Researchers from the NIH have conducted a genomewide screen to determine which genes affect sensitivity and resistance of cancer cells to destruction by T cells. Checkpoint blockers, which activate T cells against the immune system, are wildly successful in a minority of patients, and little is known about why some tumors succumb to T-cell boosting immunotherapy, while others shrug it off. In their work, the authors developed a co-culture system consisting of effector T cells and melanoma cells, and used CRISPR to systematically edit the melanoma cells.
In a step toward making pig organs safe for human transplant, scientists at Egenesis Bio Inc. have used multiplexed CRISPR editing to remove porcine endogenous retroviruses (PERVs) from pigs. The team's findings, which were published in the Aug. 11, 2017, issue of Science, have multiple implications.
A phase I immunotherapy trial of a therapeutic vaccine for type I diabetes showed that the treatment did not aggravate the disease, researchers from King's College London reported in the Aug. 9, 2017, issue of Science Translational Medicine.
Ohio State University researchers have developed a novel technology that was capable of directly transforming skin cells into other cell types in vivo. In a paper published in the Aug. 7, 2017, issue of Nature Nanotechnology, the team showed that they were able to restore vascular and muscle function in injured pigs and improve brain function in mice using the technology, which they have called Tissue Nanotransfection (TNT).
Activating mutations in the BRAF kinase, such as those targeted by melanoma drug Zelboraf (vemurafenib, Roche Holding AG), are a well-known cause of cancer.
PARIS – The development of immunotherapy that can cure at least a fraction of formerly deadly cancers has been the greatest medical triumph of recent years. At this week's meeting of the International AIDS Society, multiple presentations discussed the possibilities and practicalities of using the same approach to cure chronic viral infections.
PARIS – Genentech Inc.'s Dan Chen has described the advent of checkpoint blockers as "cancer's penicillin moment," when a drug came along that was not itself able to cure everything, but that signaled the onset of an era where a whole class of diseases, for a time, went from often deadly to mostly harmless.
