New CAR T approach minimizes resistance, helps avoid relapse in non-Hodgkin's B-cell lymphoma

New York, NY (April 10, 2021) - A personalized cancer vaccine developed with the help of a Mount Sinai computational platform raised no safety concerns and showed potential benefit in patients with different cancers, including lung and bladder, that have a high risk of recurrence, according to results from an investigator-initiated phase I clinical trial presented during the virtual American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting 2021, held April 10-15. "While immunotherapy has revolutionized the treatment of cancer, the vast majority of patients do not experience a significant clinical response with such treatments," said study author Thomas Marron, MD, PhD, Assistant Director for Early Phase and Immunotherapy Trials ...

HOUSTON - Researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center have discovered that mutant KRAS and p53, the most frequently mutated genes in pancreatic cancer, interact through the CREB1 protein to promote metastasis and tumor growth. Blocking CREB1 in preclinical models reversed these effects and reduced metastases, suggesting an important new therapeutic target for the deadly cancer. The findings were published today in Cancer Discovery and presented at the virtual American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting 2021 by Michael Kim, M.D., ...

Research from Queen Mary University of London has revealed novel insights into the effects of chemotherapy on the tumour microenvironment (TME). The study, published today in Cancer Immunology Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, found that chemotherapy enhances the anti-tumour actions of immune cells within the TME and their ability to support immune responses against cancer. Cancers are not just a mass of cancerous cells, but are rogue organs made up of many different cell types, including cells that form connective tissue and blood vessels, and immune cells. These non-cancerous cells have been recruited and corrupted by the cancer to help it grow and spread, and constitute what ...

Patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) whose cancer cells have low levels of aneuploidy - an abnormal number of chromosomes - tend to respond better to immune checkpoint inhibitor drugs than patients with higher levels, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute researchers will report at the virtual AACR Annual Meeting 2021. In analyzing data from hundreds of patients with NSCLC who were treated with these drugs, the researchers found that those whose cancer receded tended to have less aneuploidy in their tumor cells than those whose disease remained stable or worsened. These findings suggest that aneuploidy testing can have an important role in determining which ...

Tokyo, Japan - Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University have shown that a quantity known as "thermoelectric conductivity" is an effective measure for the dimensionality of newly developed thermoelectric nanomaterials. Studying films of semiconducting single-walled carbon nanotubes and atomically thin sheets of molybdenum sulfide and graphene, they found clear distinctions in how this number varies with conductivity, in agreement with theoretical predictions in 1D and 2D materials. Such a metric promises better design strategies for thermoelectric materials. Thermoelectric devices take differences in temperature between different materials and generate electrical energy. The simplest example is two strips of ...

From power grids and telecommunications to water supply and financial systems, digital data controls the infrastructure systems on which society relies. These complex, multi-tier systems depend on layered communications to accomplish their tasks - yet every point of contact becomes a potential target, every path of information a potential weak spot for malicious actors to attack. A team of researchers from the University of Calabria in Italy has developed the first predictive control scheme that can help distributed networks with multiple agents not only identify these ...

Active surveillance leads to improved quality of life Men with low health literacy seven times less likely to accept active surveillance Prostate cancer and active surveillance patient education is needed Tumor gene profiling is a tool that can help patients with a cancer diagnosis make informed decisions about treatment. In predominantly white populations, among men with early stage, favorable-risk prostate cancer, these tools have been shown to increase patient acceptance of active surveillance -- a common, evidence-based approach to monitor the tumor before a more aggressive treatment, like surgery or radiation. However, ...

A new study finds older adults who received positive airway pressure therapy prescribed for obstructive sleep apnea may be less likely to develop Alzheimer's disease and other kinds of dementia. Researchers from Michigan Medicine's Sleep Disorders Centers analyzed Medicare claims of more than 50,000 Medicare beneficiaries ages 65 and older who had been diagnosed with OSA. In this nationally representative study, they examined if those people who used positive airway pressure therapy were less likely to receive a new diagnosis of dementia or mild cognitive impairment over the next 3 years, compared to people who did ...

Auroral displays continue to intrigue scientists, whether the bright lights shine over Earth or over another planet. The lights hold clues to the makeup of a planet's magnetic field and how that field operates. New research about Jupiter proves that point -- and adds to the intrigue. Peter Delamere, a professor of space physics at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute, is among an international team of 13 researchers who have made a key discovery related to the aurora of our solar system's largest planet. The team's work was published April 9, 2021, in the journal Science Advances. The research paper, titled "How Jupiter's unusual magnetospheric topology structures its aurora," was written by Binzheng ...

For the first time, researchers have been able to obtain data from underneath Thwaites Glacier, also known as the "Doomsday Glacier". They find that the supply of warm water to the glacier is larger than previously thought, triggering concerns of faster melting and accelerating ice flow. With the help of the uncrewed submarine Ran that made its way under Thwaites glacier front, the researchers have made a number of new discoveries. Professor Karen Heywood of the University of East Anglia commented: "This was Ran's first venture to polar regions and her exploration of the waters under the ice shelf was much more successful than we had dared to hope. We plan to build on these exciting findings ...