The manifestation of the COVID-19 varies from absence of symptoms to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome. The epidemiological data indicate that infection and mortality rates are greater in European populations in comparison with eastern Asians. To test if epidemiological patterns may be partly determined by human genetic variation, we investigated, by exomic and databank analyses, the variability found in the TMPRSS2 gene in populations from different continents, since this gene is fundamental to virus access into human cells. The functional variants revealed low diversity. The analyses of the variation in the modifiers of gene expression indicate that the European populations may have much higher levels of pulmonary expression of the TMPRSS2 gene and would be more vulnerable to infection by SARS-CoV-2. By contrast, the pulmonary expression of the TMPRSS2 may be reduced in the populations from East Asia, which implies that they are less susceptible to the virus infection and, these genetic features might also favor their better outcomes. The presented data, if confirmed, indicates a potential genetic contribution of TMPRSS2 to individual susceptibility to viral infection, and might also influence COVID-19 outcome.

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The lumbar puncture (LP) procedure is a diagnostic procedure that is performed to identify the root cause behind symptoms which can often be caused by various diseases or infections. Currently, medical students will either perform LPs directly on live patients with only theoretical knowledge of the procedure, or they will first be trained using unrealistic models that give a poor representation of the procedure. Traumatic taps (poorly performed LPs) were found to occur in approximately 15% of adult patients, and 35% in children. To reduce these complications, it is necessary that medical students receive the best training possible, which can be made possible through utilizing advanced design and manufacturing technologies. The training mannequin should be flexible, have realistic tissue force resistance, and be reconfigurable for different body types, and age groups. A parametric CAD model is developed that can be modified to represent key structural dimensions from infant to adults, force testing is conducted on a cadaver to determine the puncture forces, and more realistic ‘tissue’ materials are derived via experimentation as the existing training models have noticeably different resistance characteristics. The individual elements for a new training mannequin solution have been determined. Additive manufacturing processes can readily fabricate the vertebrae and pelvis elements, as well as the specialty molds. A final model assembly, and field testing, needs to be performed.

This protocol aims to describe the building of a database of SARS-CoV-2 targets for siRNA approaches. Starting from the virus reference genome, we will derive sequences from 18 to 21nt-long and verify their similarity against the human genome and coding and non-coding transcriptome, as well as genomes from related viruses. We will also calculate a set of thermodynamic features for those sequences and will infer their efficiencies using three different predictors. The protocol has two main phases: at first, we align sequences against reference genomes. In the second one, we extract the features. The first phase varies in terms of duration, depending on computational power from the running machine and the number of reference genomes. Despite that, the second phase lasts about thirty minutes of execution, also depending on the number of cores of running machine. The constructed database aims to speed the design process by providing a broad set of possible SARS-CoV-2 sequences targets and siRNA sequences.

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