The Conversation spoke to Professor Peacock about that day and what happened after. Q: When did you first get the idea to set up Cog-UK? And how was it formed? In late February 2020, it dawned on me that we were going to need genome sequencing capabilities across the UK for the novel coronavirus. It […]

Writing in Nature, a team led by Cambridge researchers report how they were able to observe SARS-CoV-2 mutating in the case of an immunocompromised patient treated with convalescent plasma. In particular, they saw the emergence of a key mutation also seen in the new variant that led to the UK being forced once again into […]

The preliminary data, which have yet to be to peer-reviewed [see update below] and relate to only a small number of patients, also suggest that a significant proportion of over-eighty olds may not be sufficiently protected against infection until they have received their second dose of the vaccine. As the SARS-CoV-2 virus replicates and spreads, errors […]

Treating those most severely affected by COVID-19 has necessarily taken priority during the pandemic. But could long COVID be the next wave of the crisis?

Among the key findings, which have not yet been peer-reviewed, are: Individuals who have asymptomatic or mild disease show a robust immune response early on during infection. Patients requiring admission to hospital have impaired immune responses and systemic inflammation (that is, chronic inflammation that may affect several organs) from the time of symptom onset. Persistent […]

For patients with the most severe forms of COVID-19, mechanical ventilation is often the only way to keep them alive, as doctors use anti-inflammatory therapies to treat their inflamed lungs. However, these patients are susceptible to further infections from bacteria and fungi that they may acquire while in hospital – so called ‘ventilator-associated pneumonia’. Now, […]

The response to the COVID-19 pandemic has been hampered by the lack of effective antiviral drugs against SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes the disease. Scientists had pinned hope on the drug remdesivir, originally developed to treat hepatitis C and subsequently tested against Ebola. However, results from large clinical trials have been inconclusive, and in early […]

2020 will be forever remembered for COVID-19. As the year draws to a close, Dr Estée Török looks back at how colleagues across the NHS and the research community worked tirelessly to fight back.