Research suggests that a build-up of abnormal microRNAs could be behind the increased risk for Alzheimer’s disease seen in patients who have experienced traumatic brain injury.

The study shows that endogenous mis-spliced RNA in tumor cells mimics an RNA virus, leading tumor cells to self-destruct as if fighting an infection.

About half of the patients who were very sick with COVID-19 were exhibiting a combination of high levels of both the dangerous antibodies and super-activated neutrophils, which are destructive, exploding white blood cells.

Dubbed TriSilix, the chip performs a miniature version of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing on bodily fluids, feces, or environmental samples, according to the scientists at Imperial College London who developed the new technology.

Moderna said its vaccine candidate produced neutralizing antibodies in older and elderly adults, while Regeneron said REGN-COV2 rapidly reduced viral load as well as time to alleviate symptoms in non-hospitalized patients.

The study is one of the first longitudinal analyses to show that people who were seropositive—that is, they had produced antibodies against the virus that causes COVID-19—become seronegative, which means there were no detectable antibodies after a certain point.

Normally, confirming a pneumonia diagnosis requires growing bacterial samples from patients in a lab, which is time-consuming. The new test can identify 52 different pathogens, and can be done in around four hours, without needing to grow the bacteria.

Autopsies have shown the presence of SARS-CoV-2 RNA and protein in anatomically distinct regions of the nasopharynx and brain, suggesting it enters the brain through the nose, and may inform diagnosis and measures to prevent infection.

The researchers trained a natural language processing model to analyze patterns found in genetic sequences, which allowed it to predict new sequences that have new functions but still follow the biological rules of protein structure.