms of matter attract each other through gravity. Dark matter thus forms a kind of template for the distribution of visible matter. This can be seen, for example, in the arrangement of galaxies in the universe.

Link between dark and normal matter

The Z' boson may play an interesting role in the interaction between dark and visible matter, it could be in fact a kind of mediator between the two forms of matter). The Z' boson can - at least theoretically - result from the collision of electrons (matter) and positrons (anti-matter) in the SuperKEKB and then decay into invisible dark matter particles.

The Z' boson can thus help scientists to understand the behavior of dark matter. What's more, the discovery of the Z' boson could also explain other observations that are not consistent with the Standard Model, the fundamental theory of particle physics.

Important clue: Detection of muon pairs

But how can the Z' boson be detected in the Belle II detector? Not directly - that much is sure. Theoretical models and simulations predict that the Z' boson could reveal itself through interactions with muons, the heavier relatives of electrons. If scientists discover an unusually high number of muon pairs of opposite charge after the electron/positron collisions as well as unexpected deviations in energy and momentum conservation, this would be an important indication of the Z? boson. However, the new Belle II data has not yet provided any indication of the Z? boson. But with the new data, the scientists can limit the mass and coupling strengths of the Z? boson with previously unattainable accuracy.

These initial results come from the analysis of a small amount of data collected during the start-up phase of SuperKEKB in 2018. Belle II went into full operation on March 25, 2019. Since then, the experiment has been collecting data while continuously improving the collision rate of electrons and positrons. Once the experiment is perfectly tuned, it will provide considerably more data than in the recently published analyses. The physicists thus hope to gain new insights into the nature of dark matter and other unanswered questions.

Irvine, Calif. - April 8, 2020 - Amyloid is a key feature of Alzheimer's disease, but the accumulation of these sticky proteins may not be the only risk factor for developing Alzheimer's disease, according to a new study published this week. Other, modifiable risk factors, such as the amount of fats in our blood and how efficiently our bodies generate energy could also play important roles.

One of the largest studies of Alzheimer's disease (AD) in people with Down Syndrome (DS-AD), this study revealed metabolic alterations in DS-AD are similar to those seen in late onset Alzheimer's disease (LOAD) found in the general population.

"We found that people with Down Syndrome, who also have Alzheimer's disease, show a deficit in energy metabolism that is similar to people with Alzheimer's disease in the general population," said first author, Mark Mapstone, PhD, from the Department of Neurology at the UCI School of Medicine and member of UCI's Institute for Memory Impairments and Neurological Disorders (UCI MIND). "These findings suggest that the amyloid accumulation, which occurs from birth in Down Syndrome, may not be the only factor determining Alzheimer's risk."

The study, one of the first large-scale blood-based investigation of metabolic factors associated with aging and cognitive status in adults with Down Syndrome and Alzheimer's disease was published today in the Alzheimer's Association journal, Alzheimer's & Dementia: Diagnosis, Assessment & Disease Monitoring. It was based on a large cohort of adults with Down Syndrome who were enrolled in the Alzheimer's Biomarker Consortium-Down Syndrome (ABC-DS), a multi-site, longitudinal cohort study of adults with DS over age 25.

"Disruption of metabolic function is a recognized feature of late onset Alzheimer's disease," said Mapstone. "Our discovery could open new avenues for preventing this metabolic deficit in all people at risk for the disease.

Down Syndrome is the most common neurodevelopmental disorder affecting over 250,000 individuals in United States. People with Down Syndrome have a very high risk of developing Alzheimer's disease and nearly all have the brain pathology (amyloid plaques) of Alzheimer's at death.

"Their risk is thought to come from the fact that they have three copies of chromosome 21, where a key gene that produces amyloid is found. Because they have three copies of the gene, instead of two, they overproduce amyloid which is the key pathology of Alzheimer's disease," said Mapstone. "By studying Alzheimer's risk in people with Down Syndrome, we can understand how important amyloid is to the development of the disease."

Pregnant women who deliver early are more likely to have a diverse community of vaginal bacteria, finds a new study published in Frontiers in Microbiology. These findings also highlight specific bacteria associated with premature birth and could help identify the women most at risk of giving birth prematurely.

"We show a link between higher vaginal microbial diversity and premature birth, especially in the first trimester of pregnancy," says Marina Sirota, an Assistant Professor at the Bakar Computational Health Sciences Institute at the University of California San Francisco, USA. "In addition to confirming several bacterial species known to be associated with premature birth, we have identified several new ones."

She continues, "Our results shed light on the involvement of the vaginal microbiome and specific bacteria in this process. The findings could aid future diagnostic and therapeutic strategies to help prevent or delay premature birth."

Babies born early, before 37 weeks of gestation, often suffer complicated medical problems - preterm birth is the leading cause of death in newborns. While there are many risk factors, such as maternal stress, maternal age and low maternal body-mass index, exactly how and why it happens is less understood.

"For most of these births, we don't know why the women end up going into labor early and unfortunately, the limited number of therapies are often not effective," explains Sirota. "New ways of identifying women at higher risk is sorely needed."

The role of the vaginal microbiome in relation to premature birth has been investigated before, but these studies have had their limitations.

Dr Idit Kosti, a postdoctoral researcher at the Sirota lab and the first author of this study, explains, "Previous investigations have only examined a small number of women and are often biased towards certain ethnic groups, which makes it hard to apply their findings widely."

"We performed a meta-analysis, which is when you combine data from different studies into one dataset. This gave us a greater amount of information across a more diverse range of women, in terms of ethnicity and stage of pregnancy, than in each study alone."

By merging five different sets of data, equating to more than three thousand samples from over four hundred women, the scientists were able to identify new associations between the vaginal microbiome, specific bacteria and premature birth.

"We found that women who deliver prematurely have a significantly more diverse vaginal microbiome, especially in their first trimester, than those who deliver at full term." reports Kosti.

The researchers also identified specific microbes associated with premature birth. Some have been highlighted by previous studies, such as Lactobacillus, which is more prevalent in women who have a full-term birth, whereas others like Olsenella and Clostridium sensu scricto were newly linked to an early delivery.

Sirota and her team of researchers hope the findings from their research can be used to discover new ways of detecting mothers who are at risk.

"The methods that we have developed can be used to combine even more data together and these results can inform ways of diagnosing those at risk, as well as potential therapies for premature birth."

Notes to Editors

Please link to the original research article in your reporting: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2020.00476/full

Corresponding author: Marina Sirota

Email: Marina.Sirota@ucsf.edu

Corresponding author's institution: University of San Francisco

About Frontiers

Frontiers is an award-winning Open Science platform and leading Open Access scholarly publisher. Our mission is to make research results openly available to the world, thereby accelerating scientific and technological innovation, societal progress and economic growth. We empower scientists with innovative Open Science solutions that radically improve how science is published, evaluated and disseminated to researchers, innovators and the public. Access to research results and data is open, free and customized through Internet Technology, thereby enabling rapid solutions to the critical challenges we face as humanity. For more information, visit http://www.frontiersin.org and follow @Frontiersin on Twitter.

Journal

Frontiers in Microbiology

DOI

10.3389/fmicb.2020.00476

People are no better than chance at identifying when someone else is recounting a false or real memory of a crime, according to a new UCL study.

The findings, published in Frontiers in Psychology, build on a previous study that was the first to successfully implant false memories of committing a crime - involving either assault or assault with a weapon that resulted in police contact.

Study author Dr Julia Shaw (UCL Psychology & Language Sciences) said: "Everyone thinks that they couldn't be tricked into believing they have done something they never did, and that if someone were telling them about a false memory, they would be able to spot it. But we found that actually, people tend to be quite susceptible to having false memories, and they sound just like real memories."

For the previous study, published in 2015, Dr Shaw and a colleague invited young adults into a study about emotional memories, and also spoke with a member of their family to learn about events from the participants' early adolescence, in as much detail as possible.

The researchers spoke to the participants about their past, and used leading questions and suggestive tactics, as well as visualisation techniques to convince the participants that they were helping them recover a forgotten memory - while in fact they were implanting a false memory that the participant had committed a crime when they were young, such as theft or assault.

"We were essentially doing exactly 'what not to do' when conducting a police interview," explained Dr Shaw.

The 2015 study reported that the majority of participants developed a false memory of committing a crime, and the participants consistently reported that the false memories felt incredibly real.

The current research involves two studies that used videos from the 2015 study, of the study participants recounting their false memories of a crime, which they believed to be real. The new participants watched those videos and were asked if the person was describing an event that actually happened or not.

Participants were only 53% accurate (no better than chance) at identifying false memories of committing a crime. These results were replicated in the second study. Even when participants were explicitly told that one of the memories they watched was false, their judgment was still no better than tossing a coin.

In addition to incorrectly believing false memories to be true, participants were just as likely to watch someone recount a genuine memory, and then misidentify it as false, once the research team told them that some of the videos would feature false memories. In other words, many true memories looked like false memories.

"Legal professionals and police officers need to realise how easy it is to manipulate someone's memories. Judges in particular should never assume that they can tell when someone has a false memory, and should consider the entire process to see if there was any risk of contamination of a defendant or witness' memories," Dr Shaw said.

"The findings really highlight how important it is to ensure that criminal proceedings are done right. The questioning process should be evidence-based, to reduce the risk of implanting false memories in people being questioned by the police."

Going to bed early and following a consistent bedtime routine may help reduce children's risk of becoming overweight or obese, according to a new study published in Acta Paediatrica.

In the study of 1,258 Indigenous Australian children with an average age of 6 years, children who consistently went to bed late experienced greater weight gain over several years than those who went to bed early.

The findings highlight the importance of looking beyond sleep duration and highlighting the benefits of early bedtimes for children.

"While we know it can be hard to get children to bed early, and at consistent times both on weekdays and at weekends, it might help parents or carers to know that establishing consistent and early bedtimes may reduce the risk that their child will be overweight or obese," said lead author Yaqoot Fatima, PhD, of the Institute for Social Science Research at the University of Queensland, and the James Cook University.

Adults with irritable bowel syndrome experienced fewer gastrointestinal symptoms after they participated in a mindfulness program meant to reduce stress. Results of the study are published in Neurogastroenterology & Motility.

In the study, 53 women and 15 men with irritable bowel syndrome participated in an 8-week mindfulness-based stress reduction class.

Most participants experienced significant improvements from pre-treatment to 3 months follow up regarding gastrointestinal symptoms, quality of life, and anxiety related to gastrointestinal symptoms. Although increases in 3 of the 5 measured facets of mindfulness were found, increases in the ability to stay in the present moment and act with awareness seemed especially important.

"This study shows that people with irritable bowel syndrome can have significant improvements in their symptoms and quality of life without medication or diet change, just by participating in a mindfulness based stress reduction class," said senior author Kirsten Tillisch, MD, of the University of California, Los Angeles. "Further, it implicates a specific aspect of mindfulness as particularly important: acting with awareness. It appears that by improving this moment to moment awareness in their daily actions, people with irritable bowel syndrome feel better, possibly because this mindful activity in the present moment keeps the brain from going back to old fears or worries."

The avian influenza virus subtype H16N3 is currently detectable in many countries. To examine the potential threat to humans of H16N3, researchers recently performed an extensive avian influenza surveillance in major wild bird gatherings across China from 2017-2019. The findings are published in Transboundary and Emerging Diseases.

The investigators isolated two H16N3 subtype influenza viruses that can bind to both human and avian-type cell receptors. They also found evidence that genetic material from other species has been introduced into the H16N3 avian influenza virus, which suggests that it may infect other species and could therefore pose a threat to animal and human health in the future.

"Consequently, it is necessary to increase monitoring of the emergence and spread of avian influenza subtype H16N3 in wild birds," the authors wrote.

Leafhoppers are tiny insects. They are only about 3 millimeters long, smaller than a grain of rice. But they can cause big damage to crops, including beans.

In temperate areas, leafhoppers can cause bean crop losses of up to 20 percent. They are even more damaging in tropical areas. There, leafhopper infestations can lead to crop losses of more than 75 percent.

To combat the leafhopper threat, researchers are continuously trying to develop resistant varieties of crops.

In a new study, Tim Porch and his team describe a new pinto bean, called TARS-LH1. Porch is a researcher at the USDA-ARS Tropical Agriculture Research Station in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico.

This new pinto bean has increased resistance to leafhoppers. It also has other desirable traits, such as high yields and drought tolerance.

"Continuous improvement of common beans is necessary," says Porch. "That's because pathogens, pests, the environment and the market are continuously changing and evolving."

Even in changing markets, pinto beans - a common target of leafhoppers - are a vital crop. They account for more than a third of all edible dry beans produced in the United States.

Pinto beans are targeted by two different species of leafhoppers. One species - Empoasca fabea - predominates in temperate areas. Another species - Empoasca kraemeri - is the main pest in tropical areas.

TARS-LH1 is resistant to both kinds of leafhoppers.

Field testing of TARS-LH1 for leafhopper resistance and other traits was carried out in multiple locations. Temperate test sites were located at the Michigan State University Crop and Soil Science Research Farm in East Lansing, Michigan. Tropical tests were completed in Haiti and Puerto Rico.

"Since this pinto bean was tested over several years in different locations, we confirmed that it has resistance to both species of leafhoppers," says Porch. "It also has broad adaptation to different climates."

A key challenge during field tests was accurately collecting data to measure leafhopper damage. Measuring damage is key to verifying whether specific varieties of beans are resistant to these pests.

Leafhoppers feed on plant sap. Their feeding causes damage, called hopperburn. Hopperburn can include leaf burn: leaves turn yellow, particularly at the tip and around the edges. It can also include leaf curl: entire leaves curl down.

Researchers carefully counted the numbers of leafhoppers and flightless leafhopper nymphs on common bean leaves. They also evaluated leaf burn and leaf curl symptoms.

"By combining the careful and laborious counting of pests with a rapid evaluation of leaf damage, we were able to estimate leafhoppers per plant for a large number of plots and trials," says Porch.

As a result, the researchers were able to show that the TARS-LH1 pinto bean is resistant to leafhopper attacks. But that's not all! TARS-LH1 is also drought tolerant. Droughts often occur simultaneously with leafhopper infestations.

"Since TARS-LH1 combines drought tolerance with the leafhopper resistance, it provides a key combination of traits," says Porch.

Finding ways to conserve water use in agriculture is becoming increasingly important. There's also a drive to use less pesticide to control insects.

"TARS-LH1 could contribute to reducing these major inputs in common bean farming," says Porch. "It could also increase the production of organic beans."

Porch and colleagues are still working on breeding newer, better varieties of beans. "We want to include additional traits, such as heat tolerance and resistance to pathogens like rust and common bacterial blight, along with the leafhopper resistance," says Porch.

Bean varieties that are resistant to pests and have other desirable traits, such as TARS-LH1, can benefit breeders, farmers and consumers alike.

"Ultimately, our goal is to generate broadly resilient and productive common beans," he says.

Engineers at the University of California San Diego have developed a new method that doesn't require any special equipment and works in just minutes to create soft, flexible, 3D-printed robots.

The innovation comes from rethinking the way soft robots are built: instead of figuring out how to add soft materials to a rigid robot body, the UC San Diego researchers started with a soft body and added rigid features to key components. The structures were inspired by insect exoskeletons, which have both soft and rigid parts--the researchers called their creations "flexoskeletons."

The new method allows for the construction of soft components for robots in a small fraction of the time previously needed and for a small fraction of the cost.

"We hope that these flexoskeletons will lead to the creation of a new class of soft, bioinspired robots," said Nick Gravish, a mechanical engineering professor at the Jacobs School of Engineering at UC San Diego and the paper's senior author. "We want to make soft robots easier to build for researchers all over the world."

The new method makes it possible to build large groups of flexoskeleton robots with little manual assembly as well as assemble a library of Lego-like components so that robot parts can be easily swapped.

The flexoskeletons are made from 3D printing a rigid material on a thin sheet that acts as a flexible base. They are printed with various features that increase rigidity in specific areas--again inspired by insect exoskeletons, which combine softness and rigidity for movement and support.

Researchers detail their work in the April 7 issue of the journal Soft Robotics.The team plans to make their designs available to researchers at other institutions as well as high schools.

One flexoskeleton component takes 10 minutes to print and costs less than $1. Flexoskeleton printing can be done on most low-cost commercially available printers. Printing and assembling a whole robot takes under 2 hours.

Researchers surveyed a range of materials until they found the right flexible surface to print the flexoskeletons on--that turned out to be a sheet of polycarbonate. Careful observation of insect behavior led them to add features to increase rigidity.

The ultimate goal is to create an assembly line that prints whole flexoskeleton robots without any need for hand assembly. A swarm of these small robots could do as much work as one massive robot on its own--or more.

In 1989, iRobot cofounder Rodney Brooks, then at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab, advocated for space missions that would consist of "large numbers of mass produced simple autonomous robots that are small by today's standards." He and coauthor Anita Flynn titled the paper "Fast, cheap and out of control: a robot invasion of the solar system." The paper was seminal for Gravish, who hopes this study is one step further in that direction--but for the entire field of robotics, not just space.

Social media should be used to chart the economic impact and recovery of businesses in countries affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to new research published in Nature Communications. University of Bristol scientists describe a 'real time' method accurately trialled across three global natural disasters which could be used to reliably forecast the financial impact of the current global health crisis.

Traditional economic recovery estimates, such as surveys and interviews, are usually costly, time-consuming and do not scale-up well. However, researchers from Bristol's School of Engineering Maths and Department of Civil Engineering show they were able to accurately estimate the downtime and recovery of small businesses in countries affected by three different natural hazards using aggregated social media data.

The method relies on the assumption that businesses tend to publish more social media posts when they are open and fewer when they are closed, hence analysing the aggregated posting activity of a group of businesses over time it is possible to infer when they are open or closed.

Using data from the public Facebook posts of local businesses collected before, during and after three natural disasters comprising the 2015 Gorkha earthquake in Nepal, the 2017 Chiapas earthquake in Mexico, and the 2017 hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, the team charted the number of smaller urban businesses who were closed and then were able to measure their recovery post-event. The team validated their analysis using field surveys, official reports, Facebook surveys, Facebook posts text analysis and other studies available in literature.

Importantly, the framework works in 'real time' without the need for text analysis which can be largely dependent on language, culture or semantic analysis and can be applied to any size area or type of natural disaster, in developed and developing countries, allowing local governments to better target the distribution of resources.

Dr Simini, Senior Lecturer and the study's lead author explains: "The challenge of nowcasting the effect of natural hazards such as earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, and pandemics on assets, people and society has never been more timely than ever for assessing the ability of countries to recover from extreme events.

"Often, small to medium-sized businesses slip through the net of traditional monitoring process of recovery. We noticed in areas struck by natural hazard events that not all areas and populations react in the same way."

Dr Flavia De Luca, lead author and Senior Lecturer in Bristol's Department of Civil Engineering, added: "We had the idea of supporting post-emergency deployment of resources after a natural hazard event using public Facebook posts of businesses to measure how a specific region is recovering after the event. It was amazing to find out that the approach was providing information on the recovery in 'real time'.

"We would like to test the method to measure the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic."

Researchers at the University of Iowa and the University of Georgia have developed a vaccine that fully protects mice against a lethal dose of MERS, a close cousin of the SARS-CoV2 coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

The vaccine uses a harmless virus to deliver a MERS coronavirus protein into cells to generate an immune response, and may hold promise for developing vaccines against other coronaviruses diseases, including COVID-19.

The team led by Paul McCray, MD, at the UI Carver College of Medicine, and Biao He, PhD, at the University of Georgia College of Veterinary Medicine, tested a MERS vaccine candidate in mice engineered to be susceptible to the MERS coronavirus. The vaccine is an innocuous parainfluenza virus (PIV5) carrying the "spike" protein that MERS uses to infect cells. All the vaccinated mice survived a lethal dose of the MERS coronavirus. The results of the study were published April 7 in the journal mBio.

"Our new study indicates that PIV5 may be a useful vaccine platform for emerging coronavirus diseases, including SARS-CoV-2, the virus causing the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic," says McCray, UI professor of pediatrics. "Using the same strategy, vaccine candidates based on PIV5 expressing the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 have been generated. We are planning more studies in animals to test the ability of PIV5-based vaccines in preventing disease caused by SARS-CoV-2."

MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome) and COVID-19 are both caused by coronaviruses. MERS is deadlier and is fatal in about one third of known cases, but there have been only 2,494 cases since 2012, when the virus first emerged. In contrast, there have been over 1.25 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 worldwide since it first emerged in late 2019 in Wuhan, China, and almost 70,000 people have died from the disease.

The study found that just one, relatively low dose of the vaccine given to the mice intranasally (inhaled through the nose) was sufficient to fully protect all the treated mice from a lethal dose of MERS coronavirus.

When the researchers analyzed the immune responses generated by the vaccine, they found that both antibodies and protective T cells were produced. However, the antibody response was quite weak and it seems most likely that the vaccine's protective effect is due to the T cell response in the mouse lungs.

The researchers note several factors that make PIV5 expressing a coronavirus spike protein an appealing platform for vaccine development against emerging coronaviruses. First, PIV5 can infect many different mammals, including humans, without causing disease. PIV5 is also being investigated as a vaccine for other respiratory diseases including respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and influenza. Second, the fact that a low dose of the vaccine was sufficient to protect the mice might be beneficial for creating enough vaccine for mass immunization. And finally, the vaccine in the current study was the most effective MERS vaccine to date in animal models of the disease.

Washington, DC - April 7, 2020 - No vaccines exist that protect people against infections by coronaviruses, including SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19, or the ones that cause SARS and MERS. As COVID-19 continues to wreak havoc, many labs around the world have developed a laser-like focus on understanding the virus and finding the best strategy for stopping it.

This week in mBio, a journal of the American Society of Microbiology, a team of interdisciplinary researchers describes a promising vaccine candidate against the MERS virus. Since the MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome) outbreak began in 2012, more than 850 people have died, and studies suggest the virus has a case fatality rate of more than 30%.

In the new paper, the researchers suggest that the approach they took for a MERS virus vaccine may also work against SARS-CoV-2. The vaccine's delivery method is an RNA virus called parainfluenza virus 5 (PIV5), which is believed to cause a condition known as kennel cough in dogs but appears harmless to people. The researchers added an extra gene to the virus so that infected cells would produce the S, or spike, glycoprotein known to be involved in MERS infections.

"We know people have been exposed to PIV5, but it seems to be an innocuous virus in humans," said pediatric pulmonologist and coronavirus expert Paul McCray, M.D., at the University of Iowa, in Iowa City, who co-led the new study with virologist Biao He, Ph.D., at the University of Georgia, in Athens. "PIV5 doesn't seem to cause a cytopathic effect." The MERS virus cannot replicate in mice, so to test the vaccine McCray developed a mouse model that mimics human infections. The mice had been genetically engineered to express DPP4, the protein used by the MERS virus as an entry point for human cells.

Lab tests showed that a single dose of the vaccine, given intranasally, effectively caused infected cells to produce the S protein, which in turn triggered immune responses against the protein in the animal host.

Four weeks after the mice received the vaccine, they were exposed to a strain of the MERS virus, adapted to the mice to cause a lethal infection. The MERS virus was also given to groups of mice that had received a different PIV5 vaccine--one without the genes for the S protein--or an intramuscular vaccine with inactivated MERS virus.

All the mice immunized with the modified PIV5 virus survived MERS virus infection. In contrast, all the mice immunized with the PIV5 without S died from the infection. The intramuscular vaccine of inactivated MERS virus only protected 25% of the mice from a lethal infection. The mice that received inactivated MERS virus showed above-average levels of eosinophils, white blood cells that indicate infection or inflammation. This connection raises a safety concern for inactivated MERS virus as a potential vaccine, said He. The study demonstrates that an intranasal, PIV5-based vaccine is effective against MERS in mice, said He, and should be investigated for its potential against other dangerous coronaviruses, including SARS-CoV-2.

"We're quite interested in using viruses as gene delivery vehicles," said McCray, who has also investigated similar strategies as a way to treat cystic fibrosis. Now, like colleagues around the world, McCray and He have both focused their research efforts on SARS-CoV-2, taking a similar tack to working with mouse models of infection and testing vaccines.

Finding an effective vaccine against the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 is a race against time, McCray said. "One hundred percent of the population is not going to be exposed to the virus the first time around, which means there will be more people to infect when it comes again," he said. "We don't know yet if people get lasting immunity from the SARS-CoV-2 infection, so it's important to think about ways to protect the population."

New understandings of how lipids function within tears could lead to better drugs for treating dry eye disease.

A new approach has given Hokkaido University researchers insight into the synthesis and functions of lipids found in tears. Their findings, published in the journal eLife, could help the search for new treatments for dry eye disease.

The film of tears covering the eye's surface is vital for eliminating foreign objects, providing oxygen and nutrients to the eye's outer tissues, and reducing friction with the eyelid. The film is formed of an outer lipid layer and an inner liquid layer. The outer lipid layer, which is itself formed of two sublayers, prevents water evaporation from the liquid layer. Dry eye disease develops when the glands that produce these lipids dysfunction. However, it has remained unclear how those generally incompatible layers -- water and lipid -- can form and maintain tear films.

Hokkaido University biochemist Akio Kihara and colleagues wanted to understand the functions of a subclass of lipids called OAHFAs (O-Acyl)-ω-hydroxy fatty acids) that are present in the inner lipid sublayer (amphiphilic lipid sublayer) just above the liquid layer of the tear film. OAHFAs are known to have both polar and non-polar ends in its molecule, giving them affinity for both water and lipid.

To do this, they turned off a gene called Cyp4f39 in mice that is known for its involvement in ω-hydroxy fatty acid synthesis. Previous attempts at studying the gene's functions in this way had led to neonatal death in mice, as it impaired the skin's protective role. The team used a way to turn the gene off, except in the skin.

The mice were found to have damaged corneas and unstable tear films, both indicative of dry eyes. Further analyses showed that these mice were lacking OAHFAs and their derivatives in their tear films. Interestingly, the scientists also discovered that the OAHFA derivatives have polarities intermediate between OAHFAs and other lipids in the tear film. This strongly suggests that those lipids together form a polarity gradient that plays an important role in connecting the tear film's inner liquid layer and outer lipid layer, helping the film spread uniformly over the surface of the eye.

"Drugs currently used in dry eye disease target the liquid layer of the tear film, but there aren't any drugs that target its lipid layer," says Akio Kihara. "Since most cases of dry eye disease are caused by abnormalities in the lipid layer, eye drops containing OAHFAs and their derivatives could be an effective treatment."

Further studies are required to fully understand the functions and synthesis of OAHFAs.