Miao Xu

TL;DR: A pan-caspase inhibitor, emricasan, inhibited ZIKV-induced increases in caspase-3 activity and protected human cortical neural progenitors in both monolayer and three-dimensional organoid cultures, and combination treatments using one compound from each category (neuroprotective and antiviral) further increased protection of human neural progensitors and astrocytes from ZIKv-induced cell death.

TL;DR: Investigation of the susceptibility of human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived monolayer brain cells and region-specific brain organoids to SARS-CoV-2 infection found that neurons and astrocytes were sparsely infected, but choroid plexus epithelial cells underwent robust infection.

TL;DR: HS is established as an attachment factor that assists SARS coronavirus cell entry and reveals drugs capable of targeting this important step in the viral life cycle.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors systematically profiled transcriptomes of human neural progenitor cells exposed to Asian ZIKVC, African ZIKVM, and dengue virus (DENV) and found that ZIKV has a more selective and larger impact on expression of genes involved in DNA replication and repair.

TL;DR: A set of SARS-CoV-2 3CLpro inhibitors that may have potential for further clinical evaluation as part of drug combination therapies to treating COVID-19 patients and as starting points for chemistry optimization for new drug development are demonstrated.