By screening for glioblastoma targets in vivo using mouse models with patient-derived xenografts, researchers have identified new potential targets for drugs to treat glioblastoma.
Two groups reported that vaccinating melanoma patients with personalized, tumor-specific antigens led to progression-free survival in the majority of patients over roughly two years of follow-up. The results were reported in back-to-back papers in the July 6, 2017, issue of Nature.
Changes in the 3-D organization of chromosomes in neurons affected the expression of genes that are important for the formation of neuronal connections and that have been implicated in schizophrenia risk, researchers at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine reported in the July 3, 2017, issue of Nature Genetics.
Researchers from the International Mouse Phenotypic Consortium have published the comprehensive phenotypes of more than 3,300 knockout mice, describing mouse models for 360 diseases.
SAN DIEGO – At the State of Innovation session during BIO 2017, a brief exchange neatly summed up the current status of big data. Noting that clinical trial expenses and success rates have not changed appreciably as the amount of data that is collected from patients, most prominently but not only through genome sequencing, has increased, venture capital firm Flagship Pioneering's Jeremy Springhorn lamented that "there's all this information out there, yet we're not using it."
BOSTON – The human brain, Jürgen Knoblich told the audience at the 2017 annual meeting of the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR), consists of "86 billion neurons that have to be born at the right time, move to the right positions and wire up in the right way."
As medicines have become more potent and patient groups have become more targeted, the need has arisen for cGMP (current good manufacturing practices) processes that are suitable for producing drugs at volumes of kilograms, which is far less than is produced in one manufacturing run by classical batch manufacturing systems.
BOSTON – At the Thursday morning plenary of the annual meeting of the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR), those who came into the plenary room carrying their morning cup of orange juice turned out to be taking care of their own stem cells.
By treating mice with the messenger RNA (mRNA) encoding a bispecific antibody, rather than with the antibody itself, researchers from the German University of Mainz and Biontech AG have eliminated tumors in mice. In a direct comparison, the mRNA worked as well as the protein antibody did, and needed to be administered less often.
