Undeniably among our planet’s most prevalent, dangerous, and vexing pathogens—always has been—from 1600s Thomas Sydenham (clear clinical descriptions) to 1800s Theodor Billroth (identified the bacterium/genus) to 1900s Rebecca Lancefield (developed typing scheme)

Short 🧵 (1/7)

https://twitter.com/NBCNews/status/1603192643554508801

Streptococcus pyogenes (Group A Strep) expresses a diverse array of virulence factors allowing it to avoid host immune clearance by antimicrobial peptides, complement, antibodies, and phagocytes—plus potent toxins that damage cells or provoke uncontrolled inflammation

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COVID-19 poses a complex public vaccination challenge for 2021

Useful to contemplate that precisely three centuries ago, the knowledge of an African slave introduced the concept of immunization to America, launching the first successful public inoculation campaign 

Thread 1/9 The town of Boston, Royal Province of Massachusetts Bay, Colonial America, was experiencing a severe outbreak of smallpox (Variola major)

Ultimately, 5,759 people out of ~10,600 in Boston were infected (61%) and 844 were recorded to have died (15% case fatality rate)

2/9

Staphylococcus aureus colonizing an epithelial cell surface, and 8 times nature evoked them (1 of 9) Gulf of Ob, in northwest Siberia, after thousands of natural snowballs formed on the beach (2 of 9)

Thread (1/6)
Good as Gold or Too Good to Be True?

Interesting preprint out today shows that the FDA-approved gold-based drug auranofin, strongly inhibits novel coronavirus (SARS-COV-2) replication while markedly attenuating inflammation in human cells.

biorxiv.org/content/10.110… Thread (2/6)

Auranofin is orally available and used to treat patients with early or mild rheumatoid arthritis. MOA is uncertain but may involve inhibition of IκB kinase (IKK) and thioredoxin reductase blocking neutrophil activation and decreasing oxygen free radical production.