Lifeboat Foundation

A cancer vaccine could be an effective way to prevent cancer from evolving and becoming resistant to treatment, new research suggests.

Scientists were investigating the use of a cancer-killing virus in clinical trials, and observed, as they had also seen in mice, that although some patients initially responded to the treatment, their tumours soon became resistant.

The researchers showed that the specific mutations causing tumour cells to become resistant to the viral treatment, could be anticipated and exploited using a vaccine which, when tested in mice, was shown to trigger the immune system to destroy treatment resistant tumour cells.

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Summary: A new AI algorithm can predict the onset of Alzheimer’s disease with an accuracy of over 99% by analyzing fMRI brain scans.

Source: Kaunas University of Technology.

Researchers from Kaunas University, Lithuania developed a deep learning-based method that can predict the possible onset of Alzheimer’s disease from brain images with an accuracy of over 99 percent. The method was developed while analyzing functional MRI images obtained from 138 subjects and performed better in terms of accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity than previously developed methods.

More than 18 months into the COVID-19 pandemic, there are still very few drugs authorized by the FDA to treat the virus. Just one drug, remdesivir, has gained full FDA approval as a treatment for COVID-19.

Becker’s asked physicians from top health systems which medications they’re using most frequently to treat their COVID-19 patients, which they’re avoiding and which have been most effective.

University of Houston researchers are reporting a breakthrough in the field of materials science and engineering with the development of an electrochemical actuator that uses specialized organic semiconductor nanotubes (OSNTs).

Currently in the early stages of development, the actuator will become a key part of research contributing to the future of robotic, bioelectronic and biomedical science.

“Electrochemical devices that transform electrical energy to mechanical energy have potential use in numerous applications, ranging from soft robotics and micropumps to autofocus microlenses and bioelectronics,” said Mohammad Reza Abidian, associate professor of biomedical engineering in the UH Cullen College of Engineering. He’s the corresponding author of the article “Organic Semiconductor Nanotubes for Electrochemical Devices,” published in the journal Advanced Functional Materials, which details the discovery.

A large Mayo Clinic study finds that treating COVID-19 patients with two monoclonal antibodies — casirivimab and imdevimab — can help avoid hospitalization.

Innovative coronavirus disease2019(COVID-19) vaccines, with elevated global manufacturing capacity, enhanced safety and efficacy, simplified dosing regimens, and distribution that is less cold chain-dependent, are still global imperatives for tackling the ongoing pandemic. A previous phase I trial indicated that the recombinant COVID-19 vaccine (V-01), which contains a fusion protein (IFN-PADRE-RBD-Fc dimer) as its antigen, is safe and well tolerated, capable of inducing rapid and robust immune responses, and warranted further testing in additional clinical trials. Herein, we aimed to assess the immunogenicity and safety of V-01, providing rationales of appropriate dose regimen for further efficacy study.

Methods:

A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled phase II clinical trial was initiated at the Gaozhou Municipal Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (Guangdong, China) in March 2021. Both younger (n = 440; 18–59 years of age) and older (n = 440; ≥60 years of age) adult participants in this trial were sequentially recruited into two distinct groups: two-dose regimen group in which participants were randomized either to follow a 10 or 25 μg of V-01 or placebo given intramuscularly 21 days apart (allocation ratio, 3:3:1, n = 120 120, 40 for each regimen, respectively), or one-dose regimen groups in which participants were randomized either to receive a single injection of 50 μg of V-01 or placebo (allocation ratio, 3:1, n = 120 40, respectively). The primary immunogenicity endpoints were the geometric mean titers of neutralizing antibodies against live severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 and specific binding antibodies to the receptor binding domain (RBD).

New research from the University of Virginia School of Medicine quantifies the antibody response generated by the Pfizer and Moderna COVID vaccines. The findings are some of the earliest to compare the two vaccines’ antibody responses head-to-head. The notable finding was that antibody levels in recipients of the Moderna vaccine were slightly higher than in recipients of Pfizer.

The researchers caution against drawing conclusions about the vaccines’ effectiveness based on the antibody numbers. Both vaccines, they say, have performed exceptionally after having been given to millions of people around the world. The new results are just a small piece in a much larger puzzle as scientists seek to determine if one vaccine may be superior for certain demographics.

“The thing that will be interesting is figuring out if measuring antibody levels ends up being a good marker of vaccine protection,” UVA immunologist Dr. Jeffrey Wilson said. “At the moment, we don’t know for sure.”

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