Recent research published in the past few weeks has eased some worries about some of COVID-19 variants’ ability to escape vaccines, yet it is still concerning that the virus is still spreading at an extraordinary rate. This cautionary perspective is provided by Neville Sanjana, PhD, Core Faculty Member at the New York Genome Center, Assistant Professor of Biology, New York University, and Assistant Professor of Neuroscience and Physiology, NYU Grossman School of Medicine, in After Weeks of Declining Cases, Echoes of Hot Spots Emerge in Upper Midwest, New York City Area, a “Health” update article appearing in today’s Washington Post.
Earlier this month, the Sanjana Lab was spotlighted in CRISPR For COVID-19: Approaches To Speeding Therapeutic Discovery, Bio-IT World’s March 3 report highlighting Dr. Sanjana’s presentation at the virtual AGBT General Meeting that week, which was focused how on his lab’s recent collaboration with Mt. Sinai researchers, published in Cell, using a genome-scale, loss-of-function CRISPR screen to systematically knockout all genes in the human genome and identify genes and drug targets to project against SARS-CoV-2 infection. At the meeting, Dr. Sanjana also provided an update to his lab’s work with Cas13 to edit RNA, a study published in Nature Biotechnology.
In late February, Dr. Sanjana was interviewed by The Washington Post for the feature article Coronavirus Medical Mystery: Baby with High Viral Load Puzzles Researchers; Doctors Concerned About Mutations Are Urging More Genomic Sequencing of Children’s Infections.
In this article, Dr. Sanjana noted how as more adults get vaccinated, it becomes even more important to watch how mutations affect children, who will be among the last to be vaccinated. The article outlines how Dr. Sanjana’s lab team was among the first to document the effect of the D614G mutation that is all over the world today. The study, led by researchers at the New York Genome Center, NYU, and Mt. Sinai, corroborates findings that the D614G mutation makes SARS-CoV-2 more transmissible. The study was published in eLife earlier that month.
