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Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have together with researchers in China developed a new diagnostic test for COVID-19. The test can be performed without advanced laboratory equipment and deliver the result in about half an hour, according to a study published in the journal Clinical Chemistry. The researchers are now working on verifying the test results on confirmed COVID-19 patients at the Karolinska University Hospital.

A drug already tested against lung disease could potentially inhibit COVID-19 by reducing the coronavirus load that enters the lungs and other organs. That is according to a study in human cell cultures and organoids by researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden and the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Canada, published in the journal Cell.

In a small clinical trial just granted approval, about 30 COVID-19 patients at Karolinska University Hospital may soon begin to receive blood plasma from people who have recovered from the disease. Sweden’s Ethical Review Authority has approved the trial treatment, and its effectiveness will be evaluated in a study by researchers at Karolinska Institutet and the Karolinska University Hospital.

With rising numbers of COVID-19 cases and a healthcare sector under increasing strain, healthcare personnel can find themselves facing difficult situations and moral challenges. Researchers at Karolinska Institutet and Uppsala University have recently published a paper in the journal Prehospital and Disaster Medicine precising what is known about moral distress, its risk and protection factors and likely implications. They also present suggestions about how the adverse effects can be mitigated.

Children infected with the new coronavirus generally have less severe symptoms than adults, they rarely need intensive care and very few child deaths have been reported. This according to a systematic review of COVID-19 in children, based on 45 relevant publications and performed by researchers at Karolinska Institutet. The review is published in the scientific journal Acta Paediatrica.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden and the University of Basel in Switzerland have produced a mathematical model that shows that the spread of the new coronavirus can decline in the summer and then return in the autumn and winter. The analysis has been published in the scientific journal Swiss Medical Weekly.

Karolinska Institutet has launched COVID-19 courses for care providers and medical personnel following a request from the National Board of Health and Welfare. After one week of intense preparation, two online courses are now available.

The human papillomavirus (HPV) causes, amongst other diseases, cancer of the cervix and oropharynx. A Swedish-Finnish study published in The Journal of Infectious Diseases now shows that the most oncogenic HPV types can be eliminated, but only if both girls and boys are vaccinated. Both genders will be offered vaccination in Sweden as of 2020.

Professor Ali Mirazimi at Karolinska Institutet is part of a consortium that has received 1 million Canadian dollars (almost 7 million kronor) to try to develop a drug candidate against COVID-19. Mirazimi will assist with in vitro and in vivo infection models for SARS-CoV-2. The project is a collaboration with Canadian and Chinese researchers.

Karolinska Institutet’s Centre for Research on Health Care in Disasters has been tasked by the National Board of Health and Welfare to arrange an education, training and practice package (e.g. on the handling of personal protective equipment) for medical personnel in connection with the Covid-19 outbreak.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet are on track to produce a vaccine against the new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2. Several vaccine candidates are currently available in the freezers at the Department of Laboratory Medicine and the first animal studies are slated to begin at the end of March, according to Professor and Head of Department Matti Sällberg who is leading the effort together with virus researcher and Professor Ali Mirazimi and researcher Gustaf Ahlén.

Three coronavirus projects coordinated by researchers at Karolinska Institutet have moved onto the grant negotiation phase in a bid for 9 million euros (95 million kronor) in EU funding. The projects aim to find a vaccine, immunotherapies and neutralizing antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 and are being coordinated by KI’s Matti Sällberg, Qiang Pan Hammarström and Benjamin Murrell.

Researchers worldwide are trying to develop a vaccine and antiviral treatments against the new corona virus spreading in China. At Karolinska Institutet, virus researchers Ali Mirazimi and Matti Sällberg are working to develop a prototype vaccine against the virus. But vaccine development takes time, and it will likely take at least six to nine months before an application for clinical studies can be filed and another two to three years before a vaccine could be ready for the public.

When Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 (HIV-1) infects a cell, the virus often becomes invisible to both the immune system and drugs. Now research from Karolinska Institutet shows that the integrated virus mimics a specific chromatin structure that lets the virus sequence remain accessible while preventing production of new viruses.

The new corona virus continues to spread despite significant measures taken by the authorities in China to stop the outbreak. However, this time the fast response coupled with increased knowledge about the nature of the virus means the world is better placed to handle the outbreak compared to 18 years ago when SARS caused widespread concern, says virus researcher Ali Mirazimi, adjunct professor at the Department of Laboratory Medicine at Karolinska Institutet.

More than 200 people have died and thousands more have been sickened by the new corona virus spreading in China. A few cases have been confirmed outside China, and the World Health Organization is closely monitoring the situation. How worried about a new pandemic should we be? Virus researcher Ali Mirazimi, adjunct professor at the Department of Laboratory Medicine at Karolinska Institutet, gives us his perspective.

The search for a cure to AIDS has partly focused on ways to eradicate infected cells. Now, new research from Karolinska Institutet in Sweden and the University of Pennsylvania in the U.S. shows that this approach may not be necessary for a functional cure. In a study focusing on a subset of HIV-positive individuals who can live with the virus without needing treatment, the researchers found that these people’s lymphocytes suppress the virus but do not kill off infected cells.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have developed a new method to separate between two different types of a common herpes virus (HHV-6) that has been linked to multiple sclerosis. By analyzing antibodies in the blood against the most divergent proteins of herpesvirus 6A and 6B, the researchers were able to show that MS-patients carry the herpesvirus 6A to a greater extent than healthy individuals. The findings, published in Frontiers in Immunology, point to a role for HHV-6A in MS development.

Gunilla Karlsson Hedestam and Ganesh Phad publish in the Journal of Experimental Medicine