With the summer holiday season now in full swing, the blog will also swing into its annual August series. For most of the month, I will share with you just a small sampling of the colorful videos and snapshots of life captured in a select few of the hundreds of NIH-supported research labs around the country. To get us started, let’s turn to the study of viruses. Researchers now can generate vast amounts of data relatively quickly on a virus of interest. But data are often displayed as numbers or two-dimensional digital images on a computer screen. For most virologists, it’s extremely helpful ..read more

David Veesler/Credit: University of Washington Medicine, Seattle   David Veesler has spent nearly 20 years imaging in near-atomic detail the parts of various viruses, including coronaviruses, that enable them to infect Homo sapiens. In fact, his lab at the University of Washington, Seattle, was the first to elucidate the 3D architecture of the now infamous spike protein, which coronaviruses use to gain entry into human cells [1]. He uses these fundamental insights to guide the design of vaccines and therapeutics, including promising monoclonal antibodies. Now, Veesler and his lab are turn ..read more

A new coronavirus vaccine approach works by attaching many spike protein receptor-binding domains (RBDs) to an engineered protein-based nanoparticle. In mice, the vaccine induced a cross-reactive antibody response capable of neutralizing many different coronavirus strains. Credit: Adapted from image by A. Cohen via BioRender It’s truly encouraging to witness people all across our nation rolling up their sleeves to get their COVID-19 vaccines. That is our best chance to end this pandemic. But this is the third coronavirus to emerge and cause serious human illness in the last 20 years, and it’s ..read more

Credit: Stock photo/Juanmonino The alarming spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) last winter presented a profound threat to nations around the world. Many government leaders responded by shutting down all non-essential activities, implementing policies that public health officials were hopeful could slow the highly infectious SARS-CoV-2, the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19. But the shutdown has come at a heavy cost for the U.S. and global economies. It’s also taken a heavy personal toll on many of us, disrupting our daily routines—getting children off to school, commuting to th ..read more

Stock photo/SoumenNath Right now, the world is utterly focused on the coronavirus outbreak known as COVID-19. That’s certainly true for those of us at NIH. Though I am working from home to adhere rigorously to physical distancing, I can’t remember ever working harder, trying to do everything I can to assist in the development of safe and effective treatments and vaccines. Over the past several weeks, a mind-boggling array of possible therapies have been considered. None have yet been proven to be effective in rigorously controlled trials, but for one of them, it’s been a busy week. So let’s fo ..read more

Caption: Molecular map showing interaction between the spike protein (gold) of the novel coronavirus and the peptidase domain (blue) of human angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2). Credit: Adapted from Yan R., Science, 2020. With so much information swirling around these days about the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, it would be easy to miss one of the most interesting and significant basic science reports of the past few weeks. It’s a paper published in the journal Science [1] that presents an atomic-scale snapshot showing the 3D structure of the spike protein on the novel coro ..read more

No matter where you go online these days, there’s bound to be discussion of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Some folks are even making outrageous claims that the new coronavirus causing the pandemic was engineered in a lab and deliberately released to make people sick. A new study debunks such claims by providing scientific evidence that this novel coronavirus arose naturally. The reassuring findings are the result of genomic analyses conducted by an international research team, partly supported by NIH. In their study in the journal Nature Medicine, Kristian Andersen, Scripps Research In ..read more

Caption: Atomic-level structure of the spike protein of the virus that causes COVID-19. Credit: McLellan Lab, University of Texas at Austin The recent COVID-19 outbreak of a novel type of coronavirus that began in China has prompted a massive global effort to contain and slow its spread. Despite those efforts, over the last month the virus has begun circulating outside of China in multiple countries and territories. Cases have now appeared in the United States involving some affected individuals who haven’t traveled recently outside the country. They also have had no known contact with others ..read more

Today, thanks to remarkable advances in antiretroviral drugs, most people with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) can expect to live an almost normal lifespan. But that means staying on medications for life. If those are stopped, HIV comes roaring back in just weeks. Finding a permanent cure for HIV infection, where the virus is completely and permanently eliminated from the body, has proven much tougher. So, I’m encouraged by recent work that shows it may be possible to eliminate HIV in a mouse model, and perhaps—with continued progress—someday we will actually cure HIV in humans. This i ..read more

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. W ..read more