Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy was instrumental in the receipt of this funding for LSUHS, which will enhance the impact of the Center for Emerging Viral Threats (CEVT) as it is able to expand significantly in the new Center for Medical Education building. Additional medical education and research opportunities will yield enhanced economic impact to the region and the state.
News from the Center for Emerging Viral Threats
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NBC News - Scientists have detected a handful of cases of the delta-omicron hybrid but say it's unlikely to cause a new surge. Dr. Jeremy Kamil, an associate professor of microbiology and immunology at LSUHS says, "Delta basically grabbed omicron's spike protein. This is essentially delta trying to hang on by plagiarizing from omicron."
NPR Red River Radio - Health Matters: Andrew Yurochko, PhD and Krista Queen, PhD talk about COVID Sequencing – why it matters and how LSU Health Shreveport is contributing to this international conversation.
Bloomberg - “No tests can tell you for sure what variant you have without full viral genome sequencing,” says Jeremy Kamil, a microbiologist and immunologist at LSU Health Shreveport. In the U.S., current federal guidance prevents labs from informing patients or their physicians about the specific genome-sequencing results.
New York Times - “Expect the next variant to come out of left field,” said Jeremy Kamil, a virologist at LSU Health Shreveport. He added, “It’d be a hugely foolish thing for anyone to speak with excessive certainty about what’s coming in the next two years.”
Nature - "Delta has a mutation in the spike gene that reduces some primers’ ability to bind to it, making it harder to sequence this region of the genome. Omicron doesn’t share this mutation, so if any Omicron particles were mixed into the sample owing to contamination, it might make the sequenced spike gene seem to be similar to that in Omicron," says Jeremy Kamil, a virologist at LSUHS.
41NBC - Mercer University School of Medicine, in partnership with the Department of Biomedical Sciences and LSU Health Shreveport, was recently awarded a $25,000 grant from the Rockefeller Foundation. The money will help to guide Covid-19 research about possible variants of the virus.
“These gifts will provide fundamental support for the CEVT for years to come as we continue to address the public health needs of the North Louisiana region and beyond,” said LSU Health Shreveport Vice Chancellor for Research, Chris Kevil, PhD
KTBS3 - The LSUHS COVID-19 Strike team and Emerging Viral Threats lab hit a record high with over 14,000 COVID-19 tests conducted last week. This is quite a feat, considering many areas across the country have had to scale back testing to symptomatic people only because staff members and labs were overrun.
KSLA12 - Sequencing is a multi-step process that includes using robotic technology to help make the process faster, more efficient and to reduce human error. "While this new variant has more mutations than others, her team is much more equipped this time around," says Dr. Krista Queen, Director of Viral Genomics and Surveillance for LSUHS.
Shreveport Times - Research Notebook: Since the earliest days of the COVID-19 pandemic scientists around the world have been working together on critical genomic sequencing efforts to better understand how the SARS-CoV-2 virus spreads and evolves and help guide and evaluate public health response.
Roy O. Martin III and Kathy Martin have donated $500,000 to the Center for Medical Education as part of a larger LSU system-wide gift supporting top capital priorities for the Fierce for the Future Campaign. The Martin’s gift will be directed to the Center of Excellence for Emerging Viral Threats (CEVT) to be housed on the top floor of the Center for Medical Education.
Financial Times - Labs are scrambling to answer 3 fundamental questions: is it more transmissible, can it evade the vaccination, and does it cause more severe disease? Jeremy Kamil, a virologist studying Sars-Cov-2 evolution at LSUHS, describes his shock when this genome was released. “It was like coming home from vacation and seeing that someone hasn’t just planted a few flowers in your garden. They’ve remodeled the whole landscape.”
Bloomberg - While the U.S. is sequencing a much higher percentage of Covid samples than earlier, the bigger issue may be that not enough virus testing is done in the first place, said Jeremy Kamil, a virologist at Louisiana State University Health Shreveport.
News Star - Louisiana Tech University, Grambling State University, LSU Health Shreveport and several health clinics across the region are working together to sequence the COVID-19 virus to learn how it's spreading and if any new variants arise. Research from the three universities is made available for the public online at nla-health.com.
