With long-read sequencing, mapping, and other approaches, researchers assembled a high-quality genome for Aedes aegypti, a notorious infectious disease vector.
The researchers developed a protocol for dengue and chikungunya virus detection, which they plan to continue to test for outbreak monitoring and diagnostics.
The CDC says that the number of people in the US who have been infected with diseases carried by mosquitoes, ticks, and flea bites have more than tripled in recent years.
The team paired the SHERLOCK platform developed in Feng Zhang's lab with a protocol that detects viruses directly from bodily fluids in less than two hours.
The latest version of the nucleic acid detection platform uses three CRISPR enzymes, making it more sensitive and capable of smaller quantitative measurements.
Investigators used gene expression and immunological profiling to detect distinct immune responses in dengue virus-infected children with or without symptoms.
The PCR-based test can simultaneously detect for the Zika virus, all serotypes of the dengue virus, the chikungunya virus, the West Nile virus, and a host gene.
The New York Times reports that evidence linking trauma in one generation to epigenetic effects that influence subsequent generations may be overstated.
