Mount Sinai NY Surgeon on the Front Lines of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Brooklyn, NY, USA.

A surgeon was among the teams caring for critically-ill patients with COVID-19 infection during the height of the pandemic in March and April 2020 in Brooklyn. He recorded his experiences and thoughts as events unfolded, a chronicle of the landmark public health event of the century. Working to exhaustion alongside his colleagues from Mount Sinai Hospital, he encountered tragedy and inspiration.

Caenorhabditis elegans HOPS and CCZ-1 mediate trafficking to lysosome-related organelles independently of RAB-7 and SAND-1.

As early endosomes mature, the SAND-1/CCZ-1 complex acts as a guanine nucleotide exchange factor (GEF) for RAB-7 to promote the activity of its effector, HOPS, which facilitates late endosome-lysosome fusion and the consumption of AP-3-containing vesicles. We show that CCZ-1 and the HOPS complex are essential for the biogenesis of gut granules, cell type-specific, lysosome-related organelles (LROs) that coexist with conventional lysosomes in Caenorhabditis elegans intestinal cells. The HOPS subunit VPS-18 promotes the trafficking of gut granule proteins away from lysosomes and functions downstream of or in parallel to the AP-3 adaptor.

Mitogen-activated protein kinase phosphatase 2, MKP-2, regulates early inflammation in acute lung injury.

Acute lung injury (ALI) is mediated by an early proinflammatory response resulting from either a direct or indirect insult to the lung mediating neutrophil infiltration and consequent disruption of the alveolar capillary membrane ultimately leading to refractory hypoxemia. The mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathways are a key component of the molecular response activated by those insults triggering the proinflammatory response in ALI. The MAPK pathways are counterbalanced by a set of dual-specific phosphatases (DUSP) that deactivate the kinases by removing phosphate groups from tyrosine or threonine residues.

In contrast to HIV, KIR3DS1 does not influence outcome in HTLV-1 retroviral infection.

While most carriers of human T-cell leukemia virus type 1 (HTLV-1) remain asymptomatic throughout their lifetime, infection is associated with the development of adult T-cell leukemia (ATL) and HTLV-1-associated myelopathy/tropical spastic paraparesis (HAM/TSP). The exact parameters that determine these outcomes are unknown but are believed to include host genetic factors that control the immune response to infection. Host response to fellow retroviridae member HIV is influenced by the expression of members of the Killer Immunoglobulin Receptor (KIR) family including KIR3DS1.