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The paper
A. Bruchez et al., “MHC class II transactivator CIITA induces cell resistance to Ebola virus and SARS-like coronaviruses,” Science, 370:241–47, 2020.
Earlier this year, immunologist Adam Lacy-Hulbert of the Benaroya Research Institute in Seattle and his former postdoc Anna Bruchez were writing up their discovery of a previously unknown immune pathway that defends cells against Ebola virus. Then SARS-CoV-2 hit the US. The two suspected that the pathway provided broad antiviral defense, so they decided to test it against the novel coronavirus.
In the Ebola experiments, Lacy-Hulbert, Bruchez, and their colleagues had been using a genetic screen called transposon-mediated gene activation to search for natural antiviral mechanisms within cultured human bone cancer cells. Transposons, mobile genetic elements found throughout the genome, can be added to cells to knock out genes they randomly insert into. The team had integrated a promoter sequence into the transposons so ...
