Connecting You to Tomorrow's Biotechnology Innovations
Scientists have found a genetic trigger that may improve the brain’s ability to heal from a range of debilitating conditions, from strokes to concussions and spinal cord injuries. A new study in mice from UT Southwestern’s O’Donnell Brain Institutes hows that turning on a gene inside cells called astrocytes results in a smaller scar and – […]
Massachusetts Eye and Ear made medical history this week by performing the first post-FDA approval gene therapy for patients with a form of inherited blindness. The occasion marks the beginning of a new era in medicine, as it is the first time any FDA-approved gene therapy has been given to a patient for any inherited […]
Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania have developed a gene therapy that successfully treats a form of macular degeneration in a canine model. The work sets the stage for translating the findings into a human therapy for an inherited disease that results in a progressive loss of central vision and which is currently untreatable. The […]
Gene therapies promise to revolutionize the treatment of many diseases, including neurological diseases such as ALS. But the small viruses that deliver therapeutic genes can have adverse side effects at high doses. UNC School of Medicine researchers have now found a structure on these viruses that makes them better at crossing from the bloodstream into […]
Indiana University researchers have made an important step forward in the design of drugs that fight the hepatitis B virus, which can cause liver failure and liver cancer. It’s estimated that 2 billion people worldwide have had a hepatitis B virus infection in their lifetime, with about 250 million — including 2 million Americans — […]
CHOP Oncologists Update Analysis in Pivotal Global Trial of CAR T-Cell Treatment for Relapsed or Refractory ALL Updated results from a global clinical trial of the CAR T-cell therapy, tisagenlecleucel, a landmark personalized treatment for a high-risk form of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), reveal that children and young adults continued to show high rates of […]
Gene therapy developer, Abeona Therapeutics, announced that the FDA has granted Regenerative Medicine Advanced Therapy designation to EB-101, a gene-corrected autologous cell therapy product for patients with recessive dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa (RDEB). Abeona`s EB-101 product is an autologous, ex-vivo gene-corrected cell therapy in which the COL7A1 gene is inserted into a patient`s own skin cells (keratinocytes) for […]
Columbia engineers bioengineer soft microfibers to improve T-cell production. T cells play a key role in the body’s immune response against pathogens. As a new class of therapeutic approaches, T cells are being harnessed to fight cancer, promising more precise, longer-lasting mitigation than traditional, chemical-based approaches. These “living drugs” are poised to transform medicine, with […]
The findings suggest that genetic screening for breast cancer should be expanded to include MSH6 and PMS2 Researchers at Columbia University Irving Medical Center and NewYork-Presbyterian have identified two new breast cancer genes. Having one of the genes—MSH6 and PMS2—approximately doubles a woman’s risk of developing breast cancer by age 60. The study, in collaboration […]
While testing genes to treat glaucoma by reducing pressure inside the eye, University of Wisconsin-Madison scientists stumbled onto a problem: They had trouble getting efficient gene delivery to the cells that act like drains to control fluid pressure in the eye. Genes can’t work until they enter a cell. Glaucoma, one of the most common […]
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today approved Spark Therapeutics‘ Luxturna (voretigene neparvovec-rzyl), a new gene therapy, to treat children and adult patients with an inherited form of vision loss that may result in blindness. Luxturna is the first directly administered gene therapy approved in the U.S. that targets a disease caused by mutations in […]
Malaria*1 is one of three major infectious diseases*2 affecting approximately 300 million people every year, accounting for about 500,000 deaths, but effective vaccine development has not been successful. Among malaria parasites infecting humans, Plasmodium falciparum (P. falciparum)*3 causes especially severe disease. In addition, acquired immunity to malaria is inefficient, even after repeated exposures to P. […]
New research shows that chronic stress suppresses the immune system’s response to cancer, reducing the effectiveness of immunotherapy treatments. University of Queensland scientists say they are investigating dual therapies for patients to reduce stress signalling and improve their response to treatments. UQ Diamantina Institute researcher Dr Stephen Mattarollo said lymphoma progressed more rapidly in mouse […]
A University of North Carolina Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center-led study has demonstrated the ability of cognitive computing to scour large volumes of data from scientific studies and databases to identify potentially relevant clinical trials or therapeutic options for cancer patients based on the genetics of their tumors. The researchers said their findings, published in the […]
Blood-Based Cancer Tests Reveal Complex Genomic Landscape of Non-Small Cell Lung Cancers A new UC San Francisco–led study challenges the dogma in oncology that most cancers are caused by one dominant “driver” mutation that can be treated in isolation with a single targeted drug. Instead, the new research finds one of the world’s most deadly […]
Researchers from Duke-NUS Medical School (Duke-NUS) and the National Heart Centre Singapore (NHCS) have discovered that a critical protein, known as interleukin 11 (IL11) is responsible for fibrosis and causes organ damage. While it is surprising that the importance of IL11 has been overlooked and misunderstood for so long, it has now been very clearly […]
Researchers at the University of Maryland and Duke University have designed a novel protein-sugar vaccine candidate that, in an animal model, stimulated an immune response against sugars that form a protective shield around HIV. The molecule could one day become part of a successful HIV vaccine. “An obstacle to creating an effective HIV vaccine is […]
Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center (VICC) has been selected as one of the few authorized treatment centers in the United States approved to administer the first FDA- approved chimeric antigen receptor T cell (CAR T) therapy for treatment of adult patients with a specific type of lymphoma. VICC is the only cancer center in a seven-state region […]
A new class of drugs for blood cancers such as leukemia and multiple myeloma is showing promise. But it is hobbled by a problem that also plagues other cancer drugs: targeted cells can develop resistance. Now scientists, reporting in ACS Central Science, have found that insights into a rare genetic disease known as NGLY1 deficiency […]
Virotherapy capable of destroying tumor cells and activating anti-tumor immune reactions, and the use of engineered hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) to deliver replacement genes that have the potential to cure blood diseases are among the key areas of gene therapy being advanced by German researchers and highlighted in a special issue of Human Gene Therapy, a […]