Bio Saga Blog - A Chronicle of Life Sciences & Informatics

President Barack Obama officially has launched the White House Cancer Moonshot Task Force, which will seek to address unnecessary regulatory barriers to developing new cancer treatments. Members of the task force — which will be chaired by Vice President Joe Biden — include the heads of the FDA, HHS, the National Cancer Institute and the National Institutes of Health.  The task force, funded by NIH, will present a report to the president before Dec. 31. Peter Pitts, president and founder of the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest and a former FDA associate commissioner, said the president should ask HHS to appoint an innovation czar to make the most of resources. Read the White House memorandum here: www.fdanews.com/01-29-16-MoonshotCuresMemo.pdf .

The glycoproteins (GP) of enveloped viruses facilitate entry into the host cell by interacting with specific cellular receptors. Despite extensive study, a cellular receptor for the deadly filoviruses Ebolavirus and Marburgvirus has yet to be identified and characterized. Here, we show that T-cell Ig and mucin domain 1 (TIM-1) binds to the receptor binding domain of the Zaire Ebola virus (EBOV) glycoprotein, and ectopic TIM-1 expression in poorly permissive cells enhances EBOV infection by 10- to 30-fold. Conversely, reduction of cell-surface expression of TIM-1 by RNAi decreased infection of highly permissive Vero cells. TIM-1 expression within the human body is broader than previously appreciated, with expression on mucosal epithelia from the trachea, cornea, and conjunctiva—tissues believed to be important during in vivo transmission of filoviruses. Recognition t...