LONDON – A $1 billion program to develop vaccines against emerging infectious diseases that, like Zika and Ebola viruses, have the potential to cause serious epidemics, will be launched at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Mitochondrial DNA with mutations was sometimes preferentially replicated after spindle transfer to donor eggs, with the end result that the mutated mitochondria were once again dominant after transplantation.

Spinalcyte LLC, of Houston, reported results from phase II animal studies testing human dermal fibroblasts (HDFs) for transplantation in intevertebral disc degeneration.

Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) has been chased from the headlines by other viruses, but with a fatality rate of around 30 percent and the potential ability to spread from person to person, it remains a threat to global heath in the eyes of the World Health Organization. Now, researchers from the Navy Medical Research Center have reported using transchromosomal cows to generate polyclonal antibodies that could rapidly reduce the viral load in the lungs of MERS-CoV-infected mice.

Scientists from Harvard University have engineered stomach cells to have functional similarities to pancreatic beta cells, including the ability to produce insulin and prevent hyperglycemia (high blood sugar) when they were transplanted into mice.

Asterias Biotherapeutics Inc., of Fremont, Calif., and Biotime Inc., of Alameda, Calif., along with Biotime's wholly owned subsidiary ES Cell International Pte Ltd., have entered into a share transfer agreement through which Biotime will re-acquire from Asterias shares of capital stock of Biotime subsidiaries Cell Cure Neurosciences Ltd. and Orthocyte Corp.