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Ed Rybicki
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Denmark-based Bavarian Nordic A/S announced today that the U.S. Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) exercised the first options under an existing contract to supply a freeze-dried version of the JYNNEOS® smallpox vaccine.
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Ed Rybicki
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Africa's sluggish uptake of Covid vaccines, and vaccine agencies' decision to buy shots elsewhere is a blow for the company's production ambitions and the continent's own health sovereignty...
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Ed Rybicki
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The FDA amended the emergency use authorization (EUA) for the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine, authorizing the use of a single booster dose for administration to individuals 5 through 11 years of age at least five months after completion of a primary series with the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine...
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Ed Rybicki
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Victoria has recorded more cases of the flu so far this year than the whole of 2020 and 2021 combined, with experts calling for the voluntary wearing of masks in settings where there is a high chance of spreading influenza and Covid.
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Ed Rybicki
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EV71vac is safe, well-tolerated, and highly effective in preventing EV71 associated diseases in children aged 2–71 months.
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Ed Rybicki
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Our recent study presented that human nasal commensal Staphylococcus epidermidis could potentiate antiviral immunity in the nasal mucosa through interferon-related innate responses. Here, we found that human nasal commensal S.
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"This bacterial enzyme is the most efficient carbon fixer that we know of, and we came up with a neat explanation of what it can do."...
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The United States has just marked one million deaths from COVID-19. But a new study suggests that the true count is closer to 1.2 million deaths.
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Ed Rybicki
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The results from a WHO pilot points to more countries in sub-Saharan Africa receiving the world's first malaria vaccine.
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Emerging Novel Reassortant Influenza A(H5N6) Viruses in Poultry and Humans, China, 2021...
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Ed Rybicki
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New York: Four red baby foxes in the US reportedly died in what is known as the first case of...
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Resistant viruses containing mutant neuraminidases (NAs) with diminished drug affinity continue to emerge, and new anti-influenza agents are urgently required.Several potent inhibitors targeting the hydrophobic 150-cavity of viral NAs have been developed by modifying the antiviral drugs, oseltamivi...
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Ed Rybicki
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Influenza shares the same putative transmission pathway with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), and causes tremendous morbidity and mortality annually globally.Since the transmission of COVID-19 in China, a series of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) against to the disease have been impleme...
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Ed Rybicki
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BERLIN (AP) — Germany’s top court has approved rules requiring that health workers be vaccinated against COVID-19.
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Ed Rybicki
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bioRxiv - the preprint server for biology, operated by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, a research and educational institution...
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New research investigates how narcissism makes people more or less likely to follow COVID mitigation strategies like masking up or getting vaxxed.
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Interval of 4-6 months since completion of the primary series of the vaccine could be considered for a first booster, says the WHO...
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bioRxiv - the preprint server for biology, operated by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, a research and educational institution...
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Ed Rybicki
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A meta-analysis of studies involving 9000 people suggests those who receive a flu vaccine also gain some protection against heart attacks...
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Modified bacteria that can log data about their surroundings may be a good way to non-invasively get information about gut health, research in mice shows.
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Britain approved Valneva's COVID-19 vaccine on Thursday, becoming the first European country to clear the use of the French firm's shot in a move that boosted its shares by more than 20%.
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North Korea, like Eritrea, has refused to join vaccine-sharing initiatives....
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Ed Rybicki
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JOHANNESBURG (AP) — South Africa is experiencing a surge of new COVID-19 cases driven by two omicron sub-variants, according to health experts. For about three weeks the country has seen increasing numbers of new cases and somewhat higher hospitalizations, but not increases in severe cases and...
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Safety and Immunogenicity of BNT162b2 Coadministered With SIIV in Adults 18 Through 64 Years of Age - Full Text View.
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Ed Rybicki
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The outbreak of the coronavirus disease 2019 caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has resulted in significant global health and economic threats to the human society.
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This is all very well, and a brilliant exemplification of my adage that "Hypotheses are the refuge of the small-minded", aka "Discovery trumps hypotheses every time" - BUT I have a serious problem with the reasoning for why it works that is given in the article.
Diana Gitig says:
"Rapamycin suppressed class switching, so mice that got it along with their vaccine had more IgM class antibodies, many of which tended to be less specific to HKx31. Irony number three: these less specific antibodies might not bind as strongly to the HKx31, but it is precisely this reduced affinity that may allow them to bind to the equivalent protein on other flu strains."
Um. That flies in the face of all the immunology I have imbibed since 1976, and what I have taught since 1984 or so. That is, that B cell receptor / IgM/D binding affinity starts out low, then increases by hypermutation so that the eventual class-switched antigody has high binding affinity. Along with this, specificity starts out high - the antibodies bind only a narrow range of related epitopes - and becomes wider, as increased affinity allows binding to a wider range of related sequences / structures.
Thus, the statement that "... it is precisely this reduced affinity that may allow them to bind to the equivalent protein on other flu strains" is nonsense, as far as I am concerned: it is the fact that the antibodies have INCREASED affinity, AND are multivalent IgM, that allow them not only to bind to related sequences, but increase their neutralising ability relative to the equivalent IgG/A that would result from class-switching.
Am I wrong?