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| Open AccessA COVID-19 peptide vaccine for the induction of SARS-CoV-2 T cell immunity
A phase I open-label trial evaluating the immunogencity, reactogenicity and safety of a peptide-based SARS-CoV-2 vaccine candidate to induce SARS-CoV-2-specific T cell responses.
- Jonas S. Heitmann
- , Tatjana Bilich
- & Juliane S. Walz
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News |
Cuba’s bet on home-grown COVID vaccines is paying off
Preprint data show that a three-dose combo of Soberana jabs has 92.4% efficacy in clinical trials.
- Sara Reardon
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News |
COVID’s career impact and embryo secrets — the week in infographics
Nature highlights three key infographics from the week in science and research.
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News |
Do childhood colds help the body respond to COVID?
A mechanism known as ‘original antigenic sin’ protects some people from flu; whether it helps immune reactions to coronaviruses is still unclear.
- Rachel Brazil
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News |
Europe’s COVID death toll could rise by hundreds of thousands
In a worst-case scenario, the pandemic could cause a further 300,000 deaths if anti-contagion policies are lifted and people revert to their old habits.
- Smriti Mallapaty
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Article
| Open AccessGenome surveillance by HUSH-mediated silencing of intronless mobile elements
The human silencing hub (HUSH) complex uses introns to distinguish intronless foreign DNA from intron-containing host DNA and modifies chromatin to silence transcription of retrotransposons and retroviruses.
- Marta Seczynska
- , Stuart Bloor
- & Paul J. Lehner
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Article
| Open AccessOptimization of non-coding regions for a non-modified mRNA COVID-19 vaccine
CV2CoV, a second-generation mRNA COVID-19 vaccine with non-modified nucleosides but optimized non-coding regions, is demonstrated to be effective against SARS-CoV-2 challenge when tested in non-human primates.
- Makda S. Gebre
- , Susanne Rauch
- & Dan H. Barouch
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News & Views |
Helpline data used to monitor population distress in a pandemic
The initial stages of the COVID-19 pandemic saw an increase in calls to mental-health helplines in 19 countries. Helpline-call data can be used to monitor distress at a population level in near-real time.
- Cindy H. Liu
- & Alexander C. Tsai
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News |
Millions of helpline calls reveal how COVID affected mental health
Data from almost 20 countries suggest that many callers were anxious and lonely rather than experiencing abuse or suicidal impulses.
- Heidi Ledford
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Article |
Herpesviruses assimilate kinesin to produce motorized viral particles
Herpes simplex virus type I and pseudorabies virus assimilate kinesin from host epithelial cells and repurpose the motor to traffic to the nuclei of neurons in the peripheral nervous system.
- Caitlin E. Pegg
- , Sofia V. Zaichick
- & Gregory A. Smith
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Article
| Open AccessIndependent infections of porcine deltacoronavirus among Haitian children
The presence of porcine deltacoronavirus has been detected in three children from Haiti that could have originated from zoonotic spillover.
- John A. Lednicky
- , Massimiliano S. Tagliamonte
- & J. Glenn Morris Jr
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Article |
Observation of universal ageing dynamics in antibiotic persistence
Characterizations of bacteria under acute stress reveal features that can be predicted using a conceptual model of physical ageing.
- Yoav Kaplan
- , Shaked Reich
- & Nathalie Q. Balaban
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Nature Podcast |
Coronapod: new hope from COVID antiviral drugs
Two antiviral drugs could change the course of the pandemic, but scientists still have questions.
- Noah Baker
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News |
How do people resist COVID infections? Hospital workers offer a hint
Immune cells might ‘abort’ SARS-CoV-2 infection, forestalling a positive PCR or antibody test.
- Max Kozlov
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News |
Sleeplessness and anxiety: PhD supervisors on toll of COVID pandemic
Survey of 3,500 supervisors lifts the lid on the demands of overseeing junior researchers — and the impacts of the pandemic.
- Holly Else
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Career Guide |
A guide on how to work in vaccine science
Researchers describe what it takes to succeed in a high-profile field at an extraordinary time.
- Nic Fleming
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Career Feature |
Scientists count the career costs of COVID
As the pandemic continues, researchers are coming to terms with what they’ve learnt and lost so far, finds Nature’s global survey.
- Chris Woolston
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Career Guide |
How to get a job in vaccine development
Robin Shattock advises researchers to follow their scientific instincts, and be flexible and resilient.
- Nic Fleming
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News Explainer |
COVID antiviral pills: what scientists still want to know
Drugs such as molnupiravir and Paxlovid could change the course of the pandemic if clinical trial results hold up in the real world.
- Heidi Ledford
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Article |
Self-guarding of MORC3 enables virulence factor-triggered immunity
MORC3 is revealed as an essential negative regulator of the anti-viral interferon response that functions in an innate immune pathway that detects viral virulence factors.
- Moritz M. Gaidt
- , Alyssa Morrow
- & Russell E. Vance
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Article
| Open AccessPre-existing polymerase-specific T cells expand in abortive seronegative SARS-CoV-2
Seronegative healthcare workers with an innate signature of infection preferentially expand pre-existing T cells targeting the conserved replication transcription complex of SARS-CoV-2 in abortive infection.
- Leo Swadling
- , Mariana O. Diniz
- & Mala K. Maini
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Article |
Host immunomodulatory lipids created by symbionts from dietary amino acids
The symbiotic gut bacterium Bacteroides fragilis produces unique α-galactosylceramides from host dietary branched-chain amino acids, which are presented as CD1d ligands and immunomodulate natural killer T cells.
- Sungwhan F. Oh
- , T. Praveena
- & Dennis L. Kasper
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News |
The COVID pandemic has harmed researcher productivity – and mental health
Surveys show that women, parents of young children and people of colour are most affected by pandemic-related disruptions and need more support.
- Dyani Lewis
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News |
How protein-based COVID vaccines could change the pandemic
Jabs from Novavax and other biotech firms are coming. Scientists say they have a lot to offer.
- Elie Dolgin
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News |
When are masks most useful? COVID cases offer hints
Masks offer the greatest protection indoors and during long exposures to people infected with the coronavirus — but other public-health measures matter, too.
- Ariana Remmel
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News & Views |
A seagrass harbours a nitrogen-fixing bacterial partner
How underwater seagrasses obtain the nitrogen they need has been unclear. Evidence has now emerged of a partnership with a bacterium that might be analogous to the system used by many land plants to gain nitrogen.
- Douglas G. Capone
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News Feature |
African scientists race to test COVID drugs — but face major hurdles
In a bid to stave off looming disaster, scientists are trying to repurpose drugs used for malaria and other diseases, but infrastructure and recruitment challenges stymie progress.
- Abdullahi Tsanni
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Article
| Open AccessTerrestrial-type nitrogen-fixing symbiosis between seagrass and a marine bacterium
The N2-fixing symbiont ‘Candidatus Celerinatantimonas neptuna’ lives inside the root tissue of the seagrass Posidonia oceanica, providing ammonia and amino acids to its host in exchange for sugars and enabling highly productive seagrass meadows to thrive in the nitrogen-limited Mediterranean Sea.
- Wiebke Mohr
- , Nadine Lehnen
- & Marcel M. M. Kuypers
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News Explainer |
Why scientists worldwide are watching UK COVID infections
The country’s relaxation of measures such as masking — especially in England — is showing the limits of relying on vaccines alone.
- Luke Taylor
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Where I Work |
Virus detective: searching for Zika, dengue and SARS-CoV-2
Danielle Bruna Leal de Oliveira tracks pathogens for Brazil’s public-health system.
- Patrícia Maia Noronha
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Book Review |
The vaccine shots that rang around the world
Two books follow key runners in the historic race to immunize the world against COVID.
- Natasha Loder
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News & Views |
A reconstruction of early cryptic COVID spread
To respond better to future pandemics, we must understand how the SARS-CoV-2 virus dispersed so rapidly. A model of COVID-19 spread sheds light on cryptic transmission, undetected by surveillance efforts, in early 2020.
- Simon Cauchemez
- & Paolo Bosetti
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Nature Podcast |
Coronapod: China's crucial COVID vaccines start to falter
Two inactivated virus vaccines from China account for half the world's inoculations against COVID, now their protection may be waning.
- Noah Baker
- & Smriti Mallapaty
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News |
Common antidepressant slashes risk of COVID death, study says
Fluvoxamine is both inexpensive and highly effective at preventing mild COVID-19 from turning severe.
- Saima May Sidik
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News |
The search for people who never get COVID
An international team of researchers wants to find people who are genetically resistant to SARS-CoV-2, in the hope of developing new drugs and treatments.
- Smriti Mallapaty
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Outlook |
Oral microbiome findings challenge dentistry dogma
Complex microbial communities in the mouth clarify the causes of, and provide new treatments for, dental disease.
- Kristina Campbell
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Editorial |
The COVID pandemic must lead to tuberculosis vaccines
The coronavirus crisis has halted decades of progress on TB. But the speed of COVID vaccines shows there can still be hope for advances against neglected diseases.
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News Feature |
The shifting sands of ‘gain-of-function’ research
The mystery of COVID’s origins has reignited a contentious debate about potentially risky studies and the fuzzy terminology that describes them.
- Amber Dance
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Outlook |
Investigating the mouth–COVID connection
Research conducted since the start of the pandemic is starting to suggest that the mouth could be a key player in COVID-19 infection.
- Tien Nguyen
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Outlook |
Lessons from the ancient oral microbiome
Christina Warinner explains what the microorganisms that lived in our ancestors’ mouths reveal about human evolution and health.
- Kristina Campbell
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Research Briefing |
Bacterial drug resistance overcome by synthetic restructuring of antibiotics
Chemical synthesis, guided by crystal structures of antibiotics bound to the bacterial ribosome, has been used to discover a class of broad-spectrum antibiotics that overcomes bacterial multidrug resistance. Biochemical and crystallographic studies reveal the mechanism of action, including how one mode of resistance is circumvented.
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News |
What COVID vaccines for young kids could mean for the pandemic
As the US Food and Drug Administration authorizes shots for children aged 5 to 11, researchers predict what this might mean for populations.
- Max Kozlov
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News Round-Up |
COVID reinfections, asteroid mission and tuskless elephants
The latest science news, in brief.
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Article |
A synthetic antibiotic class overcoming bacterial multidrug resistance
Structure-guided design and component-based synthesis are used to produce iboxamycin, a novel ribosome-binding antibiotic with potent activity against Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria.
- Matthew J. Mitcheltree
- , Amarnath Pisipati
- & Andrew G. Myers
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Article
| Open AccessTMK-based cell-surface auxin signalling activates cell-wall acidification
Auxin induces transmembrane-kinase-dependent activation of H+-ATPase in the plasma membrane through phosphorylation of its penultimate threonine residue, promoting apoplastic acidification and hypocotyl cell elongation in Arabidopsis.
- Wenwei Lin
- , Xiang Zhou
- & Zhenbiao Yang
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News & Views |
Clues that natural killer cells help to control COVID
Natural killer cells can destroy cells infected by SARS-CoV-2, but this immune-system defence malfunctions in people with severe COVID-19. Will this finding drive a search for ways to reinvigorate natural killer cells in such cases?
- Emilie Narni-Mancinelli
- & Eric Vivier
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Article
| Open AccessCryptic transmission of SARS-CoV-2 and the first COVID-19 wave
Modelling highlights international travel as the main driver of the introduction of SARS-CoV-2 to Europe and the USA, and suggests that introductions and local transmission may have begun in January 2020.
- Jessica T. Davis
- , Matteo Chinazzi
- & Alessandro Vespignani
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Article |
Untimely TGFβ responses in COVID-19 limit antiviral functions of NK cells
The improper timing of transforming growth factor-β production is a hallmark of severe COVID-19 that may impede natural killer cell function and early control of infection.
- Mario Witkowski
- , Caroline Tizian
- & Andreas Diefenbach
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Nature Podcast |
Coronapod: what is COVID super-immunity?
The puzzle behind why a combination natural infection and vaccination can generate blockbuster protection
- Noah Baker
- & Ewen Callaway
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