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Category: biotech/medical

Cancer Vaccines Improve Personalized Medical Care

The concept of cancer vaccines has developed over the last century with initial promise from a young doctor, William Coley. In the late 19th to early 20th century Dr. Coley developed a treatment that elicited strong immune response. This elixir was referred to as Coley’s toxin, which comprised of bacteria that generated an inflammatory response in patients. As a result, the generated response recognized and targeted the patient’s tumor. However, his treatment did not yield consistent clinical benefit. He also had his critics among physicians. At the time, the scientific community debated how safe the toxin was and whether it really worked. Colleagues at Memorial Sloan Kettering and other top institutions questioned Coley’s motive for the toxin, since there was little empirical data or scientific basis for its use. Although Coley’s toxin proved to be an inconsistent treatment, it laid the foundation for future immunotherapies as preventative and therapeutic cancer vaccines were developed.

Cancer vaccines were limited in their ability to effectively treat patients with cancer. Preventative cancer vaccines are difficult to developed because of the uncertainty to predict the onset of mutations in patients. Currently, the only U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved preventative cancer vaccine is for the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine. While it directly protects against HPV, the vaccine indirectly prevents a multitude of cancers, including cervical, anal, and genital. Additionally, researchers have previously struggled to generate a therapeutic vaccine that elicits a strong immune response with limited adverse effects. However, a reinvigorated interest has emerged in therapeutic vaccines due to improved delivery platforms and better biomarkers to target on cancer.

Recently, an article in Cell Reports Medicine, by Dr. Nina Bhardwaj and others, examined the evolution of cancer vaccines. Specifically, the paper focused on tumor biomarker-based vaccines, which are highly personalized and designed to target genetic mutations specific to a patient’s tumor. Bhardwaj is a physician scientist, the Ward-Coleman Chair in Cancer Research, and Director of Vaccine and Cell Therapy Laboratory at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Her work focuses on improving vaccine strategies to provide strong single agent affect against tumors. Bhardwaj’s group studies different cellular pathways to understand how to therapeutically target cancer.

Preclinical study successfully reverses loss of blood flow to brain, an early sign of Alzheimer’s disease

Supriya Chakraborty might have been studying insects in a lab had it not been for an immunology college instructor in India who taught him about the superheroes inside him—immune cells that wage a battle against bacteria, parasites, and a host of other adversaries that invade our bodies. “That really fascinated me,” Chakraborty recalled. “My focus shifted from entomology to wanting to solve illnesses that affect humans, specifically neurodegenerative disorders.”

Zeynab Tabrizi would take quite a different path to studying conditions that damage and destroy parts of the human nervous system. She had long been a student of immunology and neuroscience in her native Iran, conducting research that explored the causes of disorders like schizophrenia and autism. “I had some experience working in industry,” she said, “but my heart was in academia.”

Now, their paths have intersected at the University of Miami. As Ph.D. students in the College of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Biology, Chakraborty and Tabrizi conduct research that could help blaze a trail to more effective treatments for Alzheimer’s disease, perhaps even leading to a cure for the memory-robbing disorder that affects more than 7 million older adults in the U.S.

Understanding the path from genetic changes to Parkinson’s disease opens possibilities for early diagnosis

A team led by researchers at Baylor College of Medicine and the Duncan Neurological Research Institute (Duncan NRI) at Texas Children’s Hospital has uncovered a chain of events that connects genetic alterations, disruptions in lipid metabolism and the manifestation of Parkinson’s disease in patients. The findings, published in the journal Brain, bring forward the possibility of identifying people at risk before symptoms appear and developing strategies to treat the disease rather than manage the symptoms.

“Parkinson’s disease is the second most common neurodegenerative disease after Alzheimer’s disease, affecting more than 10 million people worldwide. We know more than 100 genes that increase the risk of developing the disease but, in most cases, we do not understand how the genetic change leads to the condition,” said corresponding author Dr. Joshua Shulman, professor of neurology, neuroscience and molecular and human genetics at Baylor. He also is an investigator and co-director of the Duncan NRI.

Previous studies have shown that many Parkinson’s susceptibility genes participate in lipid metabolism and that disrupting some lipid functions may directly promote brain alterations that have been linked to the disease’s onset and progression.

Oxytocin, Physical Intimacy, Wound Healing, and Stress Responses

RCT: Daily oxytocin administration combined with positive physical intimacy was linked to improved wound healing and reduced cortisol. Oxytocin alone or positive interactions without physical intimacy did not enhance healing, suggesting the neurohormone acts to amplify the health effects of social behaviors.

This double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial tested whether intranasal oxytocin, instructed positive interaction (PAT), and naturally occurring intimacy influence wound healing. Oxytocin enhanced wound healing only in interaction with social behaviors, by tendency with PAT and significantly with affectionate touch and sexual activity, whereas oxytocin or PAT alone showed no effect. These findings suggest that oxytocin amplifies the benefits of intimacy rather than exerting direct effects.

Previous animal data on this topic are mixed, with oxytocin alone showing no effect on healing,31 but synergistic effects with social interaction in hamsters29 and with social housing in mice.30 Human evidence remains scarce, limited to 1 study linking endogenous oxytocin with partner communication and faster healing.33

Despite early enthusiasm in oxytocin administration studies, more recent reviews have highlighted that findings from intranasal oxytocin research are inconsistent and studies are often underpowered.47-49 Several large-scale replications have failed to reproduce key effects, such as the link between oxytocin and trust,50 and null results have been reported in both healthy and clinical populations.51 Given these limitations, researchers have increasingly called for a shift from testing general main effects of oxytocin toward examining interactions that consider individual and contextual factors.48,52 As summarized by Yao and Kendrick,53 oxytocin effects in romantic contexts vary depending on factors like relationship type and perceived partner characteristics; for example, oxytocin enhances partner attractiveness, especially when the partner is seen as trustworthy.

Breakthrough: Scientists Created a ‘Universal’ Kidney To Match Any Blood Type

After a decade of work, researchers are closer than ever to a key breakthrough in kidney transplants: being able to transfer kidneys from donors with different blood types than the recipients, which could significantly speed up waiting times and save lives.

In research published last year, a team from institutions across Canada and China reported creating a ‘universal’ kidney that, in theory, can be accepted by any patient.

Their test organ survived and functioned for several days in the body of a brain-dead recipient, whose family consented to the research.

Gentle implant can illuminate, listen and deliver medication to the brain

A new type of brain implant may have implications for both brain research and future treatments of neurological diseases such as epilepsy. Researchers from DTU, the University of Copenhagen, University College London, and other institutions have developed a long, needle-thin brain electrode with channels—a so-called microfluidic Axialtrode (mAxialtrode), named for its ability to distribute functional interfaces along the length of the implant, enabling both neural signal recording and precisely targeted medication delivery across different brain regions. The research results have been published in Advanced Science.

The technology has primarily been developed for basic research into the brain. It can help researchers better understand how signals move across brain layers, for example in epilepsy, memory, or decision-making. In the longer term, the researchers point out that the mAxialtrode may be important for treatment—for example, in targeted drug delivery combined with electrical or light-based stimulation of specific areas of the brain.

Postdoc Kunyang Sui, who led the development of the mAxialtrode concept together with Associate Professor Christos Markos, emphasizes that it has made it possible to combine several functions in a single implant which makes brain research less invasive and more precise.

Scientists use RNA nanotechnology to program living cells, opening a new path for cancer cure

Scientists at Rutgers University–Newark have developed a first-of-its-kind RNA-based nanotechnology that assembles itself inside living human cells and can be programmed to stop propagation of harmful cells. The findings, recently published in Nature Communications, represent a major breakthrough in biomedical research. The researchers are now in the midst of testing the technology on human cancer cells as a potential cure for the disease but have not yet finished the study or published results.

This nanostructure technology, which was tested in human cell cultures, can be used as a molecular tool for biomedical research and therapeutics. Because it can be customized, it has the versatility to target multiple detrimental genes and proteins simultaneously.

The work was led by Professor Fei Zhang of the Rutgers-Newark Department of Chemistry and Professor Jean-Pierre Etchegaray of the Department of Biological Sciences at Rutgers-Newark, along with an interdisciplinary team of researchers.

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