Month: March 2022

SWANSEA, United Kingdom — Your risk of ending up in the hospital with COVID-19 may literally be in your own hands. A new study finds finger length displays a link to a person’s sex hormone levels. What does this have to do with COVID-19? Researchers at Swansea University say a patient’s testosterone levels play a key role in how sick they get after infection. Previous studies show that having a longer ring finger is a sign of higher testosterone levels in the womb. On the other hand, a longer index finger signals higher levels of estrogen. Typically, men have longer ring fingers and women have longer index fingers. The new study examined this link between the sex hormones before birth and during puberty and the rate of COVID hospitalizations. Their findings reveal that people with “fe...

Photo: Esra Hacioglu/Anadolu Agency (Getty Images) A team of researchers say they’ve found an effective way to block the most common source of cat allergies using the gene-editing technology CRISPR. Their findings also suggest that hypoallergenic cats can be just as healthy as the typical feline. Allergies are most associated with the fur and dander that cats shed into the environment, but those aren’t the true culprit. A protein produced by cats called Fel d 1—which ends up in their saliva and tears and, by extension, the fur that they’re constantly cleaning—is thought to cause over 90% of cat allergies. This has made the protein an appealing target for scientists trying to reduce the burden of cat allergies, which may affect up to 20% of people. Researchers at the Virginia-based bio...

The COVID-19 pandemic caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus remains a global public health crisis. Although widespread vaccination campaigns are underway, their efficacy is reduced due to emerging variants of concern (VOCs)1,2. Development of host-directed therapeutics and prophylactics could limit such resistance and offer urgently needed protection against VOCs3,4. Attractive pharmacological targets to impede viral entry include type-II transmembrane serine proteases (TTSPs), such as TMPRSS2, whose essential role in the virus lifecycle is to cleave the viral spike protein to expose the fusion peptide for cell entry5,6. Here, we identify and characterize a small-molecule compound, N-0385, which exhibits low nanomolar potency and a selectivity index of >106 at inhibiting SARS-CoV-2 infection i...

But not enough. And so one Saturday, my wife looked at me across the kitchen table and said, “We’re not doing anything today. Why don’t we make a quick visit to the ER?” We drove to Massachusetts General Hospital, walked in, and at intake I was asked why I was there. Now, whenever anything seems amiss, I consult WebMD (where the symptoms either mean there’s nothing to worry about or death is imminent) and so, armed with my Internet-based degree in medicine, I explained that I was out of breath, likely had a low-grade case of walking pneumonia, and if someone could just prescribe me some Zithromax or Cipro, I’d be grateful. I think it was the words “out of breath” that set off the alarm bells. Almost immediately, my vitals were being taken, I was given a quick echocardiogram, and suddenly...