Medium throughput functional screens and single cell genomics

Congratulations to our collaborators of the Jan Baumbach lab! In a great effort they managed to generate a tool that uses interactome data to identify suitable drugs that may be active against SARS-CoV-2 – now accepted in Nature Communications. They generated a website that serves as highly suitable interface to browse interactomes and to identify suitable drugs (https://exbio.wzw.tum.de/covex/). Fantastic work – congratulations to the manuscript!

Congratulations to our collaborators Markus Fabits and Melanie Brinkmann together with Viriginie and Andreas. They found that UL35 interacts and modulates TBK1, an essential kinase of the innate immune pathway. Their paper just got accepted in microoganisms. Well done!

Congratulations to Anna and Valter for publishing a function role of the alternative CBC!
The alternative cap binding complex consisting of NCBP1 and -3 exports mRNA but is redundant under physiological conditions. However, virus infection or challenge with innate immune stimuli revealed a critical function of the alternative CBC in modulation of the innate immune system. This was particularly evident in NCBP3 deficient mice that showed increased susceptibility to influenza A virus infection.