COVID-19

Northwestern Medicine scientists are expanding the global network of COVID-19 sequencing in regions where there is limited viral genetic information reporting.

Northwestern Medicine investigators have continued to examine COVID-19, from the impact of prone positioning during treatment to vaccine protection against the Omicron variant in children.

A new publication outlines the structure-function relationships between the first spherical nucleic acid vaccine developed to protect against viral infections, including COVID-19.

Patients with COVID-19-associated lung disease who received lung transplants had similar outcomes compared to patients without COVID-19, according to a study published in JAMA.

Pregnant and postpartum individuals infected with SARS-CoV-2 during pregnancy have an increased risk of maternal mortality or morbidity from obstetric complications, according to a recent study.

Northwestern Medicine investigators continue to study the COVID-19 pandemic, from the biological mechanisms of disease and infection patterns to the pandemic’s impact on women and sexual and gender minorities.

A recent Northwestern Medicine study found global efforts to track variants grossly underreported a probable variant of concern, Eta, circulating in Nigeria in early 2021.

A new study has identified naturally occurring nano-sized particles that can block infection from broad strains of SARS-CoV-2 virus in preclinical studies.

What do we know about the effectiveness of COVID-19 boosters, and how might they better protect us from new variants such as omicron? Alexis Demonbreun, PhD, assistant professor of Pharmacology, offers insight. She is the author of a new study that shows COVID-19 boosters seem to supercharge antibody response.

Judd Hultquist, PhD, talks about key variants of SARS-CoV-2 and how his lab is identifying and studying these variants.

As the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2 is causing breakthrough infections in some vaccinated people around the world, scientists at Northwestern Medicine are developing and studying potential next-generation COVID-19 vaccines that could be more effective at preventing and clearing breakthrough infections. Pablo Penaloza-MacMaster, PhD, an assistant professor of Microbiology-Immunology at Feinberg, discusses work in his lab that could lead to better vaccines and treatments for coronaviruses.

Daniel Batlle, MD, professor of medicine in the Division of Nephrology and Hypertension at Northwestern, has been studying ACE2 and its potential therapeutic uses for many years. When the pandemic began, he proposed a hypothesis that soluble ACE2 could treat the SARS-CoV-2 virus and lead to survival and full recovery, and now he has some exciting preliminary results.

President Biden emerged from his covid-19 isolation on Wednesday saying his mild case was a testament to his administration’s progress on a pandemic that has killed more than 1 million Americans, and he urged people to take advantage of vaccine boosters, antivirals and at-home tests so they, too, could have mild infections. Yet experts say many Americans now avoid testing altogether because of the disruption an infection could cause, whether it’s missed travel or an inability to get paid time off work. “There are so many people who would like to just decide to put a mask on and hope things go well and continue on with their lives for various financial reasons,” said Mercedes Carnethon, professor and vice chair of preventive medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Carnethon added that Biden’s early diagnosis and treatment with Paxlovid was crucial to his mild infection. “If we can detect it early and treat it early, we can help ensure that more people have an experience like [Biden’s]. But there are many people who for structural reasons, access, financial barriers, aren’t going to be able to be diagnosed as early as he was,” Carnethon said.

For some who test positive for COVID, symptoms can last much longer as part of a condition known as “long COVID.” Newer variants including the highly contagious BA.4 and BA.5 omicron subvariants currently making up a majority of cases in the Midwest, are leading to an increase in those experiencing symptoms. A recent study from Northwestern Medicine showed that many so-called COVID “long-haulers” continue to experience symptoms like brain fog, tingling, headaches, dizziness, blurred vision, tinnitus and fatigue an average of 15 months after the onset of the virus. “Long-haulers,” are defined as individuals who have had COVID symptoms for six or more weeks, the hospital system has said. Long-COVID symptoms can range from a wide variety of ailments, some of which may even disappear and then return later.

According to John Walkup, chief of child and adolescent psychiatry at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, the pandemic hasn’t increased mental illness in teens, but instead “unmasked symptoms” that may have otherwise been managed. Walkup said that on average, 20% of kids have a mental health problem before they graduate in the US, with only half of them receiving assessment or treatment. Of them, only about 40% of them received clinically meaningful benefits. “Then take away school, family, peer support and sports, and you force them to stay home. You know those kids are not going to do well over time,” he explained.

As Americans start a third summer living amid the specter of the coronavirus, their attitude to the pandemic has shifted. Even as infections rise to levels that are four to five times higher than the same point last year, the push for normalcy is winning out. “People are tired of the changes that they’re had to make to their lives related to COVID-19 and so eager to get back to normal,” said Mercedes Carnethon, an epidemiologist at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “And what they’ve seen with increased experience, two-plus years into the pandemic is that, if they know people who’ve had COVID-19, most of them – and this ignores a million people who have died – but most of them have recovered,” Carnethon said.

Moderna says its COVID-19 vaccine works in babies, toddlers and preschoolers. Vaccinating the littlest “has been somewhat of a moving target over the last couple months,” said Dr. Bill Muller of Northwestern University, who is helping study Moderna’s pediatric doses.

The BA.2 variant, also known as “stealth omicron,” a more transmissible version of the omicron variant, is beginning to grow in the U.S. Northwestern Medicine’s Center for Pathogen Genomics and Microbial Evolution said the subvariant was found in a Chicago resident in January. Based on how quickly new variants have arisen, some experts suggest the next one could arrive as early as May.

For some, COVID-19 has been mostly an inconvenience; for others, the losses include family, friends or neighbors. Mercedes Carnethon,
vice chair of preventive medicine at Northwestern University said, “These experiences are influencing quite significantly the readiness to ‘move on’ from the pandemic.”

That’s a red flag, said Dr. Marc Sala, a pulmonologist and critical care specialist who sees long Covid patients at Northwestern Medicine’s Comprehensive Covid-19 Center. A test can only be validated, he said, through using it on a diverse group of people — in other words, a large mix of people both with and without long Covid.

“There were two markers of brain damage, or rather a marker of direct damage to nerve cells and another marker that indicates there is increased inflammation in the central nervous system or brain itself,” said Dr. Barbara Hanson, a researcher at the Northwestern Medicine Neurology COVID-19 research lab, speaking at a Monday press conference.

“The signal that jumped out at us was the complete spread through the male genital tract,” said Thomas Hope, the paper’s senior author and a professor of cell and developmental biology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. “We had no idea we would find it there.”