(Press-News.org) A team of cancer researchers, led by the University of Houston, has discovered a new subset of T cells that may improve the outcome for patients treated with T-cell therapies.
T cell-based immunotherapy has tremendous value to fight, and often eliminate, cancer. The strategy activates a patient’s immune system and engineers a patient’s own T cells to recognize, attack and kill cancer cells. In this way, the body’s own T cells become living drugs.
While T-cell immunotherapy has revolutionized cancer treatment, there is still much to learn. Unfortunately, not all patients respond to these therapies, so a better understanding of the properties of engineered T cells is necessary to improve clinical responses.
One such study, supported by a grant from the National Institutes of Health, is reported in Nature Cancer by the laboratory of Navin Varadarajan, M.D. Anderson Professor in the William A. Brookshire Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. The study uses the patented TIMING (Timelapse Imaging Microscopy in Nanowell Grids) approach which applies visual AI to evaluate cell behavior, movement and ability to kill.
“Our results showed that a subset of T cells, labeled as CD8-fit T cells, are capable of high motility and serial killing, found uniquely in patients with clinical response,” reports first author and recent UH graduate Ali Rezvan in Nature Cancer. In addition to the UH team, collaborators include Sattva Neelapu and Harjeet Singh, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston; Mike Mattie, Kite Pharma; Nabil Ahmed, Texas Children’s Hospital, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston; and Mohsen Fathi, CellChorus.
To discover the CD8-fit cells, the team used TIMING to track interactions between individual T cells and tumor cells across thousands of cells and integrated the results with single-cell RNA sequencing data.
“Chimeric antigen receptors (CAR) T cells used for the treatment of B cell malignancies can identify T-cell subsets with superior clinical activity. Using infusion products of patients with large B cell lymphoma, we integrated functional profiling using TIMING with subcellular profiling and scRNA-seq to identify a signature of multifunctional CD8 T cells (CD8-fit),” said Rezvan. “We profiled these cells using single-cell RNA sequencing to identify the CD8-fit molecular signature that could be used to predict durable patient outcomes to T-cell therapies and validated our findings with independent datasets.”
The team also found that the CD8-fit signature is present in pre-manufactured T cells, longitudinally persists in patients post-infusion, and most importantly, is associated with long-term positive clinical responses. According to the researchers, it is likely that these T cells can drive clinical benefit in other tumors.
“This work illustrates the excellence of graduate students Ali Rezvan and Melisa Montalvo; and post-doctoral researchers Melisa Martinez-Paniagua and Irfan Bandey among others,” said Varadarajan.
CellChorus, a spinoff from Varadarajan’s Single Cell Lab at UH, is developing the AI-powered TIMING platform. The company recently announced a $2.5 million Small Business Innovation Research grant from the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences of the National Institutes of Health to advance TIMING for cell therapy applications.
END
Optimal cancer-killing t cells discovered
Improves outlook for lymphoma patients
2024-05-28
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Wind farms are cheaper than you think – and could have prevented Fukushima, says global review
2024-05-28
Offshore wind could have prevented the Fukushima disaster, according to a review of wind energy led by the University of Surrey.
The researchers found that offshore turbines could have averted the 2011 nuclear disaster in Japan by keeping the cooling systems running and avoiding meltdown. The team also found that wind farms are not as vulnerable to earthquakes.
Suby Bhattacharya, Professor of Geomechanics at the University of Surrey’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, said:
“Wind power gives us plentiful clean energy – now we know that it could also make other facilities safer and more reliable. The global review finds ...
Improved refrigeration could save nearly half of the 1.3 billion tons of food wasted each year globally
2024-05-28
May 28, 2024
Contact: Jim Erickson, 734-647-1842, ericksn@umich.edu
Graphic
Improved refrigeration could save nearly half of the 1.3 billion tons of food wasted each year globally
ANN ARBOR—About a third of the food produced globally each year goes to waste, while approximately 800 million people suffer from hunger, according to the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization.
A new University of Michigan study concludes that nearly half of the food waste, about 620 million metric tons, could be eliminated by fully refrigerated food supply chains worldwide.
At the same time, ...
From fibrosis and cancer to obesity, Alzheimer’s and aging: New paper reveals broad potential of TNIK as a therapeutic target
2024-05-28
A new paper in Trends in Pharmacological Sciences from researchers at generative artificial intelligence (AI)- and robotics-powered clinical stage drug discovery company Insilico Medicine (“Insilico”) and ETH Zurich reveals the broad potential of TNIK as a therapeutic target for some of the most pervasive aging-related diseases, including fibrosis, cancer, obesity, and Alzheimer’s. The findings could guide the development of new therapeutics. The lead drug in Insilico’s pipeline, INS018_055, is an AI-designed TNIK inhibitor being advanced as a treatment ...
Finnish Vole fever spreading further south
2024-05-28
Researchers have discovered that bank voles in southern Sweden (Skåne) carry a virus that can cause hemorrhagic fever in humans. This finding was made more than 500 km south of the previously known range. The virus strain discovered in Skåne appears to be more closely related to strains from Finland and Karelia than to the variants found in northern Sweden and Denmark. This is revealed in a new study from Uppsala University, conducted in collaboration with infectious diseases doctors in Kristianstad and published ...
Prenatal exposure to air pollution associated with increased mental health risks
2024-05-28
A baby’s exposure to air pollution while in the womb is associated with the development of certain mental health problems once the infant reaches adolescence, new research has found. The University of Bristol-led study, published in JAMA Network Open today [28 May], examined the long-term mental health impact of early-life exposure to air and noise pollution.
Growing evidence suggests air pollution, which comprises toxic gases and particulate matter, might contribute to the onset of mental health problems. It is thought that pollution could negatively affect mental health via numerous ...
New research supports expansion of kidney donation to include organs from deceased patients who once had dialysis
2024-05-28
Researchers from Johns Hopkins Medicine propose a novel approach to addressing the pressing issue of a kidney donor shortage through findings that suggest a promising method to expand the pool of available kidney donors by utilizing deceased donors on dialysis for kidney transplants.
The findings, published in the May 23rd issue of JAMA, identifies that while those who received such kidneys experienced a “significant delay” in the function of the transplanted organ compared to those ...
A cleaner way to produce ammonia
2024-05-28
– By Rachel Berkowitz
Ammonia is the starting point for the fertilizers that have secured the world’s food supply for the last century. It’s also a main component of cleaning products, and is even considered as a future carbon-free replacement for fossil fuels in vehicles. But synthesizing ammonia from molecular nitrogen is an energy-intensive industrial process, due to the high temperatures and pressures at which the standard reaction proceeds. Scientists from the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley ...
How killifish embryos use suspended animation to survive over 8 months of drought
2024-05-28
The African turquoise killifish lives in ephemeral ponds in Zimbabwe and Mozambique. To survive the annual dry season, the fish’s embryos enter a state of extreme suspended animation or “diapause” for approximately 8 months. Now, researchers have uncovered the mechanisms that enabled the killifish to evolve this extreme survival state. They report May 30 in the journal Cell that although killifish evolved diapause less than 18 million years ago, they did so by co-opting ancient genes ...
Harnessing green energy from plants depends on their circadian rhythms
2024-05-28
WASHINGTON, May 28, 2024 —When plants draw water from their roots to nourish their stems and leaves, they produce an electric potential that could be harnessed as a renewable energy source. However, like all living things, plants are subject to a circadian rhythm — the biological clock that runs through day and night cycles and influences biological processes. In plants, this daily cycle includes capturing light energy for photosynthesis and absorbing water and nutrients from the soil during the day and slowing its growth processes at night.
In a study published this week in ...
Financial burden of health care in the privately insured US population
2024-05-28
About The Study: In this national cross-sectional study of privately insured U.S. families, inflation-adjusted health care spending increased from 2007 to 2019, largely owing to increasing contributions to premiums. Annual financial medical burden increased significantly, both overall and among low-income and higher-income families. Mean financial medical burden was more than 26% of postsubsistence income for low-income families, compared with approximately 6% for higher-income families.
Corresponding ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
NASA to launch SNIFS, Sun’s next trailblazing spectator
Programmable DNA moiré superlattices: expanding the material design space at the nanoscale
Polymer coating extends half life of MXene-based air quality sensor by 200% and enables regeneration
UTIA’s Robert Burns receives Gold Medal Honor from ASABE
Weight loss drugs like Ozempic may help prevent stroke and reduce brain injury-related complications, studies show
Magellanic penguins may use currents to conserve energy on long journeys
Novel dome-celled aerogels maintain superelasticity despite temperature extremes
Controlled human gut colonization by an engineered microbial therapeutic
Vaccination could mitigate climate-driven disruptions to malaria control
Smartphone-based earthquake detection and early warning system rivals traditional, seismic network based alternatives
First winner of AAAS-Chen Institute Prize builds tool to visualize biomolecular interactions
Research spotlight: Study finds a protective kidney RNA that could transform disease treatment
Research Spotlight: Study reveals an unexpected role for protein aggregates in brain disease
UK Government and UK Research and Innovation join forces to launch multi-billion-pound compute roadmap
New study in JAMA Network Open shows current approaches to assessing preeclampsia risk are failing the majority of pregnant moms
An FDA-backed metric used to determine effectiveness of rectal cancer drugs may be unreliable, says new study
Research Spotlight: evaluating the effectiveness of guidelines to predict the risk of preeclampsia
Pigment researchers create vivid yellows, oranges, reds that are durable, non-toxic
Increased transparency about how countries use AI to manage migration needed, new study shows
Scientists repurpose old solar panels to convert CO2 exhaust into valuable chemicals
Epidemiology: Key predictors of avian flu outbreaks in Europe identified
Global rise in many Early-Onset GI cancers detailed in two Dana-Farber reviews, with colorectal cancer leading the trend
Cancer: COVID-19 boosters prevent hospitalizations
COVID-19 vaccine booster uptake and effectiveness among US adults with cancer
Cannabis use and benign salivary gland neoplasms
Public perception of physicians who use AI
Animal behavior: Dog TV viewing habits vary by personality
The secret to resolutions? Enjoy the pursuit, not the outcome
2024 Nano Research Young Innovators (NR45) Awards in Nanomaterial Self-assembly
How do the SOx and NOx in flue gas influence the adsorptive-catalytic performance of integrated carbon capture and in situ dry reforming?
[Press-News.org] Optimal cancer-killing t cells discoveredImproves outlook for lymphoma patients