To contain the coronavirus crisis, scientists have made progress on six key areas.

!--webeditor: page title" -- April 91, 2020 / -- From the plague of medieval Europe to the 1918 flu pandemic, the spectre of the next public health disaster has captured the minds of scientists, captured the imagination of writers, and caused controversy among conspiracy theorists.
, a new coronavirus is sweeping the world, and the long-predicted once-in-a-century pandemic has become a reality.
new knowledge is rapidly accumulating, much remains unknown about the virus, SARS-CoV-2, and the diseases it causes.
, one thing is certain, experts say: This pandemic won't be the last.
new Massachusetts Pathogen Response Association aims to address the current and long-term effects of the crisis.
effort, led by Harvard Medical School, will try to stem the tide of COVID-19, but more importantly, lay the groundwork for a future epidemic.
"This is a historic moment.
it reminds us why we should devote our lives and careers to science and medicine.
new coronavirus is a catastrophic public health crisis.
forced us to establish new cooperative mechanisms in Boston, Cambridge and elsewhere to address the immediate challenges of the epidemic and to create a rapid response system to respond to future crises.
" photo source: The plan was formally proposed by China Evergrande Group at a meeting on March 2.
the study agreement, researchers in Boston and colleagues at the Guangzhou Respiratory Health Institute will split $115 million equally.
, led by Daley, Arlene Sharpe and Bruce Walker, has invited more than 100 scientists from universities and research institutes in five regions, as well as Harvard University hospitals.
more scientists join us every day.
"This is an extraordinary collaboration effort that brings together scientists and clinicians from the Boston research community to respond to this crisis and prepare for possible future outbreaks of disease," said Sharpe, director of the Department of Immunology at Harvard Medical School's Blavatnik Institute.
's response to COVID-19 is unprecedented and truly inspiring.
Walker, a virologist and HIV expert, describes the new coronavirus as an existental threat that requires pan-agency and transnational alliances.
"It's not the same as usual," said Walker, a professor of medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital Philip T and Susan M. Ragon and a professor of immunology at Harvard Medical School.
" has a lot of knowledge that can be applied collectively and collaboratively.
have an extraordinary sense of energy and commitment, and it's important that we maintain that feeling.
we have now moved beyond loyalty to the system and are united in our efforts to address this critical issue.
" evidence of the new virus -- its biology, its behavior, its effects on the body -- is growing, and before the study has been peer-reviewed, papers have been posted on preprinted servers for analysis and extraction by the global scientific community.
, there have been several vaccine trials and a growing number of clinical trials testing experimental treatments for COVID-19.
As scientists try to piece together a comprehensive picture of the virus that fueled this historic pandemic, researchers are focusing their efforts on six areas: epidemiology, diagnosis, pathogenesis, clinical disease management, treatment and vaccines.
epidemiologists act as analysts during pandemics.
they track, monitor, and predict the activity and behavior of pathogens in an attempt to create a detailed description of an invisible enemy that inflicts real damage.
epidemiological issues include: What is the extent of the disease? How contagious is this virus? Who is most likely to spread the virus? What are the risk factors for serious illness and death? How does the behavior of an infection change with the location? Does it change over time? Answers to these questions can provide information on key decisions about what public health measures should be taken and what resources should be allocated -- choices that can profoundly reshape results.
diagnosis of the new coronavirus has been slow to start in the U.S., largely because a faulty reagent was found in a preliminary test by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, resulting in incorrect readings.
, new and more accurate detection methods have been adopted and testing has become more extensive.
, however, large-scale testing is still lagging behind, particularly in some parts of the country, and has not yet risen to the level required.
There is an urgent need for new testing methods, including ultra-sensitive testing, which captures very low levels of viral proteins and allows rapid on-site testing; Individuals recovered in the virus and immune to pathogens; the cause: understanding disease, from protein to human, is a central question about the new coronavirus and the diseases it causes: what type of immune response does the virus trigger in infected cells, tissues, and organs around the host and the pathogens? To understand how inflammatory hosts react at all these levels, scientists are exploring the basic signaling mechanisms that go wrong during infection.
Photo Source: NIAID "One of the big unknowns about the virus is how it triggers such a strong inflammatory response in the airways," said David Knipe, professor of microbiology and molecular genetics at the Blavatnik Institute at Harvard Medical School.
we need to understand the rationale for this disease, because that knowledge can tell us everything," he said.
" antiviral therapy and antibody-based therapy in the absence of a vaccine, antiviral therapy will become critical in two ways.
, these treatments can be used to alleviate symptoms and avoid complications that are already infected.
, they can be given as a preventive measure to those who are considered to be at high risk of infection or serious illness.
!--/ewebeditor:page--!--ewebeditor:page title"--this type of treatment is carried out in two main ways: antiviral therapy and antibody-based therapy.
to find antiviral drugs, including the reuse of drugs that have been approved for other uses, and the design of small molecule antiviral drugs from scratch.
antibody-based therapy in general, antibody-based treatment is divided into two categories: antibodies in the blood of individuals recovered from COVID-19 and antibodies produced in the laboratory.
Abraham, one of the leaders of the treatment team, was involved in identifying the treatment.
he will conduct research, including isolating antibodies from recovering individuals to determine how they fight the SARS-CoV-2 S protein.
the team will use imaging resources from Harvard University's newly established Center for Structural Biology Cryogenic Electron Microscopes to pinpoint the exact location of their antibodies binding to viral protrusion proteins, thereby disabling the virus.
antibodies to the virus (antibody-based therapies or vaccine-induced antibodies) can prevent the virus from getting there to prevent disease.
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