Category Archives: Cell Biology

Did you ever wonder what causes that earthy smell that rises after a light summer rain? That mysterious scent has been called , and a main component of it is an organic compound called geosmin, which lingers around moist soil.

Geosmin comes from the ancient Greek geo, meaning earth, and osme, meaning smell. We use this scent as an ingredient in perfumes and it is what gives beetroot its earthy flavour. Geosmin can also be perceived as an off flavour in water and wine.

Animals can detect geosmin. Fruit flies, for example, dislike geosmin and they avoid anything that smells of it, possibly to avoid contaminated and potentially toxic food. But why is geosmin made in the soil? As part of a team of scientists from Sweden, the UK and Hungary, we discovered the fascinating biology behind this enigmatic compound.

Smells like (microbial) team spirit

Scientists have known since the 1960s that geosmin is made by microorganisms in the soil, primarily by bacteria with the scientific name Streptomyces. These bacteria are abundant in soil and are among natures best chemists, as they make a wide range of molecules (called specialised metabolites) from which many antibiotics derive. Streptomycetes and their close relatives make thousands of different specialised metabolites a true treasure trove for the potential discovery of new antibiotics.

It turns out that all streptomycetes have the gene for making geosmin, suggesting that it has an important function. But what do these bacteria gain from producing geosmin? This has been a longstanding mystery.

In our recent study, we found that geosmin is part of the chemical language in a mutually beneficial relationship between Streptomyces bacteria and springtails, insect-like organisms that are abundant in the ground.

We discovered this by asking if there could be soil organisms out there that would be attracted to the smell of Streptomyces. We baited traps with colonies of Streptomyces coelicolor and placed them in a field. Our traps captured several types of soil organisms, including spiders and mites. But strikingly, it was springtails that showed a particular preference for the traps baited with geosmin-producing Streptomyces.

Using a particular species of springtail, Folsomia candida, we tested how these creatures sense and react to geosmin. We placed electrodes on their tiny antennae (the average body size of springtail is about 2mm) and detected which smells stimulated them.

Geosmin and the related earthy odorant 2-methylisoborneol were sensed by the antennae, which is essentially the creatures nose. By studying springtails walking in Y-shaped glass tubes, we saw they had a strong preference for the arm that smelled of these earthy compounds.

The benefit for the animals seems to be that the odours lead them to a source of food. While geosmin-emitting microbes are often toxic to other organisms which avoid them, we found that it did no harm to the springtails we tested.

But how does producing these compounds benefit the bacteria? Streptomycetes normally grow as mycelium a network of long, branching cells that entwine with the soil they grow in. When they run out of nutrients or conditions in the soil deteriorate, the bacteria escape and spread to new places by making spores that can be spread by wind or water.

Our new finding is that spore production also includes the release of those earthy odorants that are attractive to springtails and that helps spread the spores by another route.

As the springtails grazed on a Streptomyces colony, we saw spores sticking to their cuticle (the outer surface of the animal). Springtails have a special anti-adhesive and water-repellent surface that bacteria typically dont stick to, but Streptomyces spores can adhere, probably because they have their own water-repellent surface layer. Spores eaten by the springtails can also survive and be excreted in faecal pellets.

So, springtails help spread Streptomyces spores as they travel through the soil, in much the same way pollinating bees are lured to visit flowers and take with them the pollen grains that adhere to their bodies and fertilise the other plants they visit. Birds eat attractive berries or fruits and help the plant to spread its seeds with their droppings.

Next time you encounter that earthy smell, let it be a reminder of the fascinating and extremely valuable bacteria that thrive in the ground beneath your feet. You might be listening in on an ancient type of communication between bacteria and the creatures that live with them in the soil.

Klas Flrdh, Professor of Molecular Cell Biology, Lund University and Paul Becher, Associate professor in Chemical Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Image: Reuters.

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The Biology Behind Why Soil Smells so Good After It Rains - The National Interest

Cell Biology

UC Berkeley: What Do Soap Bubbles And Butterflies Have In Common? – Patch.com

April 9, 2020 medical

Press release from the University of California, Berkeley:

April 8, 2020

The butterflies that Edith Smith selectively bred are much bluer and more iridescent than the wild Common Buckeye, which is mostly brown (see below). The breeding, UC Berkeley researchers discovered, changed the structure of the wing scales to produce a blue rather than golden structural color. (Photo courtesy of Edith Smith)

Edith Smith bred a bluer and shinier Common Buckeye at her butterfly farm in Florida, but it took University of California, Berkeley, graduate student Rachel Thayer to explain the physical and genetic changes underlying the butterfly's newly acquired iridescence.

In the process, Thayer discovered how relatively easy it is for butterflies to change their wing colors over just a few generations and found the first gene proven to influence the so-called "structural color" that underlies the iridescent purple, blue, green and golden hues of many butterflies.

Her findings are a starting point for new genetic approaches to investigate how butterflies produce intricate nanostructures with optical properties, which ultimately could help engineers develop new ways to produce photonic nanostructures for solar panels or iridescent colors for paints, clothing and cosmetics.

Structural color is different from pigment color, like that in your skin or on a canvas, which absorbs or reflects different colors of light. Instead, it comes from light's interaction with a solid material in the same way that a transparent bubble develops a colorful sheen. The light penetrates it and bounces back out, interfering with light reflected from the surface in a way that cancels out all but one color.

At the Shady Oak Butterfly Farm in Brooker, Florida, Smith's breeding experiments with the Common Buckeye (Junonia coenia) a mostly brown butterfly with showy, colorful spots, found throughout the United States and often raised by butterfly farmers for butterfly gardens or wedding ceremonies were ideal for Thayer's study of structural color.

A typical Common Buckeye butterfly, Junonia coenia, is brown because of brown pigment and golden structural color in the wing scales. (Photo by Nipam Patel)

"Edith noticed that sometimes these butterflies have just a few blue scales on the very front part of the forewing and started breeding the blue animals together," said Thayer, who is in UC Berkeley's Department of Integrative Biology. "So, effectively, she was doing an artificial selection experiment, guided by her own curiosity and intuition about what would be interesting."

In a paper appearing online today in the journal eLife, Thayer and Nipam Patel, a UC Berkeley professor of molecular and cell biology who is on leave as director of the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, describe the physical changes in wing scales associated with Smith's experiment on the Common Buckeye, and report one genetic regulator of blue iridescence.

"I especially loved the clear evolutionary context: being able to directly compare the 'before' and 'after' and piece together the whole story," Thayer said. "We know that blueness in J. coenia is a recent change, we know explicitly what the force of selection was, we know the time frame of the change. That doesn't happen every day for evolutionary biologists."

According to Thayer, hundreds of butterflies have been studied because of the showy structural color in their wing scales. The showiest is the blue morpho, with 5-inch wings of iridescent blue edged with black. Her study, however, focused on a less showy genus, Junonia, and found that iridescent color is common throughout the 10 species, even the drab ones. One unremarkable light gray butterfly, the pansy J. atlites, proved under a microscope to have iridescent rainbow-colored scales whose colors blend together into gray when viewed with the naked eye.

The 75% greater thickness of the scale lamina from the wing of a bred blue buckeye (red bar, top row, right) compared to the thickness of a scale from the brown wing of a typical buckeye (lower panel) is responsible for the blue color. Red arrows show wing area from which scales were obtained. (UC Berkeley images by Rachel Thayer)

One major lesson from the study, she said, is that "most butterfly patterns probably have a mix of pigment color and structural color, and which one has the strongest impact on wing color depends on how much pigment is there."

Thayer raised both the wild, brownish Common Buckeye and the cross-bred, bluer variety obtained from Smith. Using a state-of-the-art helium ion microscope, she imaged scales from the wings to see which scale structures are responsible for the color and to determine whether the color change was due to a change in structural color, or just a loss of brown pigment that allowed the blue color to stand out.

She found no difference in the amount of brown pigment on the scales, but a significant difference in the thickness of chitin, the strong polymer from which the scale is built and that also generates the structural color. In the wild buckeye, the thickness of the chitin layer was about 100 nanometers, yielding a golden hue that blended with the brown pigment. The bluer buckeye had chitin about 190 nanometers thick about the thickness of a soap bubble that produced a blue iridescence that outshined the brown pigment.

Breeding turned a brown area of the buckeye's wing (left) much bluer (right) as the individual scale lamina thickened, replacing a golden structural color with blue. (UC Berkeley images by Rachel Thayer)

"They are actually creating the color the same way a soap bubble iridescence works; it's the same phenomenon physically," Thayer said.

She also found that, though the scales from the Junonia butterflies have an elaborate microscopic structure, structural color comes from the bottom, or base, of the scale.

"That is not intuitive, because the top part of the scale has all of these curves and grooves and details that really catch your eye, and the most famous structural colors are elaborate structures, often in the top part of the scale," she said. "But the simple, flat layer at the bottom of the scale controls structural coloration in each species we checked."

"The color comes down to a relatively simple change in the scale: the thickness of the lamina," said Patel. "We believe that this will be a genetically tractable system that can allow us to identify the genes and developmental mechanisms that can control structural coloration."

Thayer also investigated the scales of mutant buckeyes created by Cornell University researchers that lacked a key gene, called optix, that controls color. The micrograph images demonstrated that lack of the gene also increased the thickness of the thin film of chitin in the scales, creating a blue color. Optix is a regulatory gene that controls many other butterfly genes, which Thayer will be looking at next.

This video produced by the Marine Biological Laboratory explains how a selective mating experiment by a curious butterfly farmer led scientists to a deeper understanding of how butterfly wing color is created and evolves. (Video by Emily Greenhalgh, MBL)

"One thing that I thought was cool about our findings was seeing that the same mechanism that has recurred over millions of years of butterfly evolution could be reproduced really rapidly in (Smith's) artificial section experiment," she said. "That says that color evolving by changes in lamina thickness is a repeatable, important phenomenon."

Frances Allen, a research scientist in UC Berkeley's Department of Materials Science and Engineering, is also a co-author of the paper. The work was supported by the National Science Foundation (DEB-1601815, DGE-1106400).

This press release was produced by the University of California, Berkeley. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Does 5G wireless service exacerbate the coronavirus? Is hydroxychloroquine, used to treat malaria and lupus, a silver bullet for COVID-19?

By Beth Dalbey, Patch Staff

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UC Berkeley: What Do Soap Bubbles And Butterflies Have In Common? - Patch.com

Cell Biology

How do I improve air quality in my home to protect against the coronavirus? – cleveland.com

April 9, 2020 medical

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- While bad air quality could mean major implications for the coronavirus, you can help boost air quality at home during the pandemic, to protect yourself. Small steps like buying a new air filter or breaking out the vacuum cleaner more frequently can make a difference.

The nationwide study showed that a unit increase of atmospheric particulate matter led to a 15% increase in the COVID-19 death rate. That poses a problem in areas like San Francisco, New York and Cleveland, where at times air quality can match industrial, highly-polluted China.

Cleveland recently ranked as one of the worst cities for pollution caused ozone and fine particulates in recent studies released by the American Lung Association, meaning the implications of this study could be severe.

Air pollution can boost levels of inflammation in the lungs, making patients more vulnerable to other infections.

Cuyahoga County has the highest coronavirus case numbers in the state at 960. Franklin and Hamilton counties are second and third and are home to other major Ohio cities Columbus and Cincinnati.

I think now were starting to appreciate that in areas of lower socio-economic class, in areas where people live in tighter quarters, there is there are higher levels of air pollution but also higher rates of COVID-19 and now we know from this paper, higher rates of deaths from the virus," Loren Wold, a professor in Ohio State Universitys department of Physiology and Cell Biology.

Wold said that researchers are looking to map air pollution levels with levels of virus infection.

We do know that Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati there is a a track of pollutants that tend to run along the river systems. Mostly that is due to the way the air moves within the state. We know that the level is only higher in the large cities in Ohio.

Ohios stay-at-home order, which reduces all non-essential businesses to basic operations, shut down some of the businesses that were boosting air pollutant levels. Wold said theres been a slight drop in pollution, but that some people are still driving, which heavily contributes.

Even though officials now recommend that Ohioans wear masks in public, a typical mask isnt as effective as filtering out particulates in the air. The pores in the fabric are too large, Wold said. Specialized masks are available with a prescription for those with respiratory problems.

Inflammation and lung damage are also linked to smoking, which could be another factor in who is more vulnerable to severe outcomes from COVID-19. Indoor air humidity could also be important, because dry air could affect the viruss ability to travel and bodys defenses against the virus.

Social distancing and hygiene are still the primary ways to stop the spread of the coronavirus. Below are some recommendations for improving air quality in your home, based on Wolds recommendations and advice from Harvard and the EPA:

-- if you have a forced-air heating system, be sure to change the filter

-- buy a HEPA filter, which can filter out high particulates through forcing air through a fine mesh

-- keep the house clean, vacuuming and dusting and cleaning surfaces more regularly to remove dust, particulates and other lung irritants, as well as prevent the spread of coronavirus

-- check air quality online each day. If pollution is too high, consider exercising at off hours or staying inside to prevent irritation or trouble breathing

Cell Biology

A quick pivot turns an infectious disease class into timely education – Penn: Office of University Communications

April 6, 2020 medical

Biologist David Roos studied influenza as a grad student, and he typically kicks off his advanced course on infectious disease biology with a focus on that virus. Thats how he began this semester, too, with plans to also cover aspects of HIV and malaria.

Then COVID-19 emerged.

A small silver lining to this dark cloud of the pandemic is that its not a bad semester to be taking, or teaching, a class on infectious disease biology and public health, says Roos, the E. Otis Kendall Professor of Biology in Penns School of Arts and Sciences.

In the midst of the campus shutdown that compelled faculty to move their courses online, Roos has also shifted the content of his course, Molecular Mechanisms of Infectious Disease Biology, to encompass what is playing out all around us. Because the approach of the course emphasizes how to think rather than how to memorize biological pathways and proteins, says Roos, the scientific approaches students have already learned allow them to consider strategies for discovering, characterizing, and fighting this new disease.

We had already spent considerable time this semester discussing the cell biology, molecular genetics, evolution, and epidemiology of influenza, including the 1918 pandemic and subsequent outbreaks, says Roos, as well as the emergence, spread, and management of HIV.

From the first weeks of the semester in January, Roos began sharing information with his students about the novel coronavirus in class discussions and suggesting readings and online resources related to the escalating outbreak.

Even before COVID-19 was really on everyones radar, he says, we had been challenging ourselves with questions like, Imagine there is a new disease outbreak. What do you look for? What data do you need? How could you obtain this information?

Roos has a wealth of experience to inform his teachings, including three decades of laboratory research on the parasites that cause malaria and other diseases and, more recently, the responsibility for supporting genomic datasets for hundreds of parasite and fungal pathogens. Several of his former trainees have gone on to careers in public health, including at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other government labs, and in the pharmaceutical and biotech sectors. He also directs teams managing a constantly expanding database related to viral and parasite disease (VEuPathDB.org, the Eukaryotic Pathogen, Host & Vector Genomics Resource) and clinical and epidemiological datasets (ClinEpiDB.org).

Transitioning to video conference-style teaching has not posed a major barrier for Roos, whose database group is dispersed around the globe and relies on such technology on a daily basis.

Within several days of the Universitys announcement that Penn would be moving classes online for the remainder of the spring semester, Roos sent a note to his students offering an optional online meeting during spring break to smooth out any technological difficulties, to check in to see how they were faring, and to discuss some of the science behind the COVID-19 pandemic.

Most of our readings this semester focus on primary research literature, so I shared articles on the evolution of coronaviruses than can cause the common cold, previous epidemics like SARS and MERS, and recent preprints on the SARS-CoV-2 virus responsible for COVID-19, he says.

Recognizing the personal toll of the pandemic, and with many students now home with their families, Roos also invited questions from family members about coronavirus biology, the ongoing pandemic, and public health responses. Im not a practicing physician, so I cannot answer medical questions, says Roos, but I wanted to do my best to address whatever concerns they may have.

Abhinav Suri, who graduated from Penn last year with a double major in biology and computer science, is now taking the course remotely from his home in San Antonio as part of the post-baccalaureate Pre-Health Specialized Studies Program. While getting a firsthand view of the pandemic responsehis parents are both physiciansSuri, who plans to go to medical school, also appreciates how what hes been learning has given him a deeper understanding of the scientific approaches to fighting the novel coronavirus.

The research papers we read and the methodologies we learned in the first part of the class when we were dealing with influenza are coming full circle, says Suri. Now were talking about things like, How can scientists use these methodologies to make something along the lines of a vaccine or an antiviral for this disease? Its making our discussions even more relevant to whats going on in the world today.

As the pandemic continuesand classes do, tooRoos plans to work in additional readings, discussions, and probably exam questions relating to COVID-19.

The point I make at the beginning of this class is that in most university courses we do a pretty good job of teaching students the stuff we know, says Roos. But we dont always do a great job of teaching students how scientists figured all that stuff out. With this brand new virus now spreading throughout the world, its an important time to learn about the how.

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A quick pivot turns an infectious disease class into timely education - Penn: Office of University Communications

Cell Biology

Meet Betty Hay, the scientist who saw how cells grow and limbs regenerate – Massive Science

April 6, 2020 medical

Limbs regenerate, embryos grow, and cancers invade.

In each of these processes, cells change dramatically. Betty Hay studied fascinating biological phenomena, relentlessly asking questions with her students and colleagues to understand how cellsbehaved. By the end of her life, she had made enormous research contributions in developmental biology, on top ofcommitting herself to mentoring the next generation of scientists and advocating for more representation of women in science.

She made significant contributions towards understanding cell and developmental biology

Betty Hay began as an undergraduate at Smith College in 1944. She lovedher first biology course and started working for Meryl Rose, a professor at Smith who studied limb regeneration in frogs. I was self-motivated and very attracted to science, she saidin an interview in 2004, Meryl at that time was working on regeneration and by the end of my first year at Smith I was also studying regeneration.

Hay regarded Rose as a significant scientific mentor in her life and followed his advice to apply for medical school instead of graduate school. She ended up attending Johns Hopkins School of Medicine for her medical degree while continuing her research on limb regeneration over the summers with Rose at Woods Holes Marine Biological Laboratory. She stayed at Johns Hopkins after to teach Anatomy and became an Assistant Professor in 1956.

The year after, she moved her studiesto Cornell Universitys Medical College as an Assistant Professor to learn how to use the powerful microscopes located there. Her goal was to use transmission electron microscopy (TEM), a method of taking high-resolution images, toseehow salamanders could regenerate an amputated limb. Nothing couldve kept me from going into TEM, she said later.

With her student, Don Fischman, they concluded that upon amputation, cells with specialized roles,known as differentiated cells and thought to be unchangeable, were able to de-differentiate and become unspecialized stem cells again. These cells without an assigned role could then have the freedom to adopt whatever new roles they required to regenerate a perfectly new limb.

Already making leaps in figuring out an explanation for the process of limb regeneration, Hay turned her attention from salamanders to bird eyes when she moved to Harvard University. She studied the outermost layer of cells on the cornea, known as the cornea epithelium. With the help of a postdoctoral scholar in her lab, Jib Dobson, and a faculty colleague, Jean-Paul Revel, they isolated, grew, and took pictures of cornea epithelium cells and demonstrated the epithelial cells could produce collagen.

Collagen is the main type of protein that weaves together to form the extracellular matrix, a connective tissue (the matrix) found outside of cells (extracellular). The collagen in the extracellular matrix provide structure, acting as a foundation for connective tissues and organs such as skin, tendons, and ligaments. Other scientists in the field were skeptical of the conclusion. They thought that one dedicated cell produced collagen, and nothing else.They dismissed the idea that cells in the cornea could somehow do the same. Despite their doubt, Hay, along with postdoctoral scholar Steve Meier, continued their studies. In 1974, they further showed that not only could epithelial cells produce collagen and extracellular matrix in different organ systems, but that the matrix could also tell other cells what type of cell to become.

She was a committed educator and mentor

Kathy Svoboda and Marion Gordon, two colleagues of hers, wrote about Betty Hay and described her not only as a superb cell and developmental biologist, but also as an educator and beloved mentor.

Limb regeneration in salamanders

Russell et al BMC Biology 2017

She was dedicated to teaching and influenced the careers of many junior and early-career scientists. In addition to working with and training her students to produce successful research and results, others mentioned how she would take the time to introduce students in her department to more established and prominent scientists in the field of cell biology. These actions reflected her belief that every student was worthy of being heard and introduced.

She held influential positions and advocated for more representation of women in science

At the time of her graduation from Johns Hopkins in 1952, she was one of only four women in her graduating class of 74 people. Afterwards, she experienced frequent moves for her career, going from Baltimore, to New York, to Boston. Despite how difficult it felt moving alone and leaving her personal relationships behind every time, she felt it was necessary for her career. In her mind, she strongly believed her research always came first, fueled by her intense desire to find answers, using the scientific approach.

She went on to serve as president for multiple professional societies, such as the American Association of Anatomists, the American Society for Cell Biology, and the Society for Developmental Biology, demonstrating her commitment to leadership and service. In two of these societies, she was the first woman to ever hold the position.

In 1975, she became the first female chair of what is now the Department of Cell Biology at Harvard University and held that position for 18 years. Even with these impressive milestones, she acknowledged one of her biggest obstacles to be achieving acceptance in the male professional world.

In 2004 and nearing retirement, Betty Hay would go on to say, I am very glad to see in my lifetime the emergence of significantly more career women in science, in an interview with editor-in-chief Fiona Watt for the Journal of Cell Science, this so enriches the intellectual power being applied to the field of cell biology.

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Meet Betty Hay, the scientist who saw how cells grow and limbs regenerate - Massive Science

Cell Biology

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson in ICU With Virus – NBC Connecticut

April 6, 2020 medical

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been moved to the intensive care unit of a London hospital after his coronavirus symptoms worsened.

Johnsons office says Johnson is conscious and does not require ventilation at the moment. Johnson was admitted to St. Thomas Hospital late Sunday, 10 days after he was diagnosed with COVID-19.

Johnson has asked Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab to deputize for him.

Full coverage of the COVID-19 outbreak and how it impacts you

Johnsons office said the initial admission to an undisclosed London hospital came on the advice of his doctor and was not an emergency. The prime minister's Downing St. office said it was a precautionary step and Johnson remains in charge of the government.

Johnson, 55, has been quarantined in his Downing St. residence since being diagnosed with COVID-19 on March 26 the first known head of government to fall ill with the virus.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced on social media that he is under quarantine after contracting coronavirus. Johnson says his symptoms are mild and he will continue to work from home.

Johnson has continued to preside at daily meetings on Britains response to the outbreak and has released several video messages during his 10 days in isolation.

In a message Friday, a flushed and red-eyed Johnson said he said he was feeling better but still had a fever.

The virus causes mild to moderate symptoms in most people, but for some, especially older adults and the infirm, it can cause pneumonia and lead to death.

U.S. President Donald Trump offered encouragement to Johnson as he opened a White House briefing on the pandemic Sunday. All Americans are praying for him, Trump said.

Johnson has received medical advice remotely during his illness, but going to a hospital means doctors can see him in person.

Dr. Rupert Beale, a group leader of the cell biology of infection lab at the Francis Crick Institute for biomedical studies, said doctors would likely be monitoring important vital signs such as oxygen saturations, as well as performing blood tests, assessing Johnsons organ function and possibly performing a CT scan on his chest to assess his lungs.

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, who has been designated to take over if Johnson becomes incapacitated, is set to lead the government's coronavirus meeting Monday.

Johnsons fiancee, Carrie Symonds, 32, revealed Saturday that she spent a week in bed with coronavirus symptoms, though she wasn't tested. Symonds, who is pregnant, said she was now on the mend. She has not been staying with the prime minister in Downing St. since his diagnosis.

The government said Sunday that almost 48,000 people have been confirmed to have COVID-19 in the U.K., and 4,934 have died.

Johnson replaced Theresa May as Conservative prime minister in July and won a resounding election victory in December on a promise to complete Britain's exit from the European Union. But Brexit, which became official Jan. 31, has been overshadowed by the coronavirus pandemic sweeping the globe.

Johnson's government was slower than those in some European countries to impose restrictions on daily life in response to the pandemic, leading his critics to accuse him of complacency. He imposed an effective nationwide lockdown March 23, but his government remains under huge pressure to boost the country's number of hospital beds and ventilators and to expand testing for the virus.

London has been the center of the outbreak in the U.K., and politicians and civil servants have been hit hard. Several other members of Johnsons government have also tested positive for the virus, including Health Secretary Matt Hancock and junior Health Minister Nadine Dorries. Both have recovered.

News of Johnsons admission to hospital came an hour after Queen Elizabeth II made a rare televised address to the nation, in which she urged Britons to remain united and resolute in the fight against the virus.

We will succeed and that success will belong to every one of us, the 93-year-old monarch said, drawing parallels to the struggle of World War II.

We should take comfort that while we may have more still to endure, better days will return: we will be with our friends again; we will be with our families again; we will meet again," she said.

___

Follow AP news coverage of the coronavirus pandemic at http://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak

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UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson in ICU With Virus - NBC Connecticut

Cell Biology

Evotec Expands into Gene Therapy – Associated Press

April 6, 2020 medical

HAMBURG, GERMANY / ACCESSWIRE / April 6, 2020 / Evotec SE (Frankfurt Stock Exchange: EVT, MDAX/TecDAX, ISIN: DE0005664809) today announced that the Company has established a dedicated site for research and development of gene therapy-based projects: Evotec Gene Therapy (Evotec GT) which will start operations with a strong team of gene therapy experts at an R&D site in Orth/Donau, Austria.

Evotec GT is an integral part of Evotecs integrated drug discovery platform and complements the Companys existing expertise. This strategic addition marks an important step towards Evotecs long-term vision of becoming a fully modality-agnostic drug discovery and development partnership company.

The team in Austria have worked together for many years and applied their research within gene therapy to different gene therapy-related technologies as well as various indications. The scientists have deep expertise in vectorology and virology as well as disease insights, in particular in hemophilia, hematology, metabolic and muscle diseases. Evotec GTs fully operational site will enable the Company to perform dedicated services in the field of gene therapy along the value chain of its customers from Pharma and biotech as well as foundations and academia.

Dr Werner Lanthaler, Chief Executive Officer of Evotec, commented: We are delighted to initiate our new gene therapy platform and step into this field, which perfectly fits into our business strategy going forward. In recent years, precision medicines based on cell and gene therapies have emerged and are predicted to grow significantly. Gene therapy is a promising approach in the development of genetic medicines for patients, especially for inherited and rare diseases. Finding the best candidate agnostic of modality for any given disease biology will ultimately bring forward the best medicine for patients.

Dr Friedrich Scheiflinger, EVP Head of Gene Therapy at Evotec, said: We are proud to join the growing Evotec team to add the highly promising modality of gene therapy to drug discovery projects. Our team has performed research in the field across different technologies and therapeutic areas for many years and we look forward to leveraging our expertise as part of the truly impressive, modality-agnostic Evotec platform.

About Gene Therapy

Gene therapy is a technique that modifies a persons genes to treat or prevent disease by introduction, removal or editing of genetic material, specifically DNA or RNA, within the cells of a patient. Gene therapies aim to replace a disease-causing gene with a healthy copy, inactivate a disease-causing gene, introduce a new or modified gene or interfere on an expression-regulatory level to support treatment of a disease. Through this modification of gene expression, gene therapies can increase levels of disease-fighting proteins or reduce levels of disease-causing proteins within the cell. Since direct insertion of genes into cells is still very inefficient, gene delivery is facilitated by vehicles which are most often of viral origin. The structure of these viral vectors has been modified to accommodate for the therapeutic gene and to render the vector non-infectious. Depending on the indication and the affected tissue, the technique can be either applied ex-vivo or in-vivo, i.e. with or without removing the cells from the patients body for the therapeutic procedure.

According to various analyst reports, the gene therapy market was valued at approx. $ 500 m in 2018 and the market is expected to reach > $ 5 bn by 2025 with an impressive CAGR of ~34% over the forecast period. Furthermore, rapid and significant progress in the molecular and cellular biology arena, driven by technological advancements in genomics and gene-editing tools, has contributed to an increasing number of approved gene therapies as well as an expanding pipeline. According to the Alliance for Regenerative Medicine (ARM), by the end of the second quarter of 2019, there were more than 700 clinical trials ongoing globally.[1]

ABOUT EVOTEC SE Evotec is a drug discovery alliance and development partnership company focused on rapidly progressing innovative product approaches with leading pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, academics, patient advocacy groups and venture capitalists. We operate worldwide and our more than 3,000 employees provide the highest quality stand-alone and integrated drug discovery and development solutions. We cover all activities from target-to-clinic to meet the industrys need for innovation and efficiency in drug discovery and development (EVT Execute). The Company has established a unique position by assembling top-class scientific experts and integrating state-of-the-art technologies as well as substantial experience and expertise in key therapeutic areas including neuronal diseases, diabetes and complications of diabetes, pain and inflammation, oncology, infectious diseases, respiratory diseases, fibrosis, rare diseases and womens health. On this basis, Evotec has built a broad and deep pipeline of approx. 100 co-owned product opportunities at clinical, pre-clinical and discovery stages (EVT Innovate). Evotec has established multiple long-term alliances with partners including Bayer, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol-Myers Squibb, CHDI, Novartis, Novo Nordisk, Pfizer, Sanofi, Takeda, UCB and others. For additional information please go to http://www.evotec.com and follow us on Twitter @Evotec.

FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS Information set forth in this press release contains forward-looking statements, which involve a number of risks and uncertainties. The forward-looking statements contained herein represent the judgement of Evotec as of the date of this press release. Such forward-looking statements are neither promises nor guarantees, but are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond our control, and which could cause actual results to differ materially from those contemplated in these forward-looking statements. We expressly disclaim any obligation or undertaking to release publicly any updates or revisions to any such statements to reflect any change in our expectations or any change in events, conditions or circumstances on which any such statement is based.

Contact Evotec SE:

Gabriele Hansen, SVP Corporate Communications, Marketing & Investor Relations, Phone: +49.(0)40.56081-255,

[1] Sources: https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/gene-therapy-market; https://www.marketwatch.com/press-release/at-339-cagr-gene-therapy-market-size-to-surpass-usd-518-billion-by-2025-2019-09-16; https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/gene-therapy-market-to-garner-6-21-bn-globally-by-2026-at-34-8-cagr-says-allied-market-research-300975194.html

SOURCE: Evotec AG via EQS Newswire

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Cell Biology

Columbia University Cancer Researchers in the Fight Against COVID-19 – Columbia University Irving Medical Center

April 6, 2020 medical

Since the novel coronavirus was identified in China in December 2019, its rapid spread has turned into a global pandemic. The highly contagious COVID-19 has ripped through communities and challenged medical resources, particularly in epicenters like New York City, where, as of April 1, the reported cases of those infected with COVID-19 have soared to surpass 45,000 in the five boroughs alone.

The surge in positive cases have summoned clinical communities to the front lines of the pandemic.And while governmentsstate and federalhave ordered residents to shelter-in-place, to social distance or self-quarantine, the scientific community has mobilized and converged its diverse areas of expertise to problem-solve a cure for the virus in real time.

Researchers from the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center (HICCC) at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia are swiftly transforming their discoveries and innovation in cancer to address COVID-19. HICCC members, whose expertise range from computational biology and bioinformatics to molecular biology, genomics, and pathology, are leveraging tools and technologies developed and validated for cancer to study COVID-19.

Recognizing the enormous impact that COVID-19 already has and will continue to have on our global society, we have rapidly reorganized our cancer center to refocus some of our research efforts on COVID-19, says Anil K. Rustgi, MD, director of the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center. Our members come from six different schools and more than 35 departments across Columbia University. Their expertise across disciplines provides expanded perspectives in the war against this virus.

There has been an incredible outpouring of rapid response by academic researchers to aid in a cure or uncover the fundamental biology driving the novel coronavirus.

This is an unprecedented time in history, when scientists from all fields who are not necessarily experts in virology are forming teams with exceptional complementary talent to address one of the greatest challenges our society has every faced, says Andrea Califano, Dr, who co-leads the Precision Oncology and System Biology research program at the HICCC and chair of Columbias Department of Systems Biology. The current situation creates a unique and unprecedented commitment to a shared goal without institutional, geographic, or expertise boundaries.

Many scientists at CUIMC are in the research foreground of the pandemic, including cancer researchers at the HICCC. Several projects are just getting off the ground or are still being formulated, but the researchers are working on an aggressive timeline to meet the pressing needs to overcome this global crisis.

This is an opportunity for us to show our value as scientists to society in a very clear and concrete way, says Alejandro Chavez, MD, PhD, a member of the HICCCs Precision Oncology and Systems Biology program and assistant professor of pathology and cell biology at Columbia. It has been a terrible time for all of us but also its been a joyous time seeing how people are coming together, especially the scientific community. The level of mobilization is unprecedented. There is such a dissemination of ideas right now.

Below is a sample of COVID-19 research currently underway at the HICCC.

Coronavirus genomes are comprised of single-stranded RNA, and the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2 that leads to COVID-19, is part of a family of viruses that include SARS and MERStwo devastating infectious diseases that surfaced in the last 20 years. Xuebing Wu, PhD, a member of the HICCC's Precision Oncology and Systems Biology research program, is an expert in RNA research and studies RNA-centric gene regulation in mammalian cells. He is currently working on developing a CRISPR-based approach for killing the SARS-CoV-2 virus, and potentially also the infected surrounding cells.

CRISPR is a natural bacterial immune system that scientists have begun to use as a revolutionary tool to alter genomes. Dr. Wu and his collaborators have already developed a similar CRISPR-based technique to eliminate cancer cells, and intend to apply this method to target COVID-19. The hope is that this research can aid in the speedier development of a therapeutic, not just for this novel strain but for future variants of SARs-CoV-2. Dr. Wu,who holds appointments in the departments of medicine and systems biology, and is working on this project with infectious disease expert Dr. Ian Lipkin and the Center for Infection and Immunity at Columbia.

Barry Honig, PhD, also a member of the HICCCs Precision Oncology and Systems Biology research program and a professor of systems biology, and Sagi Shapira, PhD, an assistant professor of systems biology, have developed a computational method, termed P-HIPSTer, that leverages the supercomputing infrastructure at CUIMC to identify key interactions between all human infecting viruses and the cells that they infect (the work was recently published in Cell). The pair are now applying the same method to uncover how SARS-CoV-2 causes disease differently from other coronaviruses. They have already made interesting observations about how the virus manipulates the immune system and have some hints as to why the disease progresses the way it does. They are also using the information to identify FDA-approved drugs that may be repurposed and immediately deployed, and are investigating vaccine design.

Andrea Califano, Dr, who co-leads the HICCCs Precision Oncology and Systems Biology research program, is a pioneer in the field of system biology and founding chair of Columbias Department of Systems Biology. He has developed sophisticated algorithms to identify key master regulator proteins in tumors and enable the prioritization of FDA-approved drugs that could treat and kill cancer in various tumor types. He is now applying these validated methods to study the biology of coronaviruses and their interactions with host cells.

Dr. Califano and his collaborators have analyzed gene expression profile data generated from SARS-CoV infected and mock-infected epithelial cells to identify the proteins responsible for maintaining the transcriptional state of infection response. (SARS-CoV is closely related to the current novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 and produces a similar response in patients.) Theyve applied the computational method, OncoTreat, developed by the Califano lab, and have already identified several promising drugs to potentially treat COVID-19, including drugs used to treat rheumatoid arthritis as well as several kinase and transport protein inhibitors. Dr. Califano and his team are hoping to obtain access to novel SARS-CoV-2-infected cells to repeat their analyses and to screen a larger number of drugs beyond those selected for oncology.

Dr. Califano also is collaborating with Dr. Sagi Shapira to generate RNA sequencing-based biomarkers from nasal swab tests that can predict the need for hospitalization and intensive care. The researchers will analyze patient cell samples from swab tests by using rapid-turnaround, next-generation sequencing methods that capture both the infection status and complex immune response profiles. Using Dr. Califanos computational methods, the researchers hope to identify master regulator-based markers to predict clinical outcomes based on the transcriptional profiles of easily accessible samples. The hope is to be able to rapidly inform doctors how to best triage COVID-19 patients upon diagnosis.

Raul Rabadan, PhD, co-leader of the HICCCs Cancer Genomics and Epigenomics research program and professor of systems biology at Columbia, is an expert in uncovering patterns of evolution in biological systemsin particular, RNA viruses and cancer. He has developed computational methods to study cancer genetics and to elucidate biological understanding of how tumors evolve over time, in such complex cancers as pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma and glioblastoma. Dr. Rabadan and his collaborators are now applying these validated methods to assess individuals predispositions to COVID-19. Why do some patients who test positive for COVID-19 experience severe symptoms and complicationsin some cases their illness results in deathwhereas other COVID positive patients do not?

Dr. Rabadan and his group are taking a deep dive into the genetics of COVID-19, with the hope of identifying biomarkers of COVID-19 severity and that can lend to immediate management of patients at risk, including cancer patients. They are already leveraging their cancer genomics expertise and algorithms to analyze the UK Biobank data (comprising 500,000 individuals, with genetic and clinical data) and patient data from Columbia University Irving Medical Center and NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, as well as transcriptomic data from lung aspirates and patient electronic health records. This effort will help us to better understand the SARS-CoV-2 mechanism of action, says Dr. Rabadan, and to define risk groups with greater precision, in particular those with other conditions, such as cancer.

Several members at the HICCC have been directly involved in establishing the COVID-19 Biobank (COB), a new resource for researchers to combat the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. Announced March 30 and in partnership with NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, the new biobank at Columbia University Irving Medical Center will be crucial in collecting, processing, storing, and disseminating biological specimens, biomarkers, and clinical and related data for researchers at Columbia and beyond. Columbias Department of Pathology and Cell Biology has established a COVID-19 clinical pathological lab and intend to facilitate access to residual clinical samples. The primary focus will be to enroll COVID-19 positive patients but will also aim to enroll all patients who have been tested for the novel coronavirus at CUIMC and NewYork-Presbyterian to cast a wide net of samples.

The launch of this collaborative initiative was led by HICCC members Drs. Muredach Reilly, Wendy Chung, Kevin Roth, and David Goldstein, along with Drs. George Hripcsak, Krzysztof Kiryluk, Soumitra Sengupta, Steve Spitalnik, and Eldad Hod.

Studies in the enzyme protease has led to breakthrough antiviral therapies, most notably to treat HIV and viral hepatitis. For the past two years, Alejandro Chavez, MD, PhD, a member of the HICCCs Precision Oncology and Systems Biology program and assistant professor of cell biology and pathology, has worked with his lab on innovative methods to rapidly identify protease inhibitors to viruses. Their method enables them to investigate multiple viral proteases at once, including those from over a dozen different coronaviruses, to identify inhibitors to block them. By looking at multiple coronavirus protease at a time their group hopes to identify a novel pan-coronavirus protease inhibitor. While the need is pressing for a treatment that works against COVID-19, Dr. Chavez stresses, This is the third time weve seen a coronavirus strain. We know this will continue to happen, and its time once and for all we identify a compound that has broad activity against coronavirus, not just COVID-19.

Dr. Chavez is working as part of a collaborative effort at Columbia to identify antiviral drugs for novel coronavirus, led by David Ho, MD, founding scientific director of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center and professor of medicine at Columbia. HICCC member Brent Stockwell, PhD, a member of the HICCCs Precision Oncology and Systems Biology program and professor of biological sciences and chemistry, also is working with Dr. Ho and others on SARS-CoV-2 viral protease inhibitors with the goal to develop a cure.

We have a chance of doing something significant hereand we are going to try, adds Dr. Chavez. A lot of us are actively working on the problem. There are tough days ahead, but we are going to get there. It is just a matter of time.

-Melanie A. Farmer

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Columbia University Cancer Researchers in the Fight Against COVID-19 - Columbia University Irving Medical Center

Cell Biology

Luciferase Assay Kits Market 2020 Is Expected To Gain Massive Growth. Major Players are New England Biolabs, Takara Bio Inc., www.elabscience.com,…

April 6, 2020 medical

Luciferase Assay Kits Market

Luciferase Assay Kits market report is a particular study of the Healthcare industry which explains what the market definition, classifications, applications, engagements, and global industry trends are. This market research report offers the details about market definition, market drivers, market restraints, market segmentation with respect to product usage and geographical conditions, key developments taking place in the market, competitor analysis, and the research methodology. An expert DBMR team neatly understands clients business and their needs so that this finest Luciferase Assay Kits Market business research document is delivered for a potential growth and success.

Luciferase assay kits market is expected to gain market growth in the forecast period of 2020 to 2027. Data Bridge Market Research analyses the market to grow at a CAGR of 8.24% in the above-mentioned forecast period. Luciferase assay kits market is growing due to factor such as increasing preferences for cell based assays.

Have Queries? To request a sample or speak to an expert click herehttps://www.databridgemarketresearch.com/request-a-sample/?dbmr=global-luciferase-assay-kits-market

The major players covered in theluciferase assay kits marketreport areMerck KGaA, Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., Promega Corporation, PerkinElmer Inc., Biotium, Abcam plc, Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc., BD., Geno Technology Inc., GeneCopoeia, Inc., InvivoGen, PromoCell GmbH, OZ Biosciences, Novus Biologicals, New England Biolabs, Takara Bio Inc., http://www.elabscience.com, Cell Technology., AAT Bioquest, Inc., Molecular Devices, LLC, Active Motif, Inc., among other domestic and global players. Market share data is available for Global, North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific (APAC), Middle East and Africa (MEA) and South America separately. DBMR analysts understand competitive strengths and provide competitive analysis for each competitor separately.

Increasing cost of cell biology research will acts as a restraint factor for the growth of luciferase assay kits market in the above mentioned forecast period.

With the Luciferase Assay Kits Market research report, best market opportunities are put forth along with the well-organized information to accomplish growth in the market. Key elements covered in this report are industry outlook along with critical success factors, industry dynamics, market definition, drivers and restraints, market segmentation, value chain analysis, key developments, application and technology outlook, regional or country level analysis and competitive landscape. This global Luciferase Assay Kits Market research analysis report consists of historic data along with future forecast and detailed analysis for the market on a global and regional level.

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Luciferase assay kits market is segmented on the basis of application, component and end user. The growth amongst these segments will help you analyse meagre growth segments in the industries, and provide the users with valuable market overview and market insights to help them in making strategic decisions for identification of core market applications.

Luciferase Assay Kits Market Country Level Analysis

Luciferase assay kits market is analysed and market size insights and trends are provided by country, application, component and end user as referenced above.

The countries covered in the luciferase assay kits market report are U.S., Canada and Mexico in North America, Germany, France, U.K., Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium, Russia, Italy, Spain, Turkey, Rest of Europe in Europe, China, Japan, India, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, Rest of Asia-Pacific (APAC) in the Asia-Pacific (APAC), Saudi Arabia, U.A.E, South Africa, Egypt, Israel, Rest of Middle East and Africa (MEA) as a part of Middle East and Africa (MEA), Brazil, Argentina and Rest of South America as part of South America.

Asia-Pacific dominates the luciferase assay kits market due to majority of players along with growth of the healthcare industry and increasing per capita income of the people in this region.

The country section of the luciferase assay kits market report also provides individual market impacting factors and changes in regulation in the market domestically that impacts the current and future trends of the market. Data points such as consumption volumes, production sites and volumes, import export analysis, price trend analysis, cost of raw materials, down-stream and upstream value chain analysis are some of the major pointers used to forecast the market scenario for individual countries. Also, presence and availability of global brands and their challenges faced due to large or scarce competition from local and domestic brands, impact of domestic tariffs and trade routes are considered while providing forecast analysis of the country data.

Healthcare Infrastructure growth Installed base and New Technology Penetration

Luciferase assay kits market also provides you with detailed market analysis for every country growth in healthcare expenditure for capital equipments, installed base of different kind of products for luciferase assay kits market, impact of technology using life line curves and changes in healthcare regulatory scenarios and their impact on the luciferase assay kits market. The data is available for historic period 2010 to 2018.

Competitive Landscape and Luciferase Assay Kits Market Share Analysis

Luciferase assay kits market competitive landscape provides details by competitor. Details included are company overview, company financials, revenue generated, market potential, investment in research and development, new market initiatives, global presence, production sites and facilities, production capacities, company strengths and weaknesses, product launch, product width and breadth, application dominance. The above data points provided are only related to the companies focus related to luciferase assay kits market.

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Luciferase Assay Kits Market 2020 Is Expected To Gain Massive Growth. Major Players are New England Biolabs, Takara Bio Inc., http://www.elabscience.com,...

Cell Biology

Coronavirus deaths of two nurses lead to calls for more protection – The Guardian

April 6, 2020 medical

Demands for better protection for healthcare workers are growing following the death of two nurses in their 30s, while another frontline worker quit her job after being forbidden from wearing a face mask.

Areema Nasreen, 36, died shortly after midnight on Friday at Walsall Manor hospital in the West Midlands, where she had worked for 16 years. Aimee ORourke, 38, who joined the NHS in 2017 and worked at Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother hospital in Margate, Kent, died hours earlier, on Thursday night. Both were mothers of three children.

Two NHS healthcare assistants have also died. The family of Thomas Harvey, 57, who worked in north-east London, believe he would still be alive today if he had been given proper personal protective equipment (PPE), they told Sky News.

Meanwhile, the Guardian has learned that Tracy Brennan, a healthcare assistant (also known as an auxiliary nurse) in north-west London, quit her job after she was not allowed to wear a surgical face mask she had bought herself.

In her resignation letter, Brennan chastised her superiors at Hillingdon Hospitals NHS foundation trust for barring her from wearing the mask to protect herself and patients she was caring for from contracting the deadly virus.

Brennan said she had returned to work after self-isolating for 14 days because her daughter had shown symptoms of Covid-19. She said that patients in the ward where she was working, which was not a coronavirus treatment ward, felt comfortable with her wearing the surgical mask and some positively encouraged her to do so.

The letter continued: Upon arriving to work on Tuesday morning, whilst still wearing a mask, you asked me for a word in your office. You outlined to me that wearing a mask wasnt following the trust policy and asked me to remove it. I responded stating that I wasnt pleased with this instruction and defended myself stating that I was uncomfortable not wearing a mask while dealing with patients who may be carriers of Covid. However I adhered to the request.

She said that later that day, while taking blood, a patient coughed into her unprotected face but, despite relaying details of the incident, she was still refused permission to wear her mask.

Brennan wrote: With a heavy heart and sadness, I feel I have no alternative but to hand this letter in as my formal resignation and will be unable to work my notice due to not being allowed to wear sufficient PPE for the duties I perform.

Her resignation comes as the government sought to quell a backlash from healthcare workers over PPE. On Thursday, the government and public health bodies upgraded the recommended PPE that healthcare professionals should be wearing amid criticism that the existing guidelines did not offer them enough protection.

But employers and unions warned that the upgrade would mean nothing without resolving the shortages that have led to clinicians improvising with snorkels and school science goggles.

At the daily Downing Street press conference on Friday, Englands chief nursing officer, Ruth May, invoked the deaths of Nasreen and ORourke as she urged members of the public to stay at home. This weekend is going to be very warm and it will be very tempting to go out and enjoy those summer rays, she said. But please, I ask you to remember Aimee and Areema. Please stay at home for them.

She added: I worry that theres going to be more and I want to honour them today.

The face mask issue is particularly pertinent as the World Health Organization (WHO) is considering changing its guidance on whether people should wear face masks in public amid suggestions that their widespread use have played a role in containing outbreaks in some Asian countries.

On Thursday, in an about-turn, the mayor of New York, Bill de Blasio, advised people in the city to cover up their faces, following in the footsteps of Los Angeles. De Blasio stressed that homegrown protection was fine in a bid to prevent a run on the professional grade masks coveted by clinicians.

No 10 said on Friday that its advice continued to be that face masks are unnecessary outside. Matt Hancock, the health secretary, told Good Morning Britain: Masks are very important to protect healthcare workers ... but that [asking the public to wear them] isnt something that weve done here because the whole basis of our response has been making sure that we follow the science.

Experts remain divided on the issue but a study published in Nature Medicine on Friday, which included WHO-affiliated researchers, suggested surgical face masks may be effective in preventing the transmission of coronaviruses from symptomatic individuals.

Dr Rupert Beale, group leader of the cell biology of infection laboratory at the Francis Crick Institute, said the study, which he was not involved in, presented strong and compelling evidence in favour of mask wearing as a means of reducing transmission of some viruses, including coronaviruses. Public health officials must immediately take note of this important new evidence.

On Thursday, Donna Kinnair, the chief executive and general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, raised concerns with the health secretary that nurse deaths were not being counted amongst the official coronavirus mortality figures.

On BBCs Question Time, Kinnair pushed Matt Hancock to release statistics relating to healthcare staff. She said: We havent even counted the nurses yet. I keep asking for the stats on nurses, she said. I didnt know that, we will sort that out, Hancock replied.

Paying tribute to Nasreen, Toby Lewis, chief executive of the neighbouring Sandwell and West Birmingham hospitals NHS trust, said it was clear from experiences in other countries particularly Italy, where dozens of nurses and doctors have died that healthcare workers were at risk.

They are at risk not only from the patients we look after but from each other. There is additional grief counselling and psychological support being provided to staff because they are working in situations that are very different to those that they have worked in, he said.

Will more healthcare workers pass away? With the greatest regret I think that is a certainty. [However] it is our collective effort to try and minimise the number of tragedies that we see in the number of people who serve within the NHS.

Nasreen, whose family have asked the media not to publish her picture, developed symptoms of coronavirus on 13 March, including aches, a high temperature and then a cough. She tested positive for the virus on 27 March.

In a tribute posted on Facebook, her friend Rubi Aktar said: She was the most lovely, genuine person you could ever meet, she went above and beyond for everyone she met.

Im so grateful that I had the honour to call her my best friend. She saw me at my best and my worst and accepted my every flaw. I am so broken that words cant explain.

ORourkes daughter Megan Murphy described her mother as an angel. She wrote on Facebook : Look at all the lives you looked after and all the families you comforted when patients passed away. You are an angel and you will wear your NHS crown forevermore because you earned that crown the very first day you started!

NHS England has insisted that PPE shortages are down to distribution problems rather than shortages but many remain sceptical. On Friday, a group of organisations including Doctors in Unite and the Doctors Association UK issued a demand that the government repurpose industry to produce adequate quantities of PPE, including face masks, preferably to the highest specification.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: In the past two weeks the NHS supply chain have delivered 397m pieces of PPE equipment. While we are confident that enough supply is now reaching the frontline, we appreciate there were limited distribution problems to begin with while we dealt with a new demand caused by this emerging epidemic.

A spokesperson for the Hillingdon Hospitals NHS trust said: Our trust takes the safety of all our staff extremely seriously and we follow national guidelines, as set out by Public Health England. We regularly update staff on the types of PPE and the rules for its use. Today [Friday] we are making sure our staff have sight of and understand the latest guidance on PPE that was released late yesterday. We are also providing extra support to our staff during the current emergency both for their physical and their mental health and wellbeing.

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Coronavirus deaths of two nurses lead to calls for more protection - The Guardian