Zeping Zhao

TL;DR: It is found that human pancreatic beta cells and liver organoids are highly permissive to SARS-CoV-2 infection, further validated using adult primary human islets and adult hepatocyte and cholangiocyte organoids.

TL;DR: This work developed a lung organoid model using human pluripotent stem cells (hPSC-LOs) and performed a high-throughput screen of drugs approved by the FDA and identified entry inhibitors of SARS-CoV-2, including imatinib, mycophenolic acid and quinacrine dihydrochloride.

TL;DR: It is demonstrated that hPSC-derived lung cells infected by SARS-CoV-2 can model human COVID-19 disease and provide a valuable resource to screen for FDA-approved drugs that might be repurposed and should be considered for CO VID-19 clinical trials.

TL;DR: It is demonstrated that the maturation of multiple hPSC-derived cell types can be enhanced by simple pharmacological intervention and suggests that some of the mechanisms controlling the timing of human maturation are shared across lineages.

TL;DR: In this paper , a human-induced pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC)-based screening strategy was used to link human genetics with viral infectivity, and a genome-wide association study (GWAS) identified a cluster of single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in a cis-regulatory region of the NDUFA4 gene, which was associated with susceptibility to Zika virus infection.