Connecting You to Tomorrow's Biotechnology Innovations
Like a mentor helping medical students choose between specialties, a protein complex helps shape the destiny of developing T cells, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital scientists have reported. The research appears today in the journal Science Immunology and adds to growing evidence of the critical role cell metabolism plays in the immune system. The protein […]
Researchers at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre in Toronto have discovered that epigenetic proteins promote the proliferation of mammary gland stem cells in response to the sex hormone progesterone. The study, which will be published June 19 in the Journal of Cell Biology, suggests that inhibiting these proteins with drugs could prevent the development of breast […]
Proteins commonly known as BRCA – short for BReast CAncer susceptibility gene– serve a critical role in cellular DNA repair, but when mutated they allow genetic errors to replicate, facilitating cancer development. If the BRCA repair system is disabled in cancer cells, the cells simply turn to backup repair mechanisms and adapt to alternative repair […]
University of North Carolina Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center researchers have found that helping to to form clots within tumors, immune cells that flock to a particular type of lung cancer are actually building a foundation for the tumor to spread within the body. In the journal Nature Communications, researchers report for a particular subset of […]
Chimeric Antigen Receptor T-cell therapy, also known as CAR T therapy, was named the biggest research breakthrough of 2017 by the American Society of Clinical Oncology. The personal gene therapy utilizes a patient’s own immune cells to fight cancer. The Food and Drug Administration has approved CAR T therapy products for adults with diffuse large […]
One way to fight diseases including HIV infection and autoimmune disorders could involve changing how a naturally occurring enzyme called SAMHD1 works to influence the immune system, new research suggests. The study, led by researchers from The Ohio State University, details how the enzyme influences proteins that stimulate the immune response. SAMHD1 isn’t a molecular […]
Scientists at the University of Southampton have discovered a new combination of cancer immunotherapy treatment that could improve patients’ survival rates. The pre-clinical study, published in Clinical Cancer Research, by Dr Sarah Buchan and colleagues, combined antibodies targeting PD-1/PD-L1, a type of immunotherapy known as checkpoint blockade that overcomes the resistance of cancer cells to the […]
Houston Methodist researchers have a new explanation for what causes the lungs’ airways to close during asthma attacks that could change the lives of the 300 million people worldwide who suffer from asthma. The discovery holds promise for developing a new class of drugs that is radically different from the steroids currently used to treat […]
Desmoplastic melanoma is a rare subtype of melanoma that is commonly found on sun-exposed areas, such as the head and neck, and usually seen in older patients. Treatment is difficult because these tumors are often resistant to chemotherapy and lack actionable mutations commonly found in other types of melanoma that are targeted by specific drugs. […]
A common, inexpensive drug that is used to prevent heart attacks and lower blood pressure may also help melanoma patients live longer. Researchers at Penn State found that melanoma patients who received immunotherapy while taking a specific type of beta blocker lived longer than patients who received immunotherapy alone. In a follow-up experiment with mice, […]
A new category of immunotherapies called checkpoint inhibitors that has been highly effective against many different cancers appears safe to use in patients with both advanced malignancies and HIV, a population excluded from earlier trials of such therapies, according to an early-phase trial. Study Principal Investigator, Dr. Thomas Uldrick of the HIV & AIDS Malignancy […]
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 […]
A new technique that targets drugs to specific cells could lead to improved therapies for diseases caused by an overactive immune response. The approach could help people affected by conditions such as arthritis and inflammatory bowel diseases, where the body’s own immune system mistakenly attacks healthy tissues. Researchers focused on a group of immune cells […]
Specific immune cells have the ability to produce a healing factor that can promote wound repair in the intestine, a finding that could lead to new, potential therapeutic treatments for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), according to a new research study. The research team, led by Georgia State University and the University of Michigan, wanted to […]
T lymphocytes found in tumors and implicated in killing tumor cells cope with the shortage of oxygen and nutrients in the tumor microenvironment by using fat as the main source of energy. Promoting a switch from glucose to fatty acid to generate energy enhances T cell antitumor activity. These findings from a study conducted at The […]
Oncology researchers studying high-risk children’s cancers have identified a protein that offers a likely target for immunotherapy–harnessing the immune system in medical treatments. In cell cultures and animal models, a potent drug attached to an antibody selectively zeroes in on cancer cells without harming healthy cells. “We have built a strong foundation for developing a […]
A study led by scientists at The Wistar Institute describes a novel immunotherapeutic strategy for the treatment of cancer based on the use of synthetic DNA to directly encode protective antibodies against a cancer specific protein. This is the first application of the new technology, called DNA-encoded monoclonal antibody (DMAb), for cancer immunotherapy. The study […]
The team, led by researchers at Imperial College London, Queen Mary University of London and Ergon Pharmaceuticals, believes the approach could offer new hope in the treatment of inflammatory conditions like arthritis, autoimmune diseases and sepsis. In a study published this week in the journal Nature Communications, they explain how blocking a single enzyme enabled […]
A study led by scientists at Monash University has shown that a new therapy developed through stem cell technology holds promise as a treatment for chronic asthma. The Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute (BDI) scientists provided the experimental expertise to test Cynata Therapeutics’ induced pluripotent stem cell-derived mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) in a model of experimental […]
A novel vaccine therapy can generate immune responses in patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCCa), according to researchers at the Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania. The treatment specifically targets human papillomavirus (HPV), which is frequently associated with HNSCCa, to trigger the immune response. Researchers will present the results of […]