COS News

SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, was circulating in major U.S. cities as early as January, says Alessandro Vespignani, director of Northeastern’s Network Science Institute. And if we want to keep our communities safe going forward, we need to understand how we missed a virus that was right under our noses.

Researchers at Northeastern mapped the way proteins within human cells behave after the cells are hijacked by the virus to identify drugs that might be able to fight it. The team is now working with other experimental researchers to begin testing those drugs.

After days of closures and requests—or orders—to stay home, many people caught in the heart of the COVID-19 pandemic are wondering if these efforts will be enough. Network scientist Alessandro Vespignani says the answer depends on the ways that local, regional, and federal governments use the time.

“Either the screening, detection, and isolation in China will be able to contain the epidemic there, or it will be a global issue,” says Alessandro Vespignani, Sternberg Family Distinguished University Professor at Northeastern. “And this will be decided in the next couple of weeks.”

Environmental factors drive the majority of our risk for non-communicable diseases, says Albert-László Barabási, Robert Gray Dodge Professor of Network Science at Northeastern. We need to be studying them.

After having taught hundreds of undergraduate, master's and PhD students for 42 years, chemistry professor Paul Vouros is retiring.

All around and inside us, an elab­o­rate dance of mol­e­c­ular vibra­tions is con­stantly taking place.

Northeastern hosted a lecture on Sunday on the physics of superheroes’ powers ahead of the American Physical Society’s annual meeting in Boston. Over the years, superhero stories have delighted millions of fans through movies, television shows and comic books. But these tales can also teach us a lesson in physics, according to physics professor and...