Feature Channels: Immunology

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Summaries of this year’s notable advances at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and beyond.

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Research in mouse cells identifies defective metabolic pathway in aging immune T cells. The pathway is critical for switching T cells from dormancy into illness-fighting mode. In experiments, researchers restored lagging T-cell function by adding small-molecule compounds. Findings suggest possible mechanism behind weakened immunity common in the elderly.

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Dr. Matthias von Herrath, M.D., who founded the Type 1 Diabetes Center at La Jolla Institute for Immunology (LJI) has been identified as the world’s top expert in Type 1 Diabetes by Expertscape, an organization that provides tools to quickly and easily find the best clinicians or pioneering scientists specializing in a wide range of medical conditions or biomedical topics.

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The new Sherman Institute will advance basic research on novel therapies for a range of disorders, including autoimmune, neurodegenerative, and infectious diseases, as well as cancer.

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Black adolescents living in the United States tend to receive the influenza vaccine at significantly lower rates than their white and Hispanic counterparts, according to Florida State University researchers. A new study, led by former FSU graduate student Noah Webb, along with current graduate student Benjamin Dowd-Arrow and Associate Professors of Sociology Miles Taylor and Amy Burdette, was recently published in Public Health Reports.

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SLU pediatric researchers received $412,500 from the NIH to study how fetal exposure to inflammation can alter immune responses after birth.

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Mayo Clinic的研究人员开发了两种新策略，可以提高嵌合抗原受体疗法（CAR-T细胞疗法）在治疗癌症方面的效果。Mayo Clinic研究人员在圣地亚哥举行的2018年美国血液学学会年会上展示了他们的临床前研究成果。

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Mayo Clinic研究人员发现，一种在癌症治疗过程中用于治疗患者血栓的口服药物——阿哌沙班是安全有效的。 与低分子量的肝素相比，这种药物的大出血事件和血栓复发率都较低。这些研究结果由 Mayo Clinic 心脏病学专家、医学博士Robert McBane II在在美国血液学学会年会上提出。

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A team led by Duke Human Vaccine Institute researchers, publishing online Dec. 11 in the journal Immunity, reported that they have filled in a portion of the roadmap toward effective neutralization of HIV, identifying the steps that a critical HIV antibody takes to develop and maintain its ability to neutralize the virus.

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Scientists at the Peter Munk Cardiac Centre, at the University Health Network, have identified the type of cell key to helping the heart repair and potentially regenerate following a heart attack.

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For people with Type 2 diabetes, testing blood sugar levels becomes part of everyday life. But a new study suggests that some of them test more often than they need to. Fourteen percent of people with Type 2 diabetes who don’t require insulin are buying enough test strips to test their blood sugar two or more times a day – when they don’t need to test nearly that frequently according to medical guidelines.

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Many people who are diagnosed with cancer will undergo some type of surgery to treat their disease — almost 95 percent of people with early-diagnosed breast cancer will require surgery and it’s often the first line of treatment for people with brain tumors, for example. But despite improvements in surgical techniques over the past decade, the cancer often comes back after the procedure.

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Chan Zuckerberg Initiative Funding Brings Together Interdisciplinary Experts to Accelerate Understanding

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Summaries of recent Fred Hutch research with links for additional background and media contacts.

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Researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine have developed a new molecular tool they call EXoO, which decodes where on proteins specific sugars are attached—a possible modification due to disease. The study, published in issue 14 of Molecular Systems Biology, describes the development of the tool and its successful use on human blood, tumors and immune cells.

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Researchers at The Wistar Institute have developed novel synthetic DNA-encoded monoclonal antibodies (DMAbs) directed against PCSK9, a protein key to regulating cholesterol levels in the bloodstream.

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Southern Research has announced the Transgenic Mouse Human PD-1/L1 Model, its newest service offering in support of immuno-oncology (IO) therapeutic development.

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In a new study published in the Journal of Experimental Medicine, scientists at the University of Notre Dame have discovered that the pathogen Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) releases RNA into infected cells.

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Researchers show that lung-resident memory B cells establish themselves in the lung soon after influenza infection in mice. Those lung memory B cells respond more quickly to produce antibodies against influenza after re-infection, and establishment requires a local antigen encounter in the lung.

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Los científicos de Mayo Clinic desarrollaron dos estrategias nuevas que podrían mejorar el rendimiento de la terapia de células T con receptor de antígeno quimérico en el tratamiento del cáncer.

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AIDS patients suffer higher rates of cancer because they have fewer T-cells in their bodies to fight disease. But new research examines why HIV-infected patients have higher rates of cancer—among the leading causes of death among that population—than the general population.

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Baltimore, MD--The interactions that take place between the species of microbes living in the gastrointestinal system often have large and unpredicted effects on health, according to new work from a team led by Carnegie's Will Ludington. Their findings are published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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Physician-scientists from Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia presented updated efficacy and safety data on Kymriah (tisagenlecleucel) --the first-ever FDA-approved personalized CAR T-cell gene immunotherapy for aggressive blood cancers, at the American Society of Hematology annual meeting, as well as first-of-its-kind research on overcoming CAR T-cell resistance.

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In lab and mouse experiments, UC San Diego School of Medicine researchers developed a method to leverage B cells to manufacture and secrete tumor-suppressing microRNAs.

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Research shows an immune response to parasitic intestinal worms provides new insights into possible treatments for the deadly disease

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SAN DIEGO — Mayo Clinic researchers have developed two new strategies that may improve the performance of chimeric antigen receptor therapy (CAR-T cell therapy) in treating cancer. They are presenting results of their preclinical research at the 2018 annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology in San Diego.

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A new combination of three drugs that harness the body’s immune system is safe and effective, destroying most cancer cells in 95 percent of patients with recurrent Hodgkin lymphoma, according to the results of an early-phase study.

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The discovery by BC researchers of a group of bad actors ‘hidden’ within a cohort of good ones may translate into new hope for cancer patients diagnosed with a type of lymphoma that doesn’t respond well to treatment.

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Oils from garlic and several other common herbs and medicinal plants show strong activity against the bacterium that causes Lyme disease, according to a study by researchers at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

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Following the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapies for the treatment of certain types of non-Hodgkin lymphomas, UC San Diego Health was the first medical center in San Diego to be certified to offer this type of immunotherapy outside of a clinical trial.

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Borrowing methods from another field, researchers can now study the ever changing nature if Influenza A.

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A new article published today in The Lancet Oncology shows 39 percent of large B cell lymphoma patients treated with the chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy (CAR T) Yescarta® (axicabtagene ciloleucel) remained in remission more than two years (27.1 months median follow up) following therapy, and more than half of the patients treated remain alive. The new long-term safety and activity results of the ZUMA-1 clinical trial were also presented Sunday, Dec. 2 at the American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting in San Diego.

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New drugs that harness the body’s immune system to destroy cancer cells appear to increase the effectiveness of later drug therapies for non-Hodgkin and Hodgkin lymphoma patients, new research suggests. This happens, scientists say, even for repeat drug therapies whose initial attempts failed to stop or reverse the disease.

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Moffitt Cancer Center partnered with 16 academic cancer centers to analyze real world data of 274 patients treated commercially with Yescarta® (axicabtagene ciloleucel), one of two CAR T products that is now standard of care for patients with diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL) who have not responded to two or more therapies. The researchers then compared those figures with results from the pivotal ZUMA-1 trial, which included 101 patients.

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An investigational immunotherapy drug has demonstrated efficacy and an acceptable safety profile in the treatment of follicular lymphoma, diffuse large B-cell lymphoma and other B cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma subtypes. The lead investigator from Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey shares more on the phase 1 trial.

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A randomized clinical trial involving 97 medical centers in 20 countries, including Moores Cancer Center at UC San Diego Health, found that treating patients with head and neck cancer with the immunotherapy drug pembrolizumab is more effective and less toxic than standard chemotherapy.

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Together with colleagues from Sweden and Luxembourg, scientists from the Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine (LCSB) of the University of Luxembourg have observed that, during a natural vaginal birth, specific bacteria from the mother's gut are passed on to the baby and stimulate the baby's immune responses. This transmission is impacted in children born by caesarean section.

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Researchers have found that genetic mutations affecting the capsid, the structure surrounding the HIV genome, make it possible for a protein called TRIM5α to trigger the immune system of elite controllers.

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Algunos virus son capaces de apoderarse de una enzima que supuestamente previene enfermedades autoinmunitarias con el fin de evitar ser detectados. Este descubrimiento de los investigadores de Mayo Clinic y de sus colaboradores se publica en PLOS Biology.

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MSK experts in CAR-T therapy, immunotherapy, leukemia, lymphoma, blood and marrow stem cell transplantation, and more, are also available to comment on meeting news.

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ROCHESTER, Minn. — An enzyme intended to prevent autoimmune disease can be hijacked and used by some viruses to avoid immune detection. That discovery from Mayo Clinic researchers and collaborators appears in PLOS Biology. There's also good news. The same team also defined how much viral genetic material is needed to reverse the process and instead activate the immune system against the virus.

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In a proof-of-principle study, researchers at Johns Hopkins revealed that certain immune system cells found in the human liver, called liver macrophages, contain only inert HIV and aren’t likely to reproduce infection on their own in HIV-infected people on long-term antiretroviral therapy (ART). ART is a regimen containing combinations of HIV-targeting drugs that prevents the growth of the virus but does not eradicate it.

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Scientists have long wondered how one protein, NLRP3, can promote inflammation in response to a wide range of seemingly unrelated stimuli.

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The latest results from an ongoing clinical study incorporating the immunotherapy SurVaxM as part of combination treatment for glioblastoma show that this investigational drug is safe, well-tolerated and extended survival even among the hardest-to-treat subgroups of patients. The findings were presented at the Society for Neuro-Oncology Annual Meeting in New Orleans.

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Latest Cancer Research Institute update on the landscape of anti-PD1/L1 checkpoint inhibitor clinical trials

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Researchers at Johns Hopkins have identified two patients with HIV whose immune cells behave differently than others with the virus and actually appear to help control viral load even years after infection. Moreover, both patients carry large amounts of virus in infected cells, but show no viral load in blood tests. While based on small numbers, the data suggest that long-term viral remission might be possible for more people.

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In an effort to compile and summarize the latest knowledge about these immunotherapy combinations and their implications, a group of kidney cancer immunotherapy experts led by Saby George, MD, of Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center have written a new research review article assessing current approaches to treating patients newly diagnosed with kidney cancer and also looking ahead to some of the most pressing questions still to be answered related to these emerging therapies. Published online Nov. 21 by the journal JAMA Oncology, the review article highlights the path to approval for the new standard of care for these patients — ipilimumab, also known as Yervoy, together with nivolumab, also known as Opdivo.