Laboratory Series#19: Viral Transport medium
Medical Microbiology
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3y ago
In the current scenario of coping with large diagnostic load, a lot of people have asked me on use of VTM in Viral diagnostics. Here are the absolute basics. Viral transport medium is a liquid media that can sustain the virus numbers, infectivity and reduce or inhibit any possible contaminants (such as bacteria or fungus). As already noted, VTM is not a universal requirement. In some cases, the sample may be submitted for analysis as it is. Samples including CSF, blood, BAL and urine samples can be simply sent in a cold chain. For other samples such as tissue biopsies, nasal swabs, skin swab ..read more
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COVID 19 Vaccine Pipeline
Medical Microbiology
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4y ago
In follow up with the earlier posts on the current situation of COVID19 there is an ever increased focussed on the development of a vaccine for the current COVID19 pandemic. As of today, there are 23 candidate vaccines currently in various phase of a clinical trial and another 137 candidates in the preclinical evaluation phase. Vaccine design and development is a long process, though some aspects of it can be fast-tracked in an emergency situation such as the current pandemic. Figure 1 provides with an approximate timeline of events for vaccine development. As you can see depending on the succ ..read more
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COVID19: Why breaking the chain has been so difficult
Medical Microbiology
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4y ago
The latest of the pandemic (COVID19) seems to have elicited an extraordinary infodemic response. There are all sorts of stuff written all over the digital media that it is almost impossible to keep up. Each day thousands of new cases are reported on a global scale, with current numbers being more than 9 million. Though the actual case fatality ratio is low, the total number of deaths as per official records has crossed 4.5 lakhs. That is a serious issue to be considered. Also, on average, 40000 fresh cases are recorded every day. Figure 1, shows you the current scenario of COVID19 in countries ..read more
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SARS CoV 2: Is it evolving & how many Subtypes?
Medical Microbiology
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4y ago
For almost 5 months now, the centre stage of infectious diseases has been taken by SARS CoV 2. The pandemic has hit every region of the globe. At the time of writing this post, a total of more than 3.52 lakh deaths have been confirmed (See Fig 1. For up to date case statistics check this link). There is an unprecedented level of research being thrown into the development of vaccines and drugs. But there is one question that's being asked which needs to be answered. Is the SARS CoV 2 actually evolving and how many types are really known? Figure 1: SARS CoV 2 Statistics as available on 2 ..read more
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Should we blame Gain of Function Research: SARS CoV 2 Context
Medical Microbiology
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4y ago
In the last few weeks, I have been receiving a lot of questions asking and challenging if the SARS CoV 2 is Gain of function (GoF) research that has gone wrong. The questions have been coming after seeing my comment on an article in nature news (Link). Considering there is a lot of media hype on the story, and a lot of public actually believe that SARS CoV 2 is a DURC (Dual-use Research of Concern) and GoF Product some clarity is needed. Photo: Shi Zhengli. Source So why is this even a debate? The question comes based on the earlier research by Shi Zhengli’s group where th ..read more
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Lab Series#18: The Levey-Jennings Chart
Medical Microbiology
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4y ago
LJ chart. Source A huge reader base of this blog is somehow connected to health care and a majority are connected to a laboratory that deals with medical samples. A strong requirement of the work nature is to be producing consistent results. But how do you actually measure that the results produced are consistent and reliable? Well, one of the methods it is to measure the variations and see if it is acceptable. There is a huge number of tests that can be potentially done to estimate the variations and check if the results that are produced are indeed acceptable. The point of this post is to ..read more
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Follow up Post: Wuhan Coronavirus
Medical Microbiology
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4y ago
I must admit that my previous post on Wuhan Coronavirus (nCoV 2019) is not in any way complete information. Some of the details I skipped deliberately to provide an overview and avoid long boring read. Apparently, I should have given more information, considering that there is so much information floating around. Photo 1: R affinis bat. Source To the best of my understanding, we have not really understood what was the source from which the infection was acquired. Based on the sequencing results, the best match that has been found to be a coronavirus sequence isolated from Rhinolophus affin ..read more
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What we know about the Wuhan Coronavirus: To date
Medical Microbiology
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4y ago
In the past 3 weeks, there has been massive media attention on a novel coronavirus strain which seems to be infecting and spreading at an accelerated rate. There is so much of internet content about it, with a majority of them being false news. Its time to write a piece on it and clear some air. Figure 1: Structure of Coronavirus. Source Coronaviruses are enveloped non-segmented positive-sense RNA viruses belonging to the family Coronaviridae (Order Nidovirales). Historically, Coronavirus disease was first described in 1931. Only two human coronaviruses- HCoV-229E and HCoV-OC43 were known ..read more
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Dialister and Coprococcus species in the Gut Microbiome has a role in Mental Health
Medical Microbiology
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4y ago
If I had asked you to identify what are the most important organs of the human body, you are very likely to miss out on "microbiome". Though in a traditional textbook sense we never think of Microbiome as a part of the human body there is growing evidence and debate that perhaps microbiome contributes to the human gene pool. Some scientists have begun calling it a "virtual endocrine organ", thanks to many of the chemicals that they contribute. The concept that human is a holobiont and has implications on physiology is overwhelmingly taking over. Fig 1: The concept of humans being a holobio ..read more
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Blogger's Desk#12- Financial spending on R&D: India
Medical Microbiology
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4y ago
Greetings Though this is a blog space to discuss Microbiology, I have also used this platform to sometimes talk about science itself to a larger audience of interest. In April 2015, I wrote a post on the plight of Indian research scholars (Link). With time, nothing seems to have really improved in the country.  The brightest of research scholars in the country are demonstrating on the streets to gain the attention of the government and seeking to solve the long-standing issues (Link). In this post, I am trying to provide a snapshot of the current financial status of research(ers) in India ..read more
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