How fast can biotech come up with a vaccine for the latest outbreak?

The deadly outbreak of a novel coronavirus has sparked a race among biotech companies, each claiming that its technology can quickly whip up a vaccine to quell a potential crisis. But history suggests the road ahead will be long, unpredictable, and expensive.
Moderna Therapeutics and Inovio Pharmaceuticals are among the companies turning their focus to the emerging virus, called 2019-nCoV. Each has received millions in funding from the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, a global organization that has set an audacious goal: to have a vaccine ready for human testing, a process that traditionally takes years, in just 16 weeks.
“The challenges those efforts face are not insignificant,” said Mark Feinberg, president and CEO of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative.

He would know. Feinberg was the chief scientific officer of Merck’s vaccine division during the last Ebola outbreak, when the company deployed a vaccine now approved as Ervebo. Preparing the vaccine for human study was a lengthy, cross-border process full of scientific serendipity. And proving its efficacy rested on unpredictable pieces falling into place, including the length of the outbreak.
It was difficult enough for Merck, a multinational company with a $220 billion market cap. Replicating it on a biotech budget is another matter altogether.

“It’s hard to align engaging in this sort of work with the financial realities of a small biotech company,” Feinberg said. “It may sound like an attractive target, but the prospects and the amount of work involved will necessarily take them away from their core business and the interest of their investors in getting a return on their investment.”
Moderna, which has already run clinical trials on six vaccines of its own, believes it’s up to the task.
The company’s technology involves creating synthetic messenger RNA that can compel the body to manufacture specific proteins. For vaccines, that means encoding mRNA to produce antibodies that protect against infection. With CEPI’s funding, Moderna is working with the National Institutes of Health to design such a vaccine for 2019-nCoV. Once it’s ready for human testing, NIH will run the clinical trials.
Dr. Tal Zaks, Moderna’s chief medical officer, committed to getting that done on CEPI’s 16-week timeline. And the company will be able to manufacture the eventual vaccine in a matter of a few months, Zaks said. That should cover clinical trials, he said, but if the vaccine ends up working — and the 2019-nCoV outbreak drags on — the company would have to rely on someone else to churn out the massive number of doses required to halt the virus.
“I don’t kid myself,” Zaks said. “We’re not Sanofi or GSK in terms of global infrastructure and ability to deliver to a global population.”
Inovio’s approach relies on injecting synthetic DNA that codes for protective antibodies, technology developed at the lab of David Weiner of the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia. Like Moderna’s mRNA approach, Inovio’s method doesn’t require administering a live virus and thus should be safer than traditional vaccines. And it promises to be much faster, Weiner said, citing experience.

Good news for the world can be bad news for vaccine development.

In 2015, as the Zika virus raged in South America, Weiner and Inovio went from zero to having a ready-for-testing vaccine in about seven months. “And that is still considered the fastest,” Weiner said.
But that work, later published in the New England Journal of Medicine, never resulted in an approved vaccine, through no fault of Inovio’s. The Zika outbreak dissipated in 2016, sapping the need for a vaccine and making it virtually impossible to run the large-scale trials necessary to prove one’s worth. Good news for the world can be bad news for vaccine development.
The same thing could happen with 2019-nCoV, an outbreak in its infancy. If global health authorities successfully contain the virus, Moderna, Inovio, and the handful of other companies on 2019-nCoV’s case will have no patient population to work with. Or, if one of the candidate vaccines succeeds, global organizations like CEPI might pull their support for other efforts.
There are countless ways vaccine development can go awry in an outbreak, Feinberg said, and what made Merck’s success in Ebola so exemplary is that so many stars aligned to bring it from basic research to clinical trials and finally to regulatory approval.
“Response to this coronavirus will put some of the new partnerships and mechanisms to the test,” Feinberg said. “Will there actually be a need for a vaccine? Or will the outbreak wane? Will there be partners who will stay with you to support the work that’s necessary to bring a vaccine to licensure?”

How fast can biotech come up with a vaccine for the latest outbreak?

NY ‘ready’ to snuff coronavirus on arrival with training, tech, ‘secret shoppers’

It’s inevitable: The coronavirus is without question coming to the nation’s biggest city.

While no one can say exactly when, city officials are already working overtime to stop the virus dead in its tracks upon arrival.

“The risk in New York City is low at this time, while our level of preparedness is very high,” Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, deputy commissioner for disease control at the city’s health department, told the Daily News. “We’re making sure all our systems are in place to receive the first patient.”

At JFK Airport, screeners from Centers for Disease Control (CDC) are already taking people’s temperatures and asking about symptoms of passengers arriving from central China — where the outbreak began last month in the city of Wuhan.

At public hospitals, staffers are using a recently upgraded intake system to identify and isolate any potential cases. The system uses a series of embedded screen prompts to gather information on travel history and possible recent visits to the Asian epicenter.

Medical staffers walk next to patients waiting to be seen at the Wuhan Red Cross Hospital in Wuhan, China on Jan. 25, 2020. (HECTOR RETAMAL/AFP via Getty Images)

The NYC Health + Hospital system added aggressive new “in-service trainings” in the last week so workers could review protocols and the “donning and doffing” of protective gear such as gloves, gowns, masks and face shields, a spokesman said.

And the city’s health department is lining up staffers with language skills that might prove critical with patients arriving from China.

“I have an entire group that does Hepatitis B work on a day-to-day basis and includes a lot of Mandarin speakers. We’re moving them to be on-call for a scenario where we have someone who’s a Mandarin speaker suspected (of infection),” Daskalakis said.

And then there are the so-called “secret shoppers,” the undercover actors who masquerade as infected patients to constantly test the city’s front-line defenses.

NYC Health + Hospitals staged one of its highest level “secret shopper” drills in December, sending four actors to two hospitals, one ambulatory care center and one post-acute care center.

The undercover patients met with unsuspecting personnel and described symptoms and travel histories consistent with Ebola infection. All four were quickly identified, officials said.

“We were able to meet our overall goals — to identify the patient within 5 to 10 minutes of presentation — and see that the processes we have in place are effective,” said Dr. Syra Madad, senior director of the special pathogens program at NYC Health + Hospitals, to The News.

One of the actors was actually taken to Bellevue Hospital by ambulance and placed in a biocontainment setting, she said.

The other three would have been transported too, but once the proper health department notifications went out, the drill organizers halted the EMS calls, the actors stopped pretending and the transfers to Bellevue were only “simulated,” Madad explained.

“The overall outcome of the exercise was a success,” she told The News. “I think Ebola is the epitome. If you’re prepared for Ebola, you’re ready for anything.”

The city proved its mettle against Ebola in October 2014, after a Harlem doctor contracted the disease while treating patients in West Africa.

Dr. Craig Spencer was rushed to Bellevue in a protective suit by FDNY EMS and was quarantined in one of the hospital isolation units until he recovered.

Spencer was working with Doctors Without Borders in Guinea, where he was exposed to Ebola.

A Japan Airlines worker (center) wears a face mask while working inside a terminal at Los Angeles International Airport on Jan. 23, 2020 in Los Angeles, Ca. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Private hospitals are getting in on the “secret shopper” action too.

Northwell, the state’s largest health care provider, instituted “just in time” retraining in the last week and plans to send out secret shoppers posing as coronavirus patients “very, very soon,” Dr. Mark Jarrett, the company’s chief quality officer told The News.

“We’ve been planning secret shoppers over the last two days. Once everything in place with retraining, we’ll send them in during the day and on weekends and off-hours too,” he said.

“It’s very important. We’re not doing it to play ‘gotcha.’ It’s not done to be punitive but to help with teaching. If you don’t test, you don’t know,” said Jarrett.

Northwell’s system includes Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan and Long Island Jewish in New Hyde Park, one of the facilities set to receive possible coronavirus cases landing at JFK.

All the preparation is serious business.

When SARS erupted in China in 2002, it infected more than 8,000 people and killed 774 before disappearing thanks to public health measures. In 2012, another virus dubbed MERS began sickening people in Saudi Arabia and killed more than 850 victims.

While the coronavirus death toll remains low, Chinese President Xi Jinping called the situation “grave” on Saturday and imposed further travel restrictions, including banning all group tours. In Hong Kong, where the disease has spread, officials announced that schools will remain closed through Feb. 17, adding two weeks off to a scheduled holiday week.

Symptoms are similar to those of the influenza virus — fever, cough and shortness of breath — and require a medical test to diagnose. Anyone who suspects they might be a carrier should contact their doctor immediately, officials said.

Coronavirus outbreak in China and overseas

Yet New Yorkers out celebrating the Chinese New Year on Saturday expressed little concern about the virus responsible for infecting more than 1,300 people, killing 41 and forcing the quarantine of millions.

“I guess it’s just the New York attitude,” explained Jonathan Chin, 28, of Flushing. “You just try to get through the day, and you don’t really think about anything else other than what you’re doing … You know, we’ve got tunnel vision.”

Others in Manhattan’s Chinese enclave admitted they were on edge and lamented the overlap with celebrations for the Year of the Rat.

Monica Zhong, 15 was wearing a mask and watching fireworks with her friends.

“In China our family members are afraid, the government is telling them to not go out of home and to stay away from everyone. It’s Chinese New Year everyone would gather together but now the government is saying not to.”

She said she wasn’t afraid to go out.

“Not today but in the future yes.”

While minds may be at ease here, hearts are heavy for loved ones in China.

“I’m worried about it,” said Michael Lo, 25, who moved to New York from Hong Kong in 2018. “China does not have a good virus control system. They just let anyone anywhere. It has already spread to Hong Kong. I have friends there, and they are worried.”
https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/manhattan/ny-officials-detail-ways-city-is-preparing-for-coronavirus-20200125-ithoxxpdyfddvbhib4ce4jmpvy-story.html

Using Text To Speech Technology To Assist Dyslexic Students

Davis Graham wanted to participate. His teachers could not understand why he was so resistant to learning. He almost completely gave up on his education. Mr. Graham, a life-long dyslexia advocate, has dyslexia and he was not alone. Eighty percent of children who have a learning disability are also impacted by dyslexia. This is a staggering number of students.

With technology we can tackle some of the challenges facing these students. Even changing how we view these differences.
I asked a friend of mine, Tony Wright, who has two children with dyslexia, what he would change in the world of education. He said we need a change in perception because, “In a perfect world, my children’s learning differences would be accepted as differences, not disabilities. Their peers would understand that they think differently. That they are not inferior. Also, they would be able to be accommodated without disruption to their day. Of course, they have a father who loves reading. I want my kids to enjoy reading. In a perfect world, my kids would be just able to be normal kids and given the chance to excel and succeed in whatever their talent is. I think that’s what most parents want as well.”
With increased early screening we could identify more children who struggle with dyslexia. Early screening could provide a pathway to learning with Text to Speech technology (TTS) and could even lead to a decrease in our total IEP costs. TTS in schools creates an excellent opportunity for a huge impact in schools with very limited budgets.

With regard to how we view reading and writing in education, Mr. Graham points out, “It’s a crossroads. [We should] say look, you can dictate it with speech to text or you can consume it by text to speech or the reading acceleration program.”
The point is the challenges caused by dyslexia in reading and writing can be alleviated. Cost savings for IEPs would be realized in both the short and long-term. Providing students access to TTS technology is the most efficient solution in solving reading challenges that dyslexic students face. In the long-run, districts will see improved comprehension and less frustrating outbursts from students. Very often we see a decrease in the need for assistance from teachers and better test scores often follow. All of these elements combined lead to a positive net impact on students, teachers and schools with limited budgets.

“In the Education delivery system, text to speech will level the hurdles of the printed word in any language, providing a level playing field for all students,” says Mr. Graham.
Despite being severely dyslexic, Mr. Graham went on to receive his Master of Science in Health and Medical Informatics from Brandeis University. When he was diagnosed with dyslexia in the late 60’s, his road to achieving educational success was a long, winding path. With support from many educators along the way, he became passionate about providing access to various content for those who also suffer with dyslexia. Mr. Graham found Bookshare, an ebook library, and began listening to volumes of books converted from a written format to an audio format. This is a life changing experience for someone willing to learn, but who lacks the ability to just sit down and read. Enter the mobile age and the explosion of access to content for those with dyslexia, and we begin to see innovative solutions in solving learning disabilities.
Along with internet access and either a mobile device or tablet, any student with dyslexia can access TTS technology. TTS is not new, but it is dramatically improved over the years.
The increase in processing speed and decrease in costs over time, has allowed for dramatic improvements to TTS technology. Now with programs like Dragon Dictate or Google’s Dictation.io, students can speak into a microphone, or use a dictation feature to “write” papers or take tests.
The problem goes beyond just improving grades
Research by Jean Cheng Gorman, Psy.D., a licensed psychologist who studied youth suicides in 1998, found a staggering 50% of students who unfortunately end their lives have a learning disability, and 40% suffer from dyslexia. There is yet to be a research study showing TTS technology having a causal impact on decreasing suicide. However, helping alleviate barriers to knowledge, while decreasing frustration with learning, will have a positive impact on all student’s lives.
Beyond cost savings, the significance in learning to each student is tremendous. As a child, I personally was slow to read, but I don’t remember when I suddenly “learned” how to read. The act of reading is so automatic for most people, that it is hard for most people to imagine what it would be like to lack the ability to read. Providing solutions to these problems can help make some students feel empowered to learn again. TTS can change the lives of those students who need help with managing dyslexia.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jabezlebret/2019/04/01/using-text-to-speech-technology-to-assist-dyslexic-students/#24d8796224ba

Nearly Half of U.S. Smokers Not Advised by Doctors to Quit

Too few American smokers are advised by their doctors to quit, according to a report released Thursday by U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams, M.D.
“Forty percent of smokers don’t get advised to quit,” Adams told The New York Times. “That was a shocking statistic to me, and it’s a little embarrassing as a health professional.”
According to the report, “four out of every nine adult cigarette smokers who saw a health professional during the past year did not receive advice to quit.” The report advised smokers to use a number of cessation methods known to be effective but noted that electronic cigarettes are not among those, The Times reported.

Vulnerable populations — including gay and transgender people, Native Americans, and people with mental illness — are not getting the help they need to quit smoking, according to the Surgeon General’s report. It said doctors and public health officials need to do more to help these groups stop smoking.
“The biggest take-home from this report is that far too many people who want to quit aren’t getting access to the cessation treatments that we know work,” Adams told The Times.
Office of the Surgeon General
https://www.physiciansbriefing.com/cardiology-2/smoking-cessation-news-628/nearly-half-of-u-s-smokers-not-advised-by-doctors-to-quit-754241.html

Health Care Utilization Up for Seniors With Untreated Apnea

Older adult Medicare beneficiaries with untreated obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) have increased health care utilization (HCU) and costs, according to a study published online Jan. 15 in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine.
Emerson M. Wickwire, Ph.D., from the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore, and colleagues examined the effect of untreated OSA on HCU and costs among a nationally representative 5 percent sample of Medicare administrative claims data for 2006 to 2013. Data were included for 287,191 patients, including 10,317 beneficiaries with OSA and 276,874 control patients.
The researchers found that during the year prior to OSA diagnosis, beneficiaries with OSA demonstrated increased HCU and higher mean total annual costs (adjusted marginal effect, $19,566) compared with matched control patients as well as higher mean annual costs across all individual points of service. Inpatient care correlated with the highest incremental costs and prescriptions correlated with the lowest incremental costs ($15,482 and $431 greater than control patients, respectively).

“These results are generally consistent with and add a population health perspective to previous literature, thus highlighting the clinical and economic importance of OSA specifically among older adults,” the authors write. “Future research should seek to understand the effect of comorbid OSA as well as evaluate the economic effect of OSA treatments among older adults.”
One author disclosed financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry.
Abstract/Full Text (subscription or payment may be required)
Editorial (subscription or payment may be required)
https://www.physiciansbriefing.com/pulmonology-17/apnea-sleep-problems-news-624/health-care-utilization-up-for-seniors-with-untreated-apnea-754051.html

Prescription-Strength Steroid Creams Sold Over-the-Counter Can Be Dangerous

Rubbing cream into your skin to calm an itchy rash may seem harmless, but not all topical anti-itch formulas are created equal.
“People don’t understand the potential dangers of prescription-strength steroid creams,” said Dr. Lawrence Green, clinical professor of dermatology at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.
Hydrocortisone — a topical steroid often used to treat a rash or allergic reaction — is not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for over-the-counter use in a potency greater than 1%. But in some stores it is easy to obtain without a prescription, a new study warns.

The researchers found illegal corticosteroid creams at dozens of stores nationwide that specialize in foreign imports.
For the study, the investigators visited 80 stores in 13 cities in nine states. Posing as customers, they asked for cream to treat an “itchy rash.” Three dozen stores sold prescription-strength creams over-the-counter without a prescription.
The creams were made in 12 countries, including China, Mexico, Kenya, Korea and Switzerland, the study authors said.
All stores visited in Chicago and San Francisco sold illegal steroid creams, as did 80% of those visited in Minneapolis, 60% of those in Washington, D.C., and 36% in New York City. Even smaller cities — including Durham, N.C. and Madison, Wisc. — had stores selling illegal creams, the findings showed.
The report was published in the February issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology.
The results came as little surprise to study co-author Dr. Sara Hylwa, a dermatologist at Hennepin Healthcare in Minneapolis.
Hylwa works in a clinic that treats many immigrants. Occasionally, patients acknowledge using prescription-strength corticosteroid creams for rashes and even as skin-lightening formulas, she said.
In many other countries, the creams are available legally over-the-counter, she said, so it wouldn’t be unusual for a newcomer to expect to purchase them without a prescription. But misuse can bring serious side effects.
Hylwa recalled one patient whose use of a skin cream containing a potent steroid resulted in severe skin thinning — a common side effect often seen in sensitive areas, such as the face and around the eyes.
Other side effects include stretch marks; easy bruising; and glaucoma, cataracts or even blindness when applied to the eye area, according to the American Academy of Dermatology.
Green said he sees patients who have misused skin creams almost every day.
“Unfortunately, they’re getting inaccurate advice from the internet, friends, or just trying to help themselves with a previous prescription cream they have in their house — one that was prescribed for something else unrelated — until they go to the doctor, or trying to avoid going to the doctor altogether,” he said.
While consumers may think liberal use of topical medications is less harmful than medicines that are swallowed, that’s a misconception, Green said.
“When you put something on a large enough surface of your skin, it can be absorbed into your bloodstream,” he warned. “You then can have all the potential permanent damage not only of putting cream too often on the same place on your skin, but also the potentially dangerous side effects of taking a pill form of the cream.”
So, what’s the safest approach to take for a skin rash that doesn’t resolve in a few days with nonprescription-strength creams?
Make an appointment with a doctor, suggested Dr. Erin Warshaw, a professor of dermatology at the University of Minnesota, who was also involved in the study.
Warshaw urged patients to take any skin creams they may be using with them to their appointment, to show the doctor. These creams may very well yield valuable clues about what’s causing a skin irritation or preventing it from healing.
More information
Learn more about proper skin care from the American Academy of Dermatology.

SOURCES: Lawrence Green, M.D., clinical professor of dermatology, George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences, Washington, D.C., and medical advisory board member, National Psoriasis Foundation; Sara Hylwa, M.D., dermatologist, Hennepin Healthcare, Minneapolis, and board member, American Contact Dermatitis Society; Erin Warshaw, M.D., M.S., professor of dermatology, University of Minnesota Medical School, Minneapolis; February 2020, Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology

https://consumer.healthday.com/men-s-health-information-24/steroid-health-news-637/prescription-strength-steroid-creams-sold-over-the-counter-can-be-dangerous-754210.html

Single number helps Stanford scientists find most dangerous cancer cells

Biomedical data scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine have shown that the number of genes a cell uses to make RNA is a reliable indicator of how developed the cell is, a finding that could make it easier to target cancer-causing genes.
Cells that initiate cancer are thought to be stem cells, which are hard-to-find cells that can reproduce themselves and develop, or differentiate, into more specialized tissue, such as skin or muscle — or, when they go bad, into cancer.
“Right now, targeted therapies are focused on specific genes or molecules, the vast majority of which may not be specific to cancer stem cells,” said Aaron Newman, PhD, assistant professor of biomedical data science and a member of the Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine. “Usually these therapies don’t work for very long. But if you can identify the least-differentiated cells and then look for markers specific to them, it’s no longer a guessing game to find the genes to target.”
The study’s finding is also significant because identifying stem cells of various tissue types is an important step toward regenerating damaged or malfunctioning tissues.
What the scientists showed is that as stem cells become more differentiated and more like adult cells, they express fewer and fewer genes. Previously, other researchers had noticed this correlation and thought it might be an interesting coincidence. But Newman and his colleagues were the first to sort through thousands of single-cell genetic tests in public databases and prove this pattern was consistent and reliable.
Newman and MD-PhD student Gunsagar Gulati combined the measurement of the number of genes expressed in a cell with the measurement of the number of RNA copies created per gene as the basis for a computer algorithm, CytoTRACE, designed to determine how developmentally advanced cells are.
A paper describing the research is being published online Jan. 24 in Science. Newman is the senior author. Gulati and Shaheen Sikandar, PhD, an instructor at the institute, share lead authorship.
Tumor cells are diverse
Cancerous tumors can contain many millions of cells, each of which may have thousands of gene mutations. The cells in a tumor are diverse. Most will be differentiated cells that die out naturally on their own, while relatively few are the more dangerous cancer stem cells, or tumor-initiating cells. These cells are hard to find and therefore hard to characterize using current methods, but far easier to find with CytoTRACE.
“As a cancer researcher, what I find most exciting is that this tool helps us find the tumor-initiating cells that have long been known to be responsible for resistance to treatment, metastasis and relapse after treatment,” Sikandar said.
Michael Clarke, MD, one of the authors of the paper, was the first researcher to identify cancer stem cells in a solid tumor. A professor of medicine at Stanford, Clarke said that CytoTRACE, which analyzes data on all the RNA created in a single cell, can quickly recapitulate research that takes years using traditional methods. “The way that we currently find cell markers for cancer stem cells is to make educated guesses about which markers will likely be important, then sort those cells and look for stem cell activity,” said Clarke, the Karel H. and Avice N. Beekhuis Professor in Cancer Biology and associate director of the Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine.
Researchers can look at relatively few markers at a time, so it takes a lot of sorting and analysis, and in the end, they will likely be only partially successful in finding good markers of the stem cells they are looking for, he said. “What CytoTRACE allows us to do is first find the stem or progenitor cells, then look at what unique markers they have on them.”
In the paper, the researchers describe using CytoTRACE to query single-cell RNA data for triple-negative breast cancer, a type of tumor that is rarer but more dangerous because tumor growth doesn’t rely on the biochemical pathways that physicians usually target to treat breast cancer. Not only did CytoTRACE identify known markers of cancer stem cells, it also spotted a marker that had not been previously been thought to be important. “This one gene looks like it has amazing potential as a therapeutic,” Clarke said.
Potential tool for hunting other disease-linked stem cells
CytoTRACE also has the potential to transform how researchers hunt for stem cells associated with other diseases, Newman said. “This tool could also be useful in finding treatments for disorders such as Alzheimer’s or other degenerative diseases where loss of stem cell function might be part of the disease process,” he said.
Regenerative medicine, in which diseased or damaged tissue is repaired through the activity of stem cells, requires the ability to isolate purified populations of stem cells specific to a given tissue. To regrow bone, the heart or the eyes, for example, researchers must first find the stem cells responsible for regrowing those organs. Finding the markers that are specific to these normal stem cells has been much like the process for finding cancer stem cell markers, the researchers say — that is, the product of educated guesses, luck and a lot of work in the lab. CytoTRACE could significantly shorten that process.
“One of the main motivations behind developing CytoTRACE was to create a tool for rapid and accurate identification of stem cells in humans,” Gulati said. “But another important question we hope to answer is how the inner workings of a cell change as the cell transforms from one state to another. This research opens up a whole new avenue of research to study how global changes in gene expression and DNA structure influence a cell’s state.”
Overall, Newman said, the study shows the power and promise of using big data to advance biology and medicine through computer research that complements discoveries made in the lab.
“It wouldn’t have been possible to gather all this data in our lab, but by using public databases and asking the right questions, it’s more and more possible to make fundamental discoveries in biology and medicine,” he said.

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Other Stanford co-authors of the study are associate professor of surgery Frederick Dirbas, MD; research scientist Feiqiao Yu, PhD; laboratory manager Dalong Qian; former postdoctoral scholars Ferenc Sheeren, PhD, Neethan Lobo, PhD, Maider Zabala, PhD, and Shang Cai, PhD; former instructor Robert Hsieh, MD, PhD; graduate students Daniel Wesche and Anoop Manjunath; former graduate student Mark Berger; former Stanford undergraduate Francisco Lagan; and former intern Anjan Bharadwaj.
The research was supported by the National Institutes of Health (R00CA187192-03, 5R01CA100225-09, PHS-CA09302), the Stinehart-Reed Foundation, Stanford Bio-X, the Virginia and D.K. Ludwig Fund for Cancer Research, the U.S. Department of Defense, the National Science Foundation and the Stanford Medical Science Training Program.
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-01/sm-asn012320.php