We need to understand and quantify the dominant variables that govern the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak, rather than relying exclusively on confirmed cases and their geospatial spread.
Pandemic Influenza: An Inconvenient Mutation Layne, Scott P.; Monto, Arnold S.; Taubenberger, Jeffery K.
Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science),
03/2009, Letnik:
323, Številka:
5921
Journal Article
The World Health Organization Influenza Program is one of the best developed and longest running infectious disease surveillance systems that exists. It maintains a worldwide watch of influenza's ...evolution to assist delivery of appropriately formulated vaccines in time to blunt seasonal epidemics and unpredictable pandemics. Despite the program's success, however, much more is possible with today's advanced technologies. This article summarizes ongoing human influenza surveillance activities worldwide. It shows that the technology to establish a high-throughput laboratory network that can process and test influenza viruses more quickly and more accurately is available. It also emphasizes the practical public health and scientific applications of such a network.
Modelling an outbreak of an emerging pathogen Blower, Sally; Kajita, Emily; Okano, Justin T ...
Nature reviews. Microbiology,
200709, 2007-09-00, 20070901, Letnik:
5, Številka:
9
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
To illustrate the usefulness of mathematical models to the microbiology and medical communities, we explain how to construct and apply a simple transmission model of an emerging pathogen. We chose to ...model, as a case study, a large (>8,000 reported cases) on-going outbreak of community-acquired meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (CA-MRSA) in the Los Angeles County Jail. A major risk factor for CA-MRSA infection is incarceration. Here, we show how to design a within-jail transmission model of CA-MRSA, parameterize the model and reconstruct the outbreak. The model is then used to assess the severity of the outbreak, predict the epidemiological consequences of a catastrophic outbreak and design effective interventions for outbreak control.
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), is characterized by respiratory distress, multiorgan dysfunction, and, in some cases, ...death. The pathological mechanisms underlying COVID-19 respiratory distress and the interplay with aggravating risk factors have not been fully defined. Lung autopsy samples from 18 patients with fatal COVID-19, with symptom onset-to-death times ranging from 3 to 47 days, and antemortem plasma samples from 6 of these cases were evaluated using deep sequencing of SARS-CoV-2 RNA, multiplex plasma protein measurements, and pulmonary gene expression and imaging analyses. Prominent histopathological features in this case series included progressive diffuse alveolar damage with excessive thrombosis and late-onset pulmonary tissue and vascular remodeling. Acute damage at the alveolar-capillary barrier was characterized by the loss of surfactant protein expression with injury to alveolar epithelial cells, endothelial cells, respiratory epithelial basal cells, and defective tissue repair processes. Other key findings included impaired clot fibrinolysis with increased concentrations of plasma and lung plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 and modulation of cellular senescence markers, including p21 and sirtuin-1, in both lung epithelial and endothelial cells. Together, these findings further define the molecular pathological features underlying the pulmonary response to SARS-CoV-2 infection and provide important insights into signaling pathways that may be amenable to therapeutic intervention.
Firepower in the Lab Kumar, C; Beugelsdijk, Tony J; Layne, Scott P ...
05/2001
eBook
Odprti dostop
Today's world poses a triple threat to the American population: infectious diseases, contamination of food and water, and bioattacks (biowarfare or bioterrorism). At least 17 countries are producing ...weapons of mass destruction using viruses, bacteria, or their toxins. AIDS, E. coli contamination, drug-resistant tuberculosis, and virulent flu strains are perhaps the best known of a host of disease threats. What these dangers have in common is the amount of data required to achieve solutions; in some cases, as much as a petabit (1 followed by 15 zeros) of data is required to study large numbers of samples from widespread locations.
Firepower in the Lab examines how the nation can combat this triple threat by improving our ability to detect, measure, and monitor harmful biological agents. It explores the potential of today's exciting new laboratory automation and computer technologies as well as the emerging tools of molecular biology-how we can generate and analyze more data quickly and reduce human hands-on involvement, which inevitably introduces errors.
The book discusses how to improve and apply technologies such as robotics, laboratory automation, "lab-on-a-chip," bioinformatics, and Internet control innovations. It reviews lessons learned from our experience with pandemic flu viruses. It also presents strategies for developing new high-throughput technologies, including how to address the lack of public funding for critical research undertakings.
A global lab against influenza Layne, S P; Beugelsdijk, T J; Patel, C K ...
Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science),
2001-Sep-07, 2001-09-07, 20010907, Letnik:
293, Številka:
5536
Journal Article
We describe combined analytic and experimental methods for determining reproductive statistics from time-series data. Our computational methods derive four fundamental measures from laboratory ...experiments: (i) average number of viral daughters; (ii) mean viral cycle time; (iii) standard deviation of the viral cycling time; and (iv) viral doubling time. Taken together, these four reproductive statistics characterize "age-specific fertility," a quantity that provides complete information on the reproduction of the average viral particle. In this paper, we emphasize applications relating to HIV and experiments for assessing cellular tropism, viral phenotypes, antiviral drugs, humoral immunity, and cytotoxic cellular immunity. Nevertheless, our method is quite flexible and applicable to the evaluation of drugs against bacterial, fungal, and parasitic infections, antineoplastic agents against cancer cells, and perturbations involving pest and wildlife releases in ecosystems.
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