Brazil
This Is Why NIH Invests in Global Health Research
Posted on by Roger I. Glass, M.D., Ph.D., Fogarty International Center
Efforts over the past few years to end the COVID-19 pandemic clearly reveal how global health impacts individual wellbeing and national security. At NIH, the Fogarty International Center helps the other institutes become engaged with global health research, which investigates the dual burden of infectious disease and non-communicable disease.
Global health research also encompasses data science, economics, genetics, climate change science, and many other disciplines. For more than 50 years, Fogarty has been building partnerships among institutions in the U.S. and abroad, while training the next generation of scientists focused on universal health needs.
America’s investment in Fogarty has paid rich dividends
During the pandemic, in particular, we’ve seen researchers trained by our programs make scientific discoveries that contributed to international security. Take Jessica Manning, a former Fogarty fellow who now conducts malaria research in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Her team at the Ministry of Health sequenced the viral strain of SARS-CoV-2, the cause of COVID-19, infecting the first Cambodian patient and documented early the spread of this novel coronavirus outside of China.
Similarly, Christian Happi, director of the African Centre of Excellence for the Genomics of Infectious Disease, Ede, Nigeria, sequenced the first SARS-CoV-2 genome in Africa. Happi was able to do it by adapting the sequencing and analytical pipelines that he’d created back when he was a Fogarty grantee studying Ebola.
In Botswana, Sikhulile Moyo leveraged the skills he’d acquired while supported by a Fogarty HIV research training grant with Max Essex, Harvard School of Public Health, Cambridge, MA, to track COVID-19 mutations for his country’s Ministry of Health. Last November, he alerted the world of a new Omicron variant. Within six weeks, Omicron became the dominant global strain, challenging the ability of COVID vaccines to control its spread. In the Dominican Republic, William Duke, a national commission member, used what he’d learned as a Fogarty trainee to help create a national COVID-19 intervention plan to prevent and control the disease.
Fogarty’s fostering of global health leaders is one way we advance scientific expertise while ensuring our nation’s biosecurity. Another is by finding effective ways to study abroad the same health conditions that affect our own population.
Research conducted in Colombia, for example, may provide clues for preventing Alzheimer’s disease in the U.S. Fogarty support brought together neuroscientists Kenneth Kosik, University of California, Santa Barbara, and Francisco Lopera, University of Antioquia, Colombia, to study members of the largest-known family with an early-onset, rapidly progressive form of the disease. Over the years, Kosik and Lopera have trained local scientists, explored gene therapy targets, investigated biomarkers to monitor disease progression, and conducted drug trials in search of a cure for Alzheimer’s.
Researchers in other fields also discover unique opportunities to investigate populations with high rates of disease. Siana Nkya, a Fogarty grantee based in Tanzania, has devoted her career to studying the genetic determinants of sickle cell disease, which affects many people around the world, including in the U.S. We hope that US-African partnerships might develop improved, affordable treatments and a cure for all patients with this devastating disease. Similarly, people in the U.S. have access to state-of-the-art HIV treatment studies in places around the globe where incidence rates are higher.
Fogarty has supported many milestone achievements in HIV research over the years. Among them is a study that took place in nine countries. The research, led by Myron Cohen of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, established that antiretroviral therapy can prevent sexual transmission of HIV-1 among couples in which one person is infected and the other is not. In fact, this research informs current HIV treatment recommendations worldwide, including in the U.S.
Americans will also undoubtedly benefit from projects funded by Fogarty’s Global Brain and Nervous System Disorders Research across the Lifespan program. For example, psychologist Tatiana Balachova, University of Oklahoma, Oklahoma City, has designed an intervention for women in Russia to prevent fetal alcohol spectrum disorders. In another project in South Africa, Sandra and Joseph Jacobson, Wayne State University, Detroit, conducted the first-ever prospective longitudinal study of the syndrome. Findings from both projects are ripe for translation within an American context.
Other examples of Global Brain program investigations with broad implications in our own country include studying early psychosis in China; capacity building for schizophrenia research in Macedonia; exploring family consequences from the Zika virus in Brazil; and studying dementia and related health and social challenges in Lebanon.
These are just a few examples of Fogarty’s work and its unique mission. What is most remarkable about Fogarty is that just under 90 percent of our grants are co-funded by at least one other NIH institute, center, or office. Collaboration, both within borders and across them, is Fogarty’s formula for success.
Links:
Fogarty International Center (NIH)
Overview of Brain Disorders: Research Across the Lifespan (Fogarty)
Former Fogarty Scholar Dr Jessica Manning Helps Cambodia Respond to COVID (Fogarty)
Christian Happi: Former Fogarty Grantee Leads COVID-19 Genomics Work in Africa (Fogarty)
Sikhulile Moyo: Fogarty Fellow Recognized for Omicron Discovery (Fogarty)
William Duke: Former Fogarty HIV Trainee Helps Lead Dominican Republic’s COVID Response (Fogarty)
Kenneth Kosic and Francisco Lopera: NIH Support Spurs Alzheimer’s Research in Colombia (Fogarty)
Former Fogarty fellow Siana Nkya Tackles Sickle Cell Disease in Tanzania (Fogarty)
Tatiana Balachova: Researchers Tackle Fetal Alcohol Syndrome in Russia (Fogarty)
Sandra and Joseph Jacobson: Fetal Alcohol Exposure Research Supported by NIAAA in South Africa, Ukraine and Russia Improves Prevention, Outcomes (Fogarty)
Note: Dr. Lawrence Tabak, who performs the duties of the NIH Director, has asked the heads of NIH’s Institutes and Centers (ICs) to contribute occasional guest posts to the blog to highlight some of the interesting science that they support and conduct. This is the 22nd in the series of NIH IC guest posts that will run until a new permanent NIH director is in place.
Tracking the Evolution of a ‘Variant of Concern’ in Brazil
Posted on by Dr. Francis Collins
By last October, about three out of every four residents of Manaus, Brazil already had been infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19 [1]. And yet, despite hopes of achieving “herd immunity” in this city of 2.2 million in the Amazon region, the virus came roaring back in late 2020 and early 2021 to cause a second wave of illness and death [2]. How is this possible?
The answer offers a lesson in viral evolution, especially when an infectious virus such as SARS-CoV-2 replicates and spreads through a population largely unchecked. In a recent study in the journal Science, researchers tied the city’s resurgence of SARS-CoV-2 to the emergence and rapid spread of a new SARS-CoV-2 “variant of concern” known as P.1 [3]. This variant carries a unique constellation of mutations that allow it not only to sneak past the human immune system and re-infect people, but also to be about twice as transmissible as earlier variants.
To understand how this is possible, consider that each time the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 makes copies of itself in an infected person, there’s a chance a mistake will be made. Each mistake can produce a new variant that may go on to make more copies of itself. In most cases, those random errors are of little to no consequence. This is evolution in action.
But sometimes a spelling change can occur that benefits the virus. In the special case of patients with suppressed immune systems, the virus can have ample opportunity to accrue an unusually high number of mutations. Variants carrying beneficial mutations can make more copies of themselves than other variants, allowing them to build their numbers and spread to cause more infection.
At this advanced stage of the COVID-19 pandemic, such rapidly spreading new variants remain cause for serious concern. That includes variants such as B.1.351, which originated in South Africa; B.1.1.7 which emerged in the United Kingdom; and now P.1 from Manaus, Brazil.
In the new study, Nuno Faria and Samir Bhatt, Imperial College London, U.K., and Ester Cerdeira Sabino, Universidade de Sao Paulo, Brazil, and their colleagues sequenced SARS-CoV-2 genomes from 184 patient samples collected in Manaus in November and December 2020. The research was conducted under the auspices of the Brazil-UK Centre for Arbovirus Discovery, Diagnosis, Genomics and Epidemiology (CADDE), a project focused on viral genomics and epidemiology for public health.
Those genomic data revealed the P.1 variant had acquired 17 new mutations. Ten were in the spike protein, which is the segment of the virus that binds onto human cells and the target of current COVID-19 vaccines. In fact, the new work reveals that three of these spike protein mutations make it easier for the P.1 spike to bind the human ACE2 receptor, which is SARS-CoV-2’s preferred entry point.
The first P.1 variant case was detected by genomic surveillance on December 6, 2020, after which it spread rapidly. Through further evolutionary analysis, the team estimates that P.1 must have emerged, undetected for a brief time, in mid-November 2020.
To understand better how the P.1 variant led to such an explosion of new COVID-19 cases, the researchers developed a mathematical model that integrated the genomic data with mortality data. The model suggests that P.1 may be 1.7 to 2.4 times more transmissible than earlier variants. They also estimate that a person previously infected with a variant other than P.1 will have only 54 percent to 79 percent protection against a subsequent infection with P.1.
The researchers also observed an increase in mortality following the emergence of the P.1 variant. However, it’s not yet clear if that’s an indication P.1 is inherently more deadly than earlier variants. It’s possible the increased mortality is related primarily to the extra stress on the healthcare system in Manaus from treating so many people with COVID-19.
These findings are yet another reminder of the importance of genomic surveillance and international data sharing for detecting and characterizing emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants quickly. It’s worth noting that at about the same time this variant was detected in Brazil, it also was reported in four individuals who had traveled to Brazil from Japan. The P.1 variant continues to spread rapidly across Brazil. It has also been detected in more than 37 countries [4], including the United States, where it now accounts for more than 1 percent of new cases [5].
No doubt you are wondering what this means for vaccines, such as the Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines, that have been used to immunize (at least one dose) over 140 million people in the United States. Here the news is encouraging. Serum from individuals who received the Pfizer vaccine had titers of neutralizing antibodies that were only slightly reduced for P.1 compared to the original SARS-CoV-2 virus [6]. Therefore, the vaccine is predicted to be highly protective. This is another example of a vaccine providing more protection than a natural infection.
The United States has made truly remarkable progress in combating COVID-19, but we must heed this lesson from Manaus: this terrible pandemic isn’t over just yet. While the P.1 variant remains at low levels here for now, the “U.K. variant” B.1.1.7 continues to spread rapidly and now is the most prevalent variant circulating in the U.S., accounting for 44 percent of new cases [6]. Fortunately, the mRNA vaccines also work well against B.1.1.7.
We must continue to do absolutely everything possible, individually and collectively, to prevent these new SARS-CoV-2 variants from slowing or even canceling the progress made over the last year. We need to remain vigilant for just a while longer, while encouraging our friends, neighbors, and loved ones to get vaccinated.
References:
[1] Three-quarters attack rate of SARS-CoV-2 in the Brazilian Amazon during a largely unmitigated epidemic. Buss, L. F., C. A. Prete, Jr., C. M. M. Abrahim, A. C. Dye, V. H. Nascimento, N. R. Faria and E. C. Sabino et al. (2021). Science 371(6526): 288-292.
[2] Resurgence of COVID-19 in Manaus, Brazil, despite high seroprevalence. Sabino EC, Buss LF, Carvalho MPS, Prete Jr CCA, Crispim MAE, Fraiji NA, Pereira RHM, Paraga KV, Peixoto PS, Kraemer MUG, Oikawa MJ, Salomon T, Cucunuba ZM, Castro MC, Santos AAAS, Nascimento VH, Pereira HS, Ferguson NM, Pybus OG, Kucharski A, Busch MP, Dye C, Faria NR Lancet. 2021 Feb 6;397(10273):452-455.
[3] Genomics and epidemiology of the P.1 SARS-CoV-2 lineage in Manaus, Brazil. Faria NR, Mellan TA, Whittaker C, Claro IM, Fraiji NA, Carvalho MDPSS, Pybus OG, Flaxman S, Bhatt S, Sabino EC et al. Science. 2021 Apr 14:eabh2644.
[4] GRINCH Global Report Investigating novel coronavirus haplotypes. PANGO Lineages.
[5] COVID Data Tracker. Variant Proportions. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
[6] Antibody evasion by the P.1 strain of SARS-CoV-2. Dejnirattisai W, Zhou D, Supasa P, Liu C, Mongkolsapaya J, Ren J, Stuart DI, Screaton GR, et al. Cell. 2021 Mar 30:S0092-8674(21)00428-1.
Links:
COVID-19 Research (NIH)
Brazil-UK Centre for Arbovirus Discovery, Diagnosis, Genomics and Epidemiology (CADDE)
Nuno Faria (Imperial College, London, U.K.)
Samir Bhatt (Imperial College)
Ester Cerdeira Sabino (Universidade de Sao Paulo, Brazil)
NIH Support: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
Will Warm Weather Slow Spread of Novel Coronavirus?
Posted on by Dr. Francis Collins
With the start of summer coming soon, many are hopeful that the warmer weather will slow the spread of SARS-CoV-2, the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19. There have been hints from lab experiments that increased temperature and humidity may reduce the viability of SARS-CoV-2. Meanwhile, other coronaviruses that cause less severe diseases, such as the common cold, do spread more slowly among people during the summer.
We’ll obviously have to wait a few months to get the data. But for now, many researchers have their doubts that the COVID-19 pandemic will enter a needed summertime lull. Among them are some experts on infectious disease transmission and climate modeling, who ran a series of sophisticated computer simulations of how the virus will likely spread over the coming months [1]. This research team found that humans’ current lack of immunity to SARS-CoV-2—not the weather—will likely be a primary factor driving the continued, rapid spread of the novel coronavirus this summer and into the fall.
These sobering predictions, published recently in the journal Science, come from studies led by Rachel Baker and Bryan Grenfell at Princeton Environmental Institute, Princeton, NJ. The Grenfell lab has long studied the dynamics of infectious illnesses, including seasonal influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). Last year, they published one of the first studies to look at how our warming climate might influence those dynamics in the coming years [2].
Those earlier studies focused on well-known human infectious diseases. Less clear is how seasonal variations in the weather might modulate the spread of a new virus that the vast majority of people and their immune systems have yet to encounter.
In the new study, the researchers developed a mathematical model to simulate how seasonal changes in temperature might influence the trajectory of COVID-19 in cities around the world. Of course, because the virus emerged on the scene only recently, we don’t know very much about how it will respond to warming conditions. So, the researchers ran three different scenarios based on what’s known about the role of climate in the spread of other viruses, including two coronaviruses, called OC43 and HKU1, that are known to cause common colds in people.
In all three scenarios, their models showed that climate only would become an important seasonal factor in controlling COVID-19 once a large proportion of people within a given community are immune or resistant to infection. In fact, the team found that, even if one assumes that SARS-CoV-2 is as sensitive to climate as other seasonal viruses, summer heat still would not be enough of a mitigator right now to slow its initial, rapid spread through the human population. That’s also clear from the rapid spread of COVID-19 that’s currently occurring in Brazil, Ecuador, and some other tropical nations.
Over the longer term, as more people develop immunity, the researchers suggest that COVID-19 may likely fall into a seasonal pattern similar to those seen with diseases caused by other coronaviruses. Long before then, NIH is working intensively with partners from all sectors to make sure that safe, effective treatments and vaccines will be available to help prevent the tragic, heavy loss of life that we’re seeing now.
Of course, climate is just one key factor to consider in evaluating the course of this disease. And, there is a glimmer of hope in one of the group’s models. The researchers incorporated the effects of control measures, such as physical distancing, with climate. It appears from this model that such measures, in combination with warm temperatures, actually might combine well to help slow the spread of this devastating virus. It’s a reminder that physical distancing will remain our best weapon into the summer to slow or prevent the spread of COVID-19. So, keep wearing those masks and staying 6 feet or more apart!
References:
[1] Susceptible supply limits the role of climate in the early SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Baker RE, Yang W, Vecchi GA, Metcalf CJE, Grenfell BT. Science. 2020 May 18. [Online ahead of print.]
[2] Epidemic dynamics of respiratory syncytial virus in current and future climates. Baker RE, Mahmud AS, Wagner CE, Yang W, Pitzer VE, Viboud C, Vecchi GA, Metcalf CJE, Grenfell BT.Nat Commun. 2019 Dec 4;10(1):5512.
Links:
Coronavirus (COVID-19) (NIH)
Bryan Grenfell (Princeton University, Princeton, NJ)
Rachel Baker (Princeton University, Princeton, NJ)
Uncovering a Hidden Zika Outbreak in Cuba
Posted on by Dr. Francis Collins
When Brazilian health officials discovered four years ago that the mosquito-borne Zika virus could cause severe birth defects and other serious health problems, it prompted a major effort across the Americas to curb the infection by controlling mosquitoes and issuing travel advisories. By mid-2017, the hard work seemed to have paid off, and reports of new Zika infections had nearly stopped.
But it turns out Zika may be tougher to control than once thought. New research shows that a large, previously hidden outbreak of Zika virus disease occurred in Cuba, just when it looked like the worst of the epidemic was over. The finding suggests that the Zika virus can linger over long periods, and that mosquito control efforts alone may slow, but not necessarily stop, the march of this potentially devastating infectious disease.
When combating global epidemics, it’s critical to track the spread of dangerous viruses from one place to the next. But some viruses can be tougher to monitor than others, and that certainly has been the case with Zika in the Americas. Though the virus can harm unborn children, many people infected with Zika never feel lousy enough to go to the doctor. Those who do often have symptoms that overlap with other prevalent tropical diseases, such as dengue and chikungunya fever, making it hard to recognize Zika.
That’s why in Brazil, where Zika arrived in the Americas by early 2014, this unexpected viral intruder went undetected for well over a year. By then, it had spread unnoticed to Honduras, circulating rapidly to other Central American nations and Mexico—likely by late 2014 and into 2015.
In the United States, even with close monitoring, a small local outbreak of Zika virus in Florida also went undetected for about three months in 2016 [1]. Then, in 2017, Florida officials began noticing something strange: new cases of Zika infection in people who had traveled to Cuba.
This came as a real surprise because Cuba, unlike most other Caribbean islands, was thought to have avoided an outbreak. What’s more, by then the Zika epidemic in the Americas had slowed to a trickle, prompting the World Health Organization to delist it as a global public health emergency of international concern.
Given the Cuban observation, some wondered whether the Zika epidemic in the Americas was really over. Among them was an NIH-supported research team, including Nathan Grubaugh, Yale School of Public Health, New Haven, CT; Sharon Isern and Scott Michael, Florida Gulf Coast University, Fort Myers; and Kristian Andersen, The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA, who worked closely with the Florida Department of Health, including Andrea Morrison.
As published in Cell, the team was able to document a previously unreported outbreak in Cuba after the epidemic had seemingly ended [2]. Interestingly, another research group in Spain also recently made a similar observation about Zika in Cuba [3].
In the Cell paper, the researchers show that between June 2017 and October 2018, all but two of 155 cases—a whopping 98 percent of travel-associated Zika infections—traced back to Cuba. Further analysis suggests that the outbreak in Cuba was likely of similar magnitude to outbreaks that occurred in other Caribbean nations.
Their estimates suggest there were likely many thousands of Zika cases in Cuba, and more than 5,000 likely should have been diagnosed and reported in 2017. The only difference was the timing. The Cuban outbreak of Zika virus occurred about a year after infections subsided elsewhere in the Caribbean.
To fill in more of the blanks, the researchers relied on Zika virus genomes from nine infected Florida travelers who returned from Cuba in 2017 and 2018. The sequencing data support multiple introductions of Zika virus to Cuba from other Caribbean islands in the summer of 2016.
The outbreak peaked about a year after the virus made its way to Cuba, similar to what happened in other places. But the Cuban outbreak was likely delayed by a year thanks to an effective mosquito control campaign by local authorities, following detection of the Brazilian outbreak. While information is lacking, including whether Zika infections had caused birth defects, it’s likely those efforts were relaxed once the emergency appeared to be over elsewhere in the Caribbean, and the virus took hold.
The findings serve as yet another reminder that the Zika virus—first identified in the Zika Forest in Uganda in 1947 and for many years considered a mostly inconsequential virus [4]—has by no means been eliminated. Indeed, such unrecognized and delayed outbreaks of Zika raise the risk of travelers innocently spreading the virus to other parts of the world.
The encouraging news is that, with travel surveillance data and genomic tools —enabled by open science—it is now possible to detect such outbreaks. By combining resources and data, it will be possible to develop even more effective and responsive surveillance frameworks to pick up on emerging health threats in the future.
In the meantime, work continues to develop a vaccine for the Zika virus, with more than a dozen clinical trials underway that pursue a variety of vaccination strategies. With the Zika pandemic resolved in the Americas, these studies can be harder to conduct, since proof of efficacy is not possible without active infections. But, as this paper shows, we must remain ready for future outbreaks of this unique and formidable virus.
References:
[1] Genomic epidemiology reveals multiple introductions of Zika virus into the United States. Grubaugh et al. Nature. 2017 Jun 15;546(7658):401-405.
[2] Travel surveillance and genomics uncover a hidden Zika outbreak during the waning epidemic. Grubaugh ND, Saraf S, Gangavarapu K, Watts A, Tan AL, Oidtman RJ, Magnani DM, Watkins DI, Palacios G, Hamer DH; GeoSentinel Surveillance Network, Gardner LM, Perkins TA, Baele G, Khan K, Morrison A, Isern S, Michael SF, Andersen .KG, et. al. Cell. 2019 Aug 22;178(5):1057-1071.e11.
[3] Mirroring the Zika epidemics in Cuba: The view from a European imported diseases clinic. Almuedo-Riera A, Rodriguez-Valero N, Camprubí D, Losada Galván I, Zamora-Martinez C, Pousibet-Puerto J, Subirà C, Martinez MJ, Pinazo MJ, Muñoz J. Travel Med Infect Dis. 2019 Jul – Aug;30:125-127.
[4] Pandemic Zika: A Formidable Challenge to Medicine and Public Health. Morens DM, Fauci AS. J Infect Dis. 2017 Dec 16;216(suppl_10):S857-S859.
Links:
Video: Uncovering Hidden Zika Outbreaks (Florida Gulf Coast University, Fort Myers)
Zika Virus (National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases/NIH)
Zika Virus Vaccines (NIAID)
Zika Free Florida (Florida Department of Health, Tallahassee)
Grubaugh Lab (Yale School of Public Health, New Haven, CT)
Andersen Lab (The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA)
NIH Support: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases; National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences
Tracing Spread of Zika Virus in the Americas
Posted on by Dr. Francis Collins
Caption: Here I am visiting the Ziika Forest area of Uganda, where the Zika virus was first identified in 1947.
Credit: National Institutes of Health
A couple of summers ago, the threat of mosquito-borne Zika virus disease in tropical areas of the Americas caused major concern, and altered the travel plans of many. The concern was driven by reports of Zika-infected women giving birth to babies with small heads and incompletely developed brains (microcephaly), as well as other serious birth defects. So, with another summer vacation season now upon us, you might wonder what’s become of Zika.
While pregnant women and couples planning on having kids should still take extra precautions [1] when travelling outside the country, the near-term risk of disease outbreaks has largely subsided because so many folks living in affected areas have already been exposed to the virus and developed protective immunity. But the Zika virus—first identified in the Ziika Forest in Uganda in 1947—has by no means been eliminated, making it crucial to learn more about how it spreads to avert future outbreaks. It’s very likely we have not heard the last of Zika in the Western hemisphere.
Recently, an international research team, partly funded by NIH, used genomic tools to trace the spread of the Zika virus. Genomic analysis can be used to build a “family tree” of viral isolates, and such analysis suggests that the first Zika cases in Central America were reported about a year after the virus had actually arrived and begun to spread.
The Zika virus, having circulated for decades in Africa and Asia before sparking a major outbreak in French Polynesia in 2013, slipped undetected across the Pacific Ocean into Brazil early in 2014, as established in previous studies. The new work reveals that by that summer, the bug had already hopped unnoticed to Honduras, spreading rapidly to other Central American nations and Mexico—likely by late 2014 and into 2015 [2].
Zika Vaccine: Two Candidates Show Promise in Mice
Posted on by Dr. Francis Collins
Caption: Zika virus (red), isolated from a microcephaly case in Brazil. The virus is associated with cellular membranes in the center.
Credit: NIAID
Last February, the World Health Organization declared a public health emergency over concerns about very serious birth defects in Brazil and their possible link to Zika virus. But even before then, concerns about the unprecedented spread of Zika virus in Brazil and elsewhere in Latin America had prompted NIH-funded scientists to step up their efforts to combat this emerging infectious disease threat. Over the last year, research aimed at understanding the mosquito-borne virus has progressed rapidly, and we now appear to be getting closer to a Zika vaccine.
In a recent study in the journal Nature, researchers found that a single dose of either of two experimental vaccines completely protected mice against a major viral strain responsible for the Zika outbreak in Brazil [1]. Caution is certainly warranted when extrapolating these (or any other) findings from mice to people. But, taking into account the fact that researchers have already developed safe and effective human vaccines for several related viruses, the new work represents a very encouraging milestone on the road toward a much-needed Zika vaccine for humans.
Zika and Birth Defects: The Evidence Mounts
Posted on by Dr. Francis Collins
Caption: Human neural progenitor cells (gray) infected with Zika virus (green) increased the enzyme caspase-3 (red), suggesting increased cell death.
Credit: Sarah C. Ogden, Florida State University, Tallahassee
Recently, public health officials have raised major concerns over the disturbing spread of the mosquito-borne Zika virus among people living in and traveling to many parts of Central and South America [1]. While the symptoms of Zika infection are typically mild, grave concerns have arisen about its potential impact during pregnancy. The concerns stem from the unusual number of births of children with microcephaly, a very serious condition characterized by a small head and damaged brain, coinciding with the spread of Zika virus. Now, two new studies strengthen the connection between Zika and an array of birth defects, including, but not limited to, microcephaly.
In the first study, NIH-funded laboratory researchers show that Zika virus can infect and kill human neural progenitor cells [2]. Those progenitor cells give rise to the cerebral cortex, a portion of the brain often affected in children with microcephaly. The second study, involving a small cohort of women diagnosed with Zika virus during their pregnancies in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, suggests that the attack rate is disturbingly high, and microcephaly is just one of many risks to the developing fetus. [3]
Neuroscience Research Kicks Off World Cup
Posted on by Dr. Francis Collins
Caption: During my recent trip to Brazil, I visited the lab of neuroscientist Miguel Nicolelis to check out the device that he and his colleagues unveiled at the FIFA World Cup opening ceremony.
Credits: Fogarty International Center, FIFA World Cup, Walk Again Project
More than a billion people all around the globe got their first look at cutting edge neuroscience research in action today when a paraplegic youth wearing a thought-controlled, robotic exoskeleton kicked a ball to launch the 2014 FIFA World Cup opening ceremony in São Paulo, Brazil.
While much work remains before this or similar devices become widely available to people with paralysis, today’s moment does provide an inspiring glimpse of just one of the many things that can be achieved when science is supported over the long haul. In fact, the dramatic debut of this robotic exoskeleton was grounded in more than 20 years of scientific studies, including basic research supported by NIH and clinical research funded by the Brazilian government.
