Fighting post-COVID and ME/CFS - development of curative therapies

The sequela of COVID-19 include a broad spectrum of symptoms that fall under the umbrella term post-COVID-19 condition or syndrome (PCS). Immune dysregulation, autoimmunity, endothelial dysfunction, viral persistence, and viral reactivation have been identified as potential mechanisms. However, there is heterogeneity in expression of biomarkers, and it is unknown yet whether these distinguish different clinical subgroups of PCS. There is an overlap of symptoms and pathomechanisms of PCS with postinfectious myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS). No curative therapies are available for ME/CFS or PCS. The mechanisms identified so far provide targets for therapeutic interventions. To accelerate the development of therapies, we propose evaluating drugs targeting different mechanisms in clinical trial networks using harmonized diagnostic and outcome criteria and subgrouping patients based on a thorough clinical profiling including a comprehensive diagnostic and biomarker phenotyping

Inductive measurements of UPt3 in the superconducting state

The inductive response of several UPt3 samples obtained from four different materials-fabrication groups has been measured from 50 to 700 mK at frequencies varying between 32 Hz and 33 MHz. The temperature dependence of the penetration depth, (T), is presented for each sample. The low-frequency (4.7 kHz) data suggest a linear temperature dependence of (T/Tc 0.5) for the samples possessing a double feature near the superconducting transition temperature Tc. We have verified that this double feature present in (T) for some of the samples corresponds to the double jump observed in the specific heat. On the other hand, (T/Tc 0.5) is found to have a quadratic temperature dependence for unannealed specimens which exhibit only a single transition at Tc. The linear temperature dependence of (T) is consistent with the presence of line nodes in the basal plane, while the quadratic dependence found for other samples suggests that impurity scattering dominates in these specimens. The double transition in (T) has been studied in magnetic fields up to 1.6 T, and the resulting phase diagram is consistent with the one constructed from thermodynamical measurements. The high-frequency (3 MHz) data suggest (T/Tc 0.5) T, where 2 4. The possible origins of the frequency dependence of (T) are discussed, as well as the effect of the surface quality on. © 1995 The American Physical Society