DUBLIN – The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), an international public-private partnership raising $1 billion to incentivize the development of vaccines for neglected infectious diseases, has made its first big bet – a contract, worth up to $37.5 million, with Themis Bioscience GmbH to develop vaccines against Lassa virus and Middle East respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus (MERS-CoV).

BOSTON – Has biomedicine learned from the HIV epidemic? Yes and no. Certainly, Biomedicine has learned how to deal with HIV.

Metastases cause a large majority of cancer deaths, and understanding their mechanisms might offer therapeutic opportunities. A team from Case Western Reserve University investigated a possible role of enhancers, regulatory DNA elements that can influence the transcription of downstream genes.

Activating mutations in the BRAF kinase, such as those targeted by melanoma drug Zelboraf (vemurafenib, Roche Holding AG), are a well-known cause of cancer.

Researchers from the International Mouse Phenotypic Consortium have published the comprehensive phenotypes of more than 3,300 knockout mice, describing mouse models for 360 diseases.

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.