COVID-19 Research Registry

Top COVID-19 research: timely, curated and vetted by experts

ASM is keeping the pulse of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. In the eye of a pandemic, the need for a trusted, up-to-date resource of coronavirus research plays a crucial role in supporting the scientific community on the frontlines fighting the virus.

This registry includes top-ranked, COVID-19 research articles curated by experts and serves as a resource for scientists working together to address fundamental science and accelerate scientific research on SARS-CoV-2.

BASIC VIROLOGY

How is the genome of SARS-CoV-2 evolving? What mechanism does the coronavirus use to target human cells? How does the immune system react to SARS-CoV-2?

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CLINICAL DIAGNOSTICS

Will serology provide the ultimate answer? Does the existence of the antibody equal protection due to antibody neutralization? How often should patients be tested?

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TREATMENT

What are the results of the newest treatment? What drugs are in the pipeline? What are the latest outcomes from clinical trials?

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PREVENTION

What are the different kinds of vaccines? Do coronaviruses evolve to escape vaccines? What have we learned from work with Ebola virus and SARS vaccines development?

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EPIDEMIOLOGY

How does a pandemic start? How long will this pandemic last: can data models give us some hints? COVID-19 affects people differently depending on their age, how does this affect transmission? How does social distancing influence transmission rates?

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GENERAL REVIEWS

Scientifically speaking, what is a coronavirus? What are the similarities and differences in structure and activities of SARS, MERS and SARS-CoV-2? What is the PK/PD of Remdesivir?

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COVID-19 Research Registry - Editorial Volume 2

Lynn Enquist, Ph.D.
Curator-in-Chief

Published on July 20^th, 2020

Three months have passed since the COVID-19 Research Registry was launched. As of today, over 30,000 users have visited the Registry. The strong support from the many users of the Registry is gratifying. Designed for the scientific research community, the Registry will continue to be a trusted source for credible science about COVID-19 in specific, and coronaviruses, in general.

The number of published and pre-print articles continues to accelerate over the past three months, which has presented some significant challenges. We screened over 2500 articles each week to select relevant and high-quality papers to populate the Registry. This effort is a partnership between ASM staff and my colleagues in the Curatorial Board and Curators team. I cannot thank them enough for their hard work and contributions!

Besides the sheer volume of papers, another challenge is to balance different viewpoints and to present objective and credible science to the scientific community. It is not easy when new findings come out every week and conflicting results appear. Our goal is to collect the best papers and resolve conflicts by keeping ourselves updated with the rapid development of the field. Your suggestions and opinions are welcomed and greatly appreciated.

Starting in August, we will add a new activity to the Registry. The Curatorial Board will host a monthly COVID-19 Registry Virtual Journal Club on the 3^rd Thursday of each month at 2:00 pm EST. The inaugural event will take place on Thursday, August 20^th 2:00 pm EST. We envision this will be a robust forum to engage the research community and interested learners in scientific discussions, collaborative networking, and information sharing on the topic of research and discoveries on SARS-CoV-2 and other coronaviruses. Please mark your calendar. Registration information will be available at the beginning of August.

Sincerely,

Lynn Enquist, Ph.D.
Curator-in-Chief

Bi-weekly Commentary

Published on July 31^st, 2020

By Leo Poon, Professor, School of Public Health, The University of Hong Kong

“Comprehensive mapping of immune perturbations associated with severe COVID-19” by Kuri-Cervantes, L. et al, Science Immunology 2020.

Most COVID-19 patients develop mild (40%) or moderate (40%) symptoms, whereas some can have severe (15%) or critical clinical outcomes. Such heterogeneity of disease spectrum is very different from the one of SARS. The underlying reasons account for this is not clear.

In order to determine immune parameters that might associate with the disease severity of COVID-19, a team from Philadelphia have conducted a comprehensive immune profiling analysis in 42 COVID-19 patients (7 mild, 28 severe and 7 recovered cases). Similar to others’ findings, several immune parameters (e.g. neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio and neutrophil:T cell ratio) correlate with disease severity. They also report severe COVID-19 cases tend to have reduced expression of CD16 on some innate immune cells (e.g. neutrophil, NK cells and monocytes). In addition, they report severe COVID-19 patients have increased activation of T cells and pronounced oligoclonal expansion of plasmablasts with long and divergent CDR3 sequences. These results indicate that the immune responses of severe COVID-19 cases are different from those of mild ones. Some of these new parameters might be used as immune correlates for disease severity. Nonetheless, further systematic investigations on these immune subsets are needed to explain the pathogenesis of severe COVID-19 infection.

Several studies have demonstrated that severe COVID-19 patients have robust IgG and IgM responses. With the findings on B cells from the above study, it is of great interest to know the quality of antibodies produced by severe COVID-19 patients. In particular, long CDR3 sequences may relate to non-specific cross reactivity and/or immunopathology. Such analysis might provide useful information to advice clinical treatment, prognosis and vaccine development.