| | | |   By Elizabeth Cooney | Good morning. We have news from the White House science office, where "not making the bomb go off" used to be the strategy, but where science leadership will now be shared in the interim by two veterans. And we introduce On Target, a new feature on drug targets in oncology. | | | Exclusive: Inside the culture of fear at the White House science office under Eric Lander “Hostile,” “siloed,” and “aggressive.” Those three words stood out among adjectives staffers picked to describe the work environment at the Office of Science and Technology Policy under its former chief Eric Lander, who resigned last week after a White House investigation found “credible evidence” that he had violated workplace conduct rules. Colleagues working for Lander had coined a shorthand phrase for their need to tiptoe around him: “Not making the bomb go off.” In interviews with STAT’s Lev Facher, 10 aides — granted anonymity because they fear professional retaliation — painted Lander as a domineering leader who had no tolerance for pushback and spent large chunks of meetings belittling his own employees. Their accounts shed new light on Lander’s specific conduct, the dysfunctional work culture that led to the investigation, and his eventual resignation. Read Lev's exclusive story here. | Into the breach: Collins, OSTP deputy to serve as interim top science adviser to Biden President Biden is replacing his ousted top science adviser Eric Lander with two individuals who will split his duties on an interim basis, the Associated Press reported yesterday. Biden will elevate Alondra Nelson, currently deputy director for science and society in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, to become temporary director of the office. And he’s tapping Francis Collins, who retired in December from his job as longtime director of the NIH, to be the president’s top science adviser, according to a person who requested anonymity to discuss the plans before a formal announcement, likely this week. | Altering the blood type of lungs raises hopes for universal transplant organs Many people waiting for organ transplants face an insurmountable barrier: If their blood type doesn’t match the donor organ's, a mismatched transplant would be catastrophic and deadly. New research suggests this obstacle could disappear if donor organs were treated with special enzymes that make them compatible with recipients of any blood type. A study published yesterday in Science Translational Medicine shows proof-of-concept that lungs from a type A donor could be treated with the enzymes for a few hours and emerge with the cellular appearance of having O blood type. And, the treated lungs weren’t damaged when they came into contact with O blood plasma during a transplant simulation. Caveat: The treated lungs weren’t implanted in a real person, so more research is needed. STAT’s Isabella Cueto has more. | Commercializing cell therapy: launching “disruptive” technologies requires innovative strategies Personalized medicine is changing the therapeutic landscape for patients and providers, but creating “disruptive” and highly individualized therapies requires a new approach to commercialization.
Steve Gavel, vice president of global commercial development at Legend Biotech, details how Legend, which was incorporated less than a decade ago, created the infrastructure to bring cell therapies to market at an accelerated speed. Read about its approach to commercialization and how it hopes a three-pronged strategy can ensure success. | Closer look: In a wily protein that helps cancer spread, researchers see a way to turn the tables  (MOLLY FERGUSON FOR STAT) Of all the wily ways tumors have to turn back attacks from therapies or the immune system, an immune protein called TGF-beta may be one of the most curious, STAT’s Angus Chen writes in On Target, a new recurring feature on drug targets in oncology. In healthy tissues, the protein can trigger precancerous cells to kill themselves, but cancer cells can use TGF-beta to disable the immune system. Cancer researchers are keen to turn the tables on TGF-beta and use it to break down tumor defenses and make cancer immunotherapy drugs more effective in more patients. “The amount of money — it’s now a multi-billion-dollar industry — spent on TGF-beta assets gives you an idea of how excited the field is about this,” Lalage Wakefield, a cancer biologist at NIH, told Angus. “Having said that, it’s still very much all promise.” Read more. | Mental health risks higher in Covid patients up to a year after infection, study finds The pandemic poses mental health challenges to anyone living through it, but a new study marks specific jumps in disorders up to a year after Covid-19 infection. The BMJ study examined patient records for U.S. veterans who survived Covid-19 — both mild and serious — through January 2021 and compared them to people hospitalized for another reason and to people hospitalized before the pandemic. People who had Covid were 60% more likely than other people to have problems such as anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts. They were also 41% more likely to develop sleep disorders, 80% more likely to experience brain fog, 34% more likely to develop opioid use disorders, and 46% more likely to have suicidal thoughts. The authors suggest more attention to mental health as well as research to explore biological explanations for the higher risk among Covid patients. | Legionnaires cases are climbing, CDC says When you think of Legionnaires' disease, maybe you recall black-and-white photos of a 1976 convention in Philadelphia that gave its name to a dangerous bacterial pneumonia. (Or, in my case, you recall learning about it at a CDC journalism fellowship 20 years ago from someone who investigated it: veteran epidemiologist Philip Brachman). So it’s surprising to see in a new CDC report that since 2003, incidence is rising for the disease people can catch when Legionella bacteria grow in warm, stagnant water, whose aerosols spread via cooling towers, hot tubs, or showers. There are more cases among Black Americans and people in East North Central, Middle Atlantic, and New England states, possibly tied to differences in housing, income, occupation, and weather. Nearly two-thirds of cases have no known cause, but better water management can reduce the risk in buildings with complex water systems. | | | | | What to read around the web today - The millions of people stuck in pandemic limbo. The Atlantic
- Lawmakers ask Justice Department to explore criminal charges against Sacklers. STAT+
- CDC to update guidance soon, Walensky says, with recommendations tied to hospitalizations. Washington Post
- Lower testing rates likely reason for falling COVID-19 case reports —WHO. Reuters
- Sage study shows rapid anti-depressant effect of experimental pill. STAT+
| Thanks for reading! More tomorrow,  | | | | Have a news tip or comment? Email Me | | | | | |
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