Genomic variation,origin tracing,and vaccine development of SARS-CoV-2:A systematic review

COVID-19 has spread globally to over 200 countries with more than 40 million confirmed cases and one million deaths as of November 1,2020.The SARS-CoV-2 virus,leading to COVID-19,shows extremely high rates of infectivity and replication,and can result in pneumonia,acute respiratory distress,or even mortality.SARS-CoV-2 has been found to continue to rapidly evolve,with several genomic variants emerging in different regions throughout the world.In addition,despite intensive study of the spike protein,its origin,and molecular mechanisms in mediating host invasion are still only partially resolved.Finally,the repertoire of drugs for COVID-19 treatment is still limited,with several candidates still under clinical trial and no effective therapeutic yet reported.Although vaccines based on either DNA/mRNA or protein have been deployed,their efficacy against emerging variants requires ongoing study,with multivalent vaccines supplanting the first-generation vaccines due to their low efficacy against new strains.Here,we provide a systematic review of studies on the epidemiology,immunological pathogenesis,molecular mechanisms,and structural biology,as well as approaches for drug or vaccine development for SARSCoV-2.

Stigmatization and Scientific Inquiry in the Tracing of the Origin of the 1918 Influenza Pandemic in the United States

The United States was hard hit by the great influenza pandemic of 1918.The national policy of putting the war first,the unprecedented scale of military training,and the worldwide troop movements and engagement created the conditions for the spread of the pandemic and at the same time seriously weakened US preparedness.The unprecedented pandemic threw American society into extreme panic and spawned all kinds of hypotheses about the pandemic’s geographic origin.Some of the press turned scientifically“tracing the flu”into a succession of pejorative geopolitical exonyms,stigmatizing it as“Spanish flu,”“Russian flu,”“German poisoning,”“Chinese plague,”etc.The groundless ascription of a geographic origin to the influenza pandemic was questioned at the time by insightful American medical professionals and even by Chinese medical experts.In the aftermath of the pandemic,tracking its source became a professional issue of pure medical science,with the search for the pathogen of the pandemic becoming a priority.The discovery and genetic sequencing of the 1918 influenza virus by scientists in the US and other countries led to landmark advances in the discovery of the pathogen,so the importance of tracing it back to its place of origin has taken a back seat.Although evidence of the geographic origin of the 1918 influenza pandemic is not conclusive,medical science has developed enough to disprove the ridiculous“geographic tracking”in the US during the pandemic.

Computer Traces AIDS Origin to 1930

我曾经在1999年年初给贵刊邮发了一篇注释读物,题目是“艾滋病毒源于非洲黑猩猩”。该文刊登在1999年第3期的《科技英语学习》。该文断定:目前世界上有3500万人受到感染的艾滋病病毒来自西非的黑猩猩。当地的人们为了得到食物而杀死黑猩猩,这样就使得这种病毒进入人体并蔓延开来。前几天,我在网上浏览,无意之中读到了本文。本篇和去年的那篇,是不可多得的姊妹篇。前者探清了其源头,后者确定了时间: …they had traced the origin of the AIDS virus to around 1930. 本文把世界上感染了艾滋病病毒的人数又作提升:…HIV,which hasinfected nearly 40 million people worldwide. 科研人员使用了the most powerful computer in the world进行工作。themost powerful computer in the world的具体概念如何?文章透露: Capable of making a trillion(万亿)calculations per second.