A multi-institutional group led by the University of California at San Francisco’s Quantitative Biosciences Institute (QBI) has identified more than 200 host proteins that interacted with SARS-CoV-2 viral proteins during infection, creating “a blueprint of how SARS-CoV-2 hijacks human cells,” QBI Director Nevan Krogan told reporters. They then used that blueprint to identify 10 drugs, some FDA approved and some in clinical trials, that were able to inhibit viral growth in cell culture assays, marking them for further study as potential antivirals. The work also identified one compound, dextromethorphan, that appeared to facilitate viral growth.

BioWorld looks at translational medicine, including: Edited stem cells reverse mouse diabetes; Noncoding TET2 variants affect neurodegeneration risk; Pancreatic cancer uses autophagy to hide from immune system; Heart failure hormone has role in sepsis; NRF2 wakes sleeping tumor cells; Oral drug can wake up telomerase; Cheating cell death improves infarct outcomes; Older siblings’ example turns stem cells into heart cells; Lung changes from PD drug hopeful are reversible; Platelets play role in Tylenol toxicity.

By analyzing the antibody response of a survivor of Marburg virus infection, researchers at the University of Texas Medical Branch and Vanderbilt University Medical Center have gained new insights into the function of non-neutralizing antibodies in fighting infections.

Chinese scientists have shown for the first time that the down-regulation of a single RNA-binding protein, polypyrimidine tract-binding protein 1 (Ptbp1), locally converted glial cells to neurons and showed promise for treating the symptoms of neurodegenerative diseases in mice.

BioWorld looks at translational medicine, including: Engineering better bacterial backstabbers; Targeting bystander protein improves sepsis outcome; Long noncoding RNA has sex-specific role in depression; Targeted IL-12 heats up cold tumors; Fast route from fibroblasts to photoreceptors; Eating pro-inflammatory IgG helps prevent liver failure; Depression’s structural problem; Modeling the post-infarct heart; Interleukins rile each other up in reaction to implants; Complement links high BMI to dementia.

The largest study to date on hypermutated gliomas has delivered new insights into their origin, as well as their response to several different treatments. Specifically, even though they are hypermutated, such tumors are unlikely to respond to PD-1 blockers.

BioWorld looks at translational medicine, including: Exosomes deliver sepsis treatment; Dopamine has epigenetic role in addiction; Rejuvenating inflammation’s end; Gut repair with an iron will; Multiple drivers explained.

“Vaccines, obviously, are the ultimate solution for pandemics,” Rino Rappuoli told BioWorld. They have, he added, “already eliminated a lot of pandemic threats – smallpox, influenza, poliomyelitis.” And the road to normalcy from the current pandemic, or any pandemic, is likely to be open only once there is a vaccine.

Specific therapies against a new disease take time to develop. But there are methods that can speed up that development – and in the meantime, there are ways to make do with what’s already in the cupboard.

There will be lessons learned aplenty when the COVID-19 pandemic finally breaks, including how serological and molecular testing can be used to maximum effect to corral a future pandemic. Carmen Wiley, president of the American Association of Clinical Chemistry, told BioWorld that the existing instrument types are up to the job, but that surge capacity is needed, and that it is not clear how the cost of that capacity will be handled.