Nicole S. Persky

TL;DR: A large number of mammals that can potentially be infected by SARS-CoV-2 via their ACE2 proteins are identified to assist the identification of intermediate hosts for Sars-Cov-2 and hence reduce the opportunity for a future outbreak of COVID-19.

TL;DR: Activating HER2 mutations are shown to confer resistance to ER-directed therapies in patients with ER+ metastatic breast cancer, and these mutations conferred estrogen independence as well as resistance to tamoxifen, fulvestrant and the CDK4 and CDK6 inhibitor palbociclib.

TL;DR: A protein structural analysis was employed to qualitatively assess whether amino acid changes at variable residues would be likely to disrupt ACE2/SARS-CoV-2 binding, and found the number of predicted unfavorable changes significantly correlated with the binding score.

TL;DR: This work functionally characterized nearly all missense mutants of MAPK1/ERK2, an essential effector of oncogenic RAS and RAF, and discovered rare gain- and loss-of-function ERK2 mutants found in human tumors, revealing that, in the context of this assay, mutational frequency alone cannot identify all functionally impactful mutants.

TL;DR: Diverse genomic and histologic mechanisms impart resistance to covalent KRASG12C inhibitors in patients with cancer, suggesting potential therapeutic strategies for overcoming drug resistance to specific mutations.