Publications by authors named "Rafaela Flor"

Rift Valley fever virus (RVFV) is an arbovirus in the Phenuiviridae family identified initially by the large 'abortion storms' observed among ruminants; RVFV can also infect humans. In humans, there is a wide variation of clinical symptoms ranging from subclinical to mild febrile illness to hepatitis, retinitis, delayed-onset encephalitis, or even hemorrhagic fever. The RVFV is a tri-segmented negative-sense RNA virus consisting of S, M, and L segments.

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Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus (VEEV) is an alphavirus transmitted by mosquitos that can cause a febrile illness and induce severe neurological complications in humans and equine populations. Currently there are no FDA approved vaccines or antiviral treatments to combat VEEV. Proteomic techniques were utilized to create an interactome of the E1 fusion glycoprotein of VEEV.

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Article Synopsis
  • SARS-CoV-2 is the virus responsible for COVID-19, leading to severe cases that can cause serious lung damage, often requiring mechanical ventilation due to conditions like acute lung injury and ARDS.
  • The study highlighted that infection with SARS-CoV-2 results in an inflammatory response marked by elevated levels of specific chemokines (CXCL9, CXCL10, CXCL11) and cytokines (IL-6, TNFα, IFN-γ) in lung cells and infected mouse models.
  • It found that blocking certain signaling pathways, particularly the AKT pathway, significantly reduces the expression of these harmful chemokines, suggesting potential therapeutic targets to mitigate inflammation and improve outcomes in COVID-19 patients.
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Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), became a pandemic in early 2020. Lateral flow immunoassays for antibody testing have been viewed as a cheap and rapidly deployable method for determining previous infection with SARS-CoV-2; however, these assays have shown unacceptably low sensitivity. We report on nine lateral flow immunoassays currently available and compare their titer sensitivity in serum to a best-practice enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and viral neutralization assay.

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