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Bolsonaro’s administration withheld these
funds despite a new law designed to block
him from doing so. Meanwhile, this year’s
budget gives much less research money,
only about $6.5 million, to the National
Council for Scientific and Technological
Development, a leading grantmaker.Mexico’s COVID-19 chief probed
COVID19 | A federal judge has ordered
Mexico’s attorney general to open a
homicide investigation of the leader of the
country’s pandemic response for allegedly
failing to avert preventable deaths from
COVID-19. In November 2020, relatives
of two people who died from the disease
filed a complaint accusing health under-
secretary Hugo López-Gatell Ramírez
of criminally negligent homicide. They
blamed the deaths on his controversial
advice against closing borders, wearing
masks, and conducting widespread testing
for the coronavirus. The attorney general’s
office had declined to investigate,
citing lack of evidence. But after appeals
from the plaintiffs, a federal judge on
19 January ordered the office to examine
possible omissions by López-Gatell Ramírez
and any other officials that resulted in
pandemic deaths. More than 300,
deaths in Mexico have been reported from
COVID-19, the world’s fifth highest total.Computer mimics ‘minimal’ cell
MICROBIOLOGY | For years, researchers
have pared down the genes in microbes to
create “minimal” cells, with the minimum
number of components needed to survive
and thrive. Now, researchers have created
the most complex computer simulation
of such a streamlined cell. The model,
reported last week in Cell, maps out the
precise location and chemical characteris-
tics of thousands of cellular components in3D space at an atomic scale. It tracks these
molecules as they diffuse through the sim-
ple cell, their chemical reactions, and how
much energy is required for each step.
Among the findings: The cell, engineered
from a mycoplasma bacterium, uses most
of its energy to import essential ions and
molecules across its cell membrane. The
researchers hope this and future simula-
tions will help them predict how changing
a cell’s genome will alter its metabolism,
an advance that could help optimize the
design of cells to make chemicals includ-
ing medicines and fuels.China sets rules for edited crops
BIOTECHNOLOGY | China’s agriculture
ministry this week unveiled safety evalu-
ation guidelines for gene-edited crops as
the country moves toward approving their
sale. The guidelines, being implemented
on a trial basis, are simpler and call for
less field testing than is required for
genetically modified (GM) crops, in which
genes from other species are inserted.
Consumer resistance and bureaucratic
caution have left China far behind other
countries in adopting GM crops, with only
a single variety of GM papaya in domestic
production. Now, Chinese researchers
are well along in developing gene-edited
varieties of corn, rice, soybeans, wheat,
and other crops, which they hope will be
more acceptable to the public and reduce
dependence on food imports. China is
also revising its regulations for GM crops,
and transgenic corn and soybeans might
be commercialized this year. Both kinds
of genetic engineering give crops useful
traits, such as resistance to herbicides
sprayed in fields.Epidemic prevention gets big gifts
PHILANTHROPY | Two of the world’s
largest foundations last week pledged
$150 million each to the nonprofit Coalition
for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations
(CEPI), a global partnership working to pre-
vent, prepare for, and equitably respond to
future epidemics and pandemics. Leaders
of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and
the Wellcome Trust called on nations to
pony up at a CEPI “replenishment” confer-
ence scheduled for March to help it raise
$3.5 billion for the next 5 years. CEPI has
financed development of the University of
Oxford–AstraZeneca and Novavax vaccines.
Its 5-year plan starting this year aims to
shorten vaccine development time to less
than 100 days after a new pathogen is
sequenced, far shorter than the 11 months it
took for the first COVID-19 vaccine.Membrane proteins and protein complexes are shown
in a computer simulation of a stripped-down cell.IN OTHER NEWSSTAR-STUDDED STARTUP A Silicon Valley
firm that aims to combat the effects
of aging by reprogramming human cells
formally announced its start last week
with a whopping $3 billion in private
funding. In addition to former U.S. National
Cancer Institute head Richard Klausner as
chief scientist, Altos Labs boasts several
Nobel laureates as board members
or advisers—enzyme specialist Frances
Arnold, virus expert David Baltimore, gene
editing pioneer Jennifer Doudna, and stem
cell investigator Shinya Yamanaka.AI DREAM FAILS IBM has inked a deal to
sell off key data sets and software from
its Watson Health subsidiary, a much-
touted effort to use artificial intelligence
(AI) to transform medical research and
care. Started in 2015, the unit hadn’t
earned a profit, STAT reported. Critics
said its supercomputer-aided analysis
of health data merely compiled existing
knowledge without producing new
insights. IBM said on 21 January that
the sale to private equity firm Francisco
Partners would help the parent company
focus on cloud computing and AI
services in other types of industries.NEW U.K. MEGATRIALS A nonprofit
modeled on the United Kingdom’s
Recovery clinical trial, a leader in the
global effort to test treatments for
COVID-19, aims to conduct low-cost
studies of better treatments for other
common, life-threatening diseases
such as heart disease and cancer. Like
Recovery, Protas plans to cooperate
with the U.K. National Health Service
to streamline the recruitment of large,
inclusive populations.ANTIBIOTIC RESISTANCE Nearly
1.3 million people died in 2019 from
antimicrobial-resistant infections,
according to a comprehensive global
estimate. Such infections are a leading
killer, causing more deaths than AIDS
and malaria, according to the study,
published on 19 January in The Lancet.GALÁPAGOS RESERVE Ecuador has
approved a new marine reserve near
the Galápagos Islands that increases an
existing protected ocean area by 43%,
a boon for the region’s endangered
marine species. Scientists with the
MigraMar marine research network had
collected data to justify creating the
60,000-square-kilometer Hermandad
Marine Reserve.28 JANUARY 2022 • VOL 375 ISSUE 6579 363