Feature Channels: Immunology

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Gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST) are tumors that arise is the wall of the digestive tract, and most often occur in the stomach or small intestine. Though more common in later in life, GISTs can occur in adolescents and young adults (AYA) under 40 years old as well. Researchers at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine report findings from the first population-based analysis of AYA patients with GIST.

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Researchers at Seattle’s Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the University of Washington say a new study suggests ways to improve immune therapy for certain cancers including a virus-associated form of Merkel cell carcinoma, a rare, aggressive skin cancer.

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Scientific investigations sometimes result in serendipitous discoveries which shift the investigations from one focus to another. In the case of researchers at Mayo Clinic in Arizona, studies addressing obesity’s impact on cancer treatment resulted in an unexpected discovery that shifted the focus from cancer to obesity.

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Microbes can persist in people for years after an illness, even in people who are healthy and immune to recurrence. Now, researchers have found a clue to this seeming paradox: Persistent microbes are constantly multiplying and being killed, keeping the immune system prepared for any new encounters.

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Young scientists interested in bladder cancer research can compete for up to two awards totaling $100,000 from a joint effort between the Johns Hopkins Greenberg Bladder Cancer Institute and the Bladder Cancer Advocacy Network (BCAN).

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It’s well known that regular physical activity has health benefits, including weight control, strengthening the heart, bones and muscles and reducing the risk of certain diseases. Recently, researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine found how just one session of moderate exercise can also act as an anti-inflammatory. The findings have encouraging implications for chronic diseases like arthritis, fibromyalgia and for more pervasive conditions, such as obesity.

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UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers have identified a protein that is central to the immune system’s ability to recognize and destroy the bacterium responsible for the global tuberculosis (TB) epidemic.

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A Retro94-based compound may prevent a common and sometimes fatal virus, human cytomegalovirus (CMV) from reproducing and protect immunocompromised patients, like those with HIV, on chemotherapy, with transplants and infants from the effects of the disease, according to Penn State College of Medicine researchers.

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Cornell and Weill Cornell Medicine researchers report on the use of biomaterials-based organoids in an attempt to reproduce immune-system events and gain a better understanding of B cells.

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TAMPA, Fla. – Lymphoma is the most common blood cancer. The disease occurs when immune cells called lymphocytes multiply uncontrollably. Cancerous lymphocytes can travel throughout the body and form lymph node tumors. The body has two types of lymphocytes that can develop into lymphoma – B cells and T cells. B-cell lymphomas account for 85 percent of all non-Hodgkin lymphomas and 30 percent of those patients are diagnosed with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma.

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Results of an initial study of tumors from patients with lung cancer or head and neck cancer suggest that the widespread acquired resistance to immunotherapy drugs known as checkpoint inhibitors may be due to the elimination of certain genetic mutations needed to enable the immune system to recognize and attack malignant cells.

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Electrical vagus nerve stimulation can help fight inflammatory diseases like Crohn's or arthritis but can also contribute somewhat to inflammation. Engineers have tweaked the buzz to keep the good effects and minimize those less desirable. Their innovation could be adapted to existing medical devices with relative ease.

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In a new University of Michigan study, gene therapy deployed with immune checkpoint inhibitors demonstrates potential benefit for devastating brain cancer.

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The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and Affimed N.V., a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering and developing highly targeted cancer immunotherapies, today announced an exclusive strategic clinical development and commercialization collaboration to evaluate Affimed’s TandAb technology in combination with MD Anderson’s natural killer cell (NK) product.

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Penn State biomedical engineers have created a smart, targeted drug delivery system using immune cells to attack cancers.

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One of the main reasons cancer remains difficult to treat is that cancer cells have developed a multitude of mechanisms that allow them to evade destruction by the immune system. One of these escape mechanisms involves a type of immune cell called myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs). A recent study led by Sharon Evans, PhD, Professor of Oncology and Immunology at Roswell Park Cancer Institute, provides new insight into how MDSCs enable tumor cells to circumvent immune attack and offer the potential for improving cancer immunotherapy. The research has been published today in the journal eLife.

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Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center announced its first-ever grants from its newly established Evergreen Fund to spur researchers’ efforts to advance bold ideas toward creating or partnering with a commercial entity.

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In findings they call counterintuitive, a team of UCLA-led researchers suggests that blocking a protein, which is crucial to initiating the immune response against viral infections, may actually help combat HIV.

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Researchers at Yale Cancer Center and Yale Medicine have identified the critical target of new immune-checkpoint therapies: subsets of immune cells called tissue resident memory (TRM) T cells. In the same research, scientists also found that individual metastatic cancer lesions contain unique sets of TRM cells.

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In experiments on mice with a form of aggressive brain cancer, Johns Hopkins researchers have shown that localized chemotherapy delivered directly to the brain rather than given systemically may be the best way to keep the immune system intact and strong when immunotherapy is also part of the treatment.

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Positive results of an investigational medication study for primary progressive multiple sclerosis were published online in today’s New England Journal of Medicine in a paper led by senior author Jerry Wolinsky, M.D., of McGovern Medical School at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth).

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By combining two treatment strategies, both aimed at boosting the immune system’s killer T cells, Johns Hopkins researchers report they lengthened the lives of mice with skin cancer more than by using either strategy on its own. And, they say, because the combination technique is easily tailored to different types of cancer, their findings — if confirmed in humans — have the potential to enhance treatment options for a wide variety of cancer patients.

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Scientists have used systems biology tools to map out molecular pathways and signaling circuits that come into play when the immune system acts against infections and cancer. Important immune cells, called CD8+ T cells, play a pivotal role in immune response, but their gene regulatory circuits have not been well understood.

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Researchers have found that sunlight, through a mechanism separate than vitamin D production, energizes T cells that play a central role in human immunity. The findings suggest how the skin, the body’s largest organ, stays alert to the many microbes that can nest there.

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New research identifies an inflammatory pathway in women that could help explain why they develop autoimmune diseases at a much higher rate than men.

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In a bid to better understand the gene expression patterns that control T cell activity, researchers at the La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology mapped genome-wide changes in chromatin accessibility as T cells respond to acute and chronic virus infections.

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A University of Colorado Cancer Center paper published today in the journal Nature Nanotechnology details how the immune system recognizes nanoparticles, potentially paving the way to counteract or avoid this detection.

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Yvonne J. Paterson, PhD, a professor of Microbiology in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, has been elected a fellow of the National Academy of Inventors. Fellows are named inventors on U.S. patents. Election to fellow status recognizes academic inventors who have “demonstrated a prolific spirit of innovation in creating or facilitating outstanding inventions that have made a tangible impact on quality of life, economic development, and the welfare of society.”

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A rare and potent type of immune cell has been discovered around the brain, suggesting the cells may play a critical role in battling Alzheimer's, multiple sclerosis and other diseases. By harnessing the cells' power, doctors may be able to develop new treatments for disease, traumatic brain injury and spinal cord injuries – even migraines.

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In recent years, researchers have identified specific gene mutations linked to gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST), which primarily occur in the stomach or small intestine, but 10 to 15 percent of adult GIST cases and most pediatric cases lack the tell-tale mutations, making identification and treatment difficult. Researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine and Moores Cancer Center have identified new gene fusions and mutations associated with this subset of GIST patients.

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Mount Sinai researchers have solved the mystery of how deadly breast cancer metastasis forms without a tumor present.

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One of the largest gifts ever to the Indiana University School of Medicine will enable researchers to harness the power of the immune system to cure cancer and other devastating diseases -- propelling Indiana’s standing as an engine for biomedical discovery and innovation.

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Northwestern University synthetic biologists have developed a technology for engineering customized immune cells to build programmable therapeutics.

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The chronic lung inflammation that is a hallmark of cystic fibrosis, has, for the first time, been linked to a new class of bacterial enzymes that hijack the patient’s immune response and prevent the body from calling off runaway inflammation, according to a laboratory investigation led by the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

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A major challenge in truly targeted cancer therapy is cancer’s suppression of the immune system. Northwestern University synthetic biologists now have developed a general method for “rewiring” immune cells to flip this action around. When cancer is present, molecules secreted at tumor sites render many immune cells inactive. The Northwestern researchers genetically engineered human immune cells to sense the tumor-derived molecules in the immediate environment and to respond by becoming more active, not less.

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Joseph Baar, MD, PhD, Director of Breast Cancer Research at UH Seidman Cancer Center and Associate Professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, shared details about a phase II clinical trial testing the effectiveness of combining the chemotherapy drugs carboplatin and nab-paclitaxel with an immunotherapeutic agent called pembrolizumab (Keytruda) for use in patients with metastatic triple-negative breast cancer. Dr. Baar’s poster presentation was part of the Ongoing Trials-Targeted Therapy session on Dec. 8, 2016.

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Leaders from Fred Hutch, Seattle Cancer Care Alliance and Juno Therapeutics will speak on immunotherapy's roots in Seattle, new clinical trials and the prospects for developing new cures for cancer during a Dec. 12 scientific symposium to celebrate the opening of the first-of-its-kind clinic

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A genomic analysis study by Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey investigators and other colleagues has identified recurrent genomic alterations in a subset of breast cancer that are typically associated with a form of thyroid cancer and an intestinal birth defect known as Hirschsprung disease.

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Two new studies out of Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine describe how the inflammatory response to psoriasis can alter levels of several immune system molecules, ultimately increasing a person’s risk of thrombosis, which can include fatal blood clots

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Researchers at the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at University of California San Diego have now determined the 3D structure of CCR2 simultaneously bound to two inhibitors. Understanding how these molecules fit together may better enable pharmaceutical companies to develop anti-inflammatory drugs that bind and inhibit CCR2 in a similar manner. The study is published December 7 by Nature.

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Two nonprofits team up to fund immunotherapy research designed to benefit patients with an ultra-rare form of liver cancer.

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A team of scientists led by Julie Saba, MD, PhD at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland, has unveiled a novel role of thymic dendritic cells, which could result in new strategies to treat conditions such as autoimmune diseases, immune deficiencies, prematurity, infections, cancer, and the loss of immunity after bone marrow transplantation.

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The combination of two new drugs that harness the body’s immune system is safe and effective, destroying most cancer cells in 64 percent of patients with recurrent Hodgkin lymphoma, according to the results of an early-phase study.

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Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center announced promising results from an early trial in which patients with high-risk acute myeloid leukemia received genetically engineered immune cells. Of the 12 AML patients who received this experimental T-cell therapy after a transplant put their disease in remission, all are still in remission after a median follow-up of more than two years.

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Doctors at Yale believe immunotherapy is causing a new type of acute-onset diabetes, with at least 17 cases so far.

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A highly innovative, personalized cell-based treatment for a high-risk form of the most common childhood cancer continues to move through clinical trials. Pediatric oncologists from Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) today reported new results using T cell immunotherapy against relapsed or refractory acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL).