| Because so many members of our community are engaged in responding to the COVID-19 crisis, this special edition of our newsletter will highlight some of their ongoing efforts to understand the virus, treat patients, and protect frontline health care workers. Look for next week’s newsletter for news about the latest developments in cancer research at the Koch Institute and, in the meantime, stay safe and healthy. |
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 | Serving a Repurpose David H. Koch Professor of Science and intensivist/trauma surgeon Michael Yaffe began trials to repurpose a drug used to treat stroke and heart attack for patients with coronavirus. Tissue plasminogen activator, or tPA, breaks up blood clots, which data from China and Italy indicate contributed to respiratory failure. Yaffe, who is helping to organize the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center’s COVID-19 treatment efforts, is testing tPA in critically ill COVID-19 patients on ventilators in Boston, New York, and Colorado hospitals.
A report published in The Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery suggests the approach has particular promise in cases where patients are not responding to maximum support with a ventilator or where ventilators are unavailable, potentially even preventing their need. He and his colleagues have published an initial case series with encouraging results, although larger studies are needed to determine how best to use this treatment. |
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Convening on COVID Sangeeta Bhatia is co-chairing the Proposal Selection Task Force for the newly formed Massachusetts Consortium on Pathogen Readiness. Bringing together clinicians and scientists from the Boston and Cambridge communities, the consortium aims to accelerate the development of diagnostic tools, treatments, and vaccines for the COVID-19 pandemic. |
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Biotechs Join the Fray with RNA MIT-affiliated companies are forging ahead with COVID-19 related efforts, including Moderna Therapeutics, co-founded by Robert Langer, and Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, co-founded by Phillip Sharp.
Moderna began human trials of its messenger RNA (mRNA) based COVID-19 vaccine just 65 days after the virus was first sequenced. mRNA holds the key to Moderna’s record-breaking turnaround, according to Daniel Anderson, as it allows for speedier identification of new sequences and development of vaccines compared to traditional vaccines based on viral proteins.
Alnylam’s partnership with Vir Biotechnology will now include developing therapeutics for coronavirus infections, including COVID-19. The collaboration will combine Alnylam’s recent advances in delivering its RNAi technology to the lungs with Vir’s infectious disease capabilities to identify and develop drug candidates. |
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Prioritizing Personal Protection In addition to serving as faculty lead on a campus-wide donation effort to provide area hospitals and health care workers with personal protective equipment for the frontline COVID-19 response, Elazer Edelman partnered with MIT mechanical engineering professor Martin Culpepper to design a low-cost, disposable face shield for mass production. |
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Peptides That Bind A team led by Brad Pentelute has developed a drug candidate that may block the novel coronavirus’s access to human cells. In a study available on bioRxiv, researchers designed and synthesized a peptide that binds to a region of a viral spike protein thought to be the “key” to entry. |
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KI Alum Leads Testing in NIH Study The National Institutes of Health launched an at-home blood collection effort to determine how many adults in the United States without a confirmed history of SARS-CoV-2 infection have antibodies to the virus. KI alum Kaitlyn Sadtler, now chief of the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering’s Section for Immunoengineering, is the study testing lead. |
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Community in Silico Searching for ways to stay connected to the cancer research community while safely socially isolating? The Dana Farber/Harvard Cancer Center’s seminar series “Science:Connect” features leaders in cancer biology, immune oncology, and more four days a week at 12:00 pm EST. You can join live or watch past talks; look for KI faculty members Tyler Jacks on April 14 and Angelika Amon on April 16.
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