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.

 

 

 

July 20, 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 3 months, which has presented some significant challenges. We screened over 2,500 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 Aug., we will add a new activity to the registry.  The curatorial board will host a monthly COVID-19 Registry Virtual Journal Club on the third Thursday of each month at 2 p.m. EST.  The inaugural event will take place on Thursday, Aug. 20 at 2 p.m. 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 Aug.

Sincerely,

 

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Bi-weekly Commentary Letter

Nov. 19, 2020

By Aaron G. Schmidt, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Microbiology, Harvard Medical School and Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard. Dr. Schmidt is one of the curators of the Registry.
 
Escape from neutralizing antibodies by SARS-CoV-2 spike protein variants by Weisblum, Y., et al., published in eLife on Oct. 28, 2020.
 
In response to natural infection or vaccination, the human immune system often mounts a protective humoral response that helps prevent future infections. Viruses, however, can vary the antigenicity of their surface-exposed proteins. This serves as an effective evasion strategy to avoid host immune surveillance. Understanding how viruses might escape the mounted immune response is essential as it can directly influence the selection of antibody therapeutics as well as vaccine development.
 
Hatziioannou, Bieniasz and colleagues in their recent paper identify variants of the SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein that can escape neutralization by human monoclonal antibodies as well as convalescent sera. Using a chimeric vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV)/SARS-CoV-2 replication competent reporter virus, they obtained a “library” of Spike variants due to the lack of proof-reading activity of the VSV polymerase. They used this library to identify mutations that conferred resistance to three different monoclonal antibodies and convalescent sera from which the monoclonals were obtained. Key findings of their study include the observation that resistance populations were readily selected and clustered around the receptor binding domain. These mutations, however, did not impact interactions with its receptor, ACE-2. Mutations conferring escape from monoclonal antibodies remained sensitive to neutralization by the sera. Importantly, they found that cocktails of monoclonals could suppress viral escape. Lastly, through analysis of SARS-CoV-2 sequences, they also identified naturally occurring variants that are resistant to the monoclonals. Collectively, these data help further our understanding of the potential escape pathways of SARS-CoV-2 and have implications for developing therapies and vaccines.

Video & Other Curricular Resources for COVID-19

• “COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2 and the Pandemic”.
• Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (AAC) Podcast: Therapeutic approaches for COVID-19: Myths and Facts.
• Science Forum: SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) by the numbers.
• Vaughn Cooper: “The ongoing evolution of SARS-CoV-2” April 1, 2020 (YouTube11:21).
• Dr. Pamela Bjorkman: Intro to Viruses, Antivirals, and Vaccines April 10, 2020 (YouTube 52:57).
• Scott Page: Understanding Fatality Rate Models  April 3, 2020 (YouTube 10:12).
• Minute Physics: "How to tell if we’re beating Covid-19"  March 27, 2020 (YouTube 7:15).
• 3 Blue 1 Brown "Simulating an Epidemic"  March 27, 2020 (YouTube 2:07).
• Britt Glaunsinger: "Coronaviruses 101, Focus on Molecular Virology"  March 25, 2020 (YouTube 1:02:18).
• Vaughn Cooper: "Evolutionary Biology of Novel Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2"  March 24, 2020 (YouTube 11:48).
• Pennings and colleagues: "How does SARS-CoV-2 spread?"  March 24, 2020 (Vimeo 8:25).
• Nick Jewell "The Exponential Power of Now"  March 19, 2020 (YouTube 1:06:00).
• Online Marty: "Disease Spread Simulation"  March 18, 2020 (YouTube 2:52).
• Pennings and colleagues: "Coronavirus in numbers"  March 11, 2020 (Vimeo 10:18).
• Pennings: "SARS-CoV-2 and phylogenetic trees"  March 2, 2020 (Vimeo 14:15).
• University of Pennsylvania: "Coronavirus Outbreak Symposium"  April 3, 2020 (YouTube).
• Coursera: Fighting COVID-19 with Epidemiology: A Johns Hopkins Teach-Out  (Free Course).

Blogs, Articles and Opinions

• *NEW COVID-19 Disease Map: a computational knowledge repository of SARS-CoV-2 virus-host interaction mechanisms.
• Pandemic Response: Validating and Sharing Scientific Information.
• Atul Gawande: Amid the Coronavirus Crisis, a Regimen for Re-entry.
• Dougan and Holt: “How to make a new COVID-19 vaccine starting from scratch” April 9, 2020.

Coronavirus experts and ASM staff working together to bring forward the top COVID-19 research studies to the community.

Email suggestions for research to be highlighted in the COVID-19 Registry.