Tag: 22/1/21

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Fatal Netcare Helicopter Crash to Be Investigated

On By ModernMedia

The Civil Aviation Authority has dispatched investigators to the crash site  of a Netcare helicopter on Thursday, in which five people including four health care professionals lost their lives.

The ECMO-equipped air ambulance, Netcare 1, was en route to Hillcrest in KZN to pick up a critically ill patient for transfer back to Milpark Hospital in Johannesburg. The helicopter went down near Bergville..

Netcare on Thursday released the names of those aboard:
Dr Kgopotso Rudolf Mononyane, an anaesthetist. Dr Mononyane had delayed the flight in order to try help to save the life of Jackson Mthembu, who unfortunately passed away from a COVID-related illness.
Curnick Siyabonga Mahlangu, a cardiothoracic surgeon.Mpho Xaba, a specialist theatre nurse for cardiothoracic and transplant.
The above three were all from Netcare Milpark Hospital.
Sinjin Joshua Farrance, an advanced life support paramedic at Netcare 911, Mark Stroxreiter, a helicopter pilot who worked for the National Airways Corporation.

Health Minister Zwile Mkhize said: “We’d like to convey our very sincere condolences to the families of all those doctors and pilot who lost their lives. We know their dedication, their hard work and their effort to try to save lives all the time.”

Dr Richard Friedland, chief executive officer of Netcare said: “We are shocked beyond words at the tragic loss of these healthcare heroes. The whole of Netcare falls silent as we bow our heads in tribute, respect, love and memory of our fallen colleagues and frontline heroes who have died in the line of duty.”

No cause for the accident has yet been identified, although videos from the scene show that wreckage was spread in a wide area. Unconfirmed reports from witnesses recounted a mid-air explosion, whilst a voice note circulating on social media claimed that the helicopter fell to the ground and exploded.

Source: IOL News

Categories : COVID T-cellsTags : Leave a comment

Severe COVID May Lead to Stronger Immunity

On By ModernMedia

Researchers from La Jolla Institute for Immunology (LJI), The University of Liverpool and the University of Southampton have discovered that the degree of COVID severity appears to be linked to how long-lasting and strong the subsequent immunity is. 

“The data from this study suggest people with severe COVID-19 cases may have stronger long-term immunity,” said study co-leader LJI Professor Pandurangan Vijayanand, MD, PhD.

The research examines T-cells from COVID infections in unprecedently high detail.

“This study highlights the enormous variability in how human beings react to a viral challenge,” added co-leader Christian Ottensmeier, MD, PhD, FRCP, a professor at the University of Liverpool and adjunct professor at LJI.

Vijayanand and Ottensmeier have been studying how antibodies and the different subsets of T-cells control COVID disease severity. In this study, they examined CD8+ T-cells, which are the T-cells responsible for destroying virus-infected cells, and “memory” CD8+ T-cells are also important for guarding the body against reinfections of the same virus. These memory T-cells are poised to rapidly proliferate and engage their cell-destroying functions on subsequent antigen encounters. They can reside in peripheral organs and their memory can also be shaped by infection history.

Utilising a new technique called single-cell transcriptomics analysis, they were able to study expressions of individual genes of 80 000 CD8+ T-cells drawn from 39 COVID patients and from 10 non-exposed donors, whose blood samples had been taken before the pandemic. Of the COVID patients, 17 cases were mild and non-hospitalised, 13 were hospitalised and 9 had required ICU care.

Surprisingly, the researchers found that the strongest CD8+ T-cell responses were from those with the more severe form of the disease, and not the milder cases.”There is an inverse link between how poorly T cells work and how bad the infection is,” observed Ottensmeier. “I think that was quite unexpected.” A stronger response would be expected from CD8+ T-cells in mild cases due to having the resources of a better functioning immune system. However, the mild group of CD8+ T-cells showed signs of “exhaustion”, which happens when the immune system overloads the T-cells, causing them to lose effectiveness.

The researchers believe that it will be beneficial to study whether this phenomenon may hinder the ability to build long-term immunity.

“People who have severe disease are likely to end up with a good number of memory cells,” said Vijayanand. “People with milder disease have memory cells, but they seem exhausted and dysfunctional—so they might not be effective for long enough.

“What the researchers would like to look at next is to look at T-cells from lung tissue as opposed to blood samples, because that is where the infection hits hardest.

“This study is very much a first step in understanding the spectrum of immune responses against infectious agents,” said Ottensmeier. The researchers will also look at T-cells in cancer patients who are also infected with COVID.

Source: Medical Xpress

Journal information: Anthony Kusnadi et al, Severely ill COVID-19 patients display impaired exhaustion features in SARS-CoV-2-reactive CD8+ T cells, Science Immunology  21 Jan 2021: Vol. 6, Issue 55, eabe4782 DOI: 10.1126/sciimmunol.abe4782

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Paralysed Mice Walk Again with ‘Designer’ Cytokines

On By ModernMedia

Scientists have sought a means to regenerate spinal cord injuries which leaves patients paraplegic or quadriplegic – and now a breakthrough by researchers at Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany, may see that dream realised.

By the time humans reach adulthood, after an injury they can no longer regenerate the axons which transfer nerve impulses from brain to muscles. In 2013, the researchers discovered that a cytokine called interleukin-6 (IL-6) promoted the regeneration of optic axon fibres in vitro. IL-6 was known to be involved in nerve regeneration as well as in neuropathic pain from peripheral nerve injuries. As promising as this experiment was, delivery of the cytokine to the injury location deep in the body was an obstacles, as was the fact that it had a fairly weak effect on stimulating nerve tissue regrowth.

The team subsequently developed hyper-IL-6, an artificial variant of IL-6 that was far more potent than its natural counterpart. However, the “designer” cytokine still could not be delivered to the injured tissue where it was needed. To get around this, the researchers turned to a somewhat novel delivery method: gene therapy. A few motor neurons in the brain’s sensorimotor cortex are altered via engineered viruses to produce hyper-IL-6, which is then distributed along the axon’s length to the injury site.

“Thus, gene therapy treatment of only a few nerve cells stimulated the axonal regeneration of various nerve cells in the brain and several motor tracts in the spinal cord simultaneously,” explained senior author Dr Dietmar Fischer.

After a single injection of the engineered virus and its hyper-IL-6 payload, mice with severed spinal cords were able to walk again after two to three weeks.

“This came as a great surprise to us at the beginning, as it had never been shown to be possible before after full paraplegia,” said Dr. Fischer.
Following the success of these experiments, Dr. Fischer’s team is looking at combining the engineered cytokine treatment to other promising applications, such as tissue grafts. Additionally, they are investigating whether the hyper-IL-6 treatment can regenerate spinal cord damage that occurred weeks beforehand.

“This aspect would be particularly relevant for application in humans. We are now breaking new scientific ground. These further experiments will show, among other things, whether it will be possible to transfer these new approaches to humans in the future.”

However, adapting this designer cytokine treatment to be one that is safe for humans will take several years.

Source: Medical News Today