Ott Lab News

SAN FRANCSICO (KGO) — A California resident has tested positive for plague. Health officials believe the person was bitten by an infected flea while camping in the South Lake Tahoe area.

The case is raising eyebrows and making many people wonder.

In this edition of The Naked Scientists, what’s behind a sharp rise in measles cases? We explore the origins of measles virus 2000 years ago, why the agent is regarded as the world’s most infectious virus, how the agent causes disease, how measles vaccines work, and why cases are back on the rise…

H5N1 isn’t going away anytime soon and could become a pandemic. Here are some tips to help you understand your risk.

As a second strain of bird flu has spread to dairy cows, influenza experts tell Newsweek that consumers should not be concerned about drinking pasteurized milk.

We had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Melanie Ott from the Gladstone Institutes, which is partnering with us to host the inaugural Global Health Innovation Summit in February. Melanie Ott’s lab studies viruses that infect humans, and applies the lessons learned to new and emerging viruses. The Ott Lab combines broad expertise—in virology, cell biology, biochemistry, systems biology, and chromatin biology—with a diverse and highly collaborative approach.

Long COVID is no stranger to either patients or those immersed in studies of its effects. In the U.S., one in 7 adults–about 14% of the adult population–has experienced symptoms that lasted three months or longer after first contracting the virus. The worldwide estimate for long COVID is 65 million people.

What is less clear–because it’s still so early in the process–is the impact of some of SARS-CoV-2’s most dangerous characteristics on those hit by long COVID. But some researchers are warily watching for the worst: a potential connection to cancer.

No such connection has been established, and the process of learning whether there is one–and to what extent–will rightfully take years. The experts who spoke with me cautioned that most of what they are considering is hypothetical, and the National Cancer Institute did not respond to multiple interview requests.

When Zika virus crosses the placenta to infect a foetus in a pregnant woman, it attacks life before it’s had a chance to establish itself, like squashing a seed before planting it. In particular, the virus infects starter cells for the nervous system, neural progenitor cells, thus causing wide-reaching developmental problems down the line. To investigate how these impacts take hold, researchers examined these cells in the lab, and focused on a protein called UPF1, which manages mRNA – transcripts of genes being expressed. Infected cells have less UPF1 and the researchers saw that as a result, transcripts (red) become stuck in the cell nucleus (blue) in cells infected with Zika (green, right), compared to uninfected (left). This reduces the production of proteins from those transcripts, such as one called FREM2, required to maintain and determine the identity of neural progenitor cells, and so hinders healthy development from the start.

This year’s might include XBB.1 and … perhaps no other strain.

This fall, millions of Americans might be lining up for yet another kind of COVID vaccine: their first-ever dose that lacks the strain that ignited the pandemic more than three and a half years ago. Unlike the current, bivalent vaccine, which guards against two variants at once, the next one could, like the first version of the shot, have only one main ingredient—the spike protein of the XBB.1 lineage of the Omicron variant, the globe’s current dominant clade.

That plan isn’t yet set. The FDA still has to convene a panel of experts, then is expected to make a final call on autumn’s recipe next month. But several experts told me they hope the agency follows the recent recommendation of a World Health Organization advisory group and focuses the next vaccine only on the strains now circulating.