Lifeboat Foundation

Metastasis is one of the main obstacles in treating cancer. Studying circulating tumor cells (CTCs) and CTC clusters at the single-cell level can help us understand the underlying mechanisms and develop better therapeutic strategies for patients. Automated solutions can vastly simplify protocols for CTC isolation for molecular characterization at the single-cell level.

What are circulating tumor cells?

CTCs are cells that break away from the primary tumor and enter the bloodstream. Once in the blood, CTCs can adapt to the microenvironment of additional sites, forming a new tumor. This process, called metastasis, is responsible for over 90% of cancer-related deaths and is an active area of research.

Innovative white-label voice ordering technology will enable select operators to increase revenue and maintain high-quality customer experiences, without increasing labor costs or sacrificing hospitality.

A study led by researchers at the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center sheds new light on why tumors that have spread to the brain from other parts of the body respond to immunotherapy while glioblastoma, an aggressive cancer that originates in the brain, does not.

In people with tumors that originated in other parts of the body but spread to the brain, treatment with a type of immunotherapy called immune checkpoint blockade appears to elicit a significant increase in both active and exhausted T cells—signs that the T cells have been triggered to fight the cancer. The reason the same thing doesn’t occur in people with glioblastoma is that anti-tumor immune responses are best initiated in draining lymph nodes outside of the brain, and that process does not occur very effectively in glioblastoma cases.

To date, immunotherapy has not been effective in treating glioblastoma, but it has been shown to slow or even eradicate other types of cancer, such as melanoma, which frequently metastasizes to the brain.

Using a standardized assessment, researchers in the UK compared the performance of a commercially available artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm with human readers of screening mammograms. Results of their findings were published in Radiology.

Mammographic screening does not detect every breast cancer. False-positive interpretations can result in women without cancer undergoing unnecessary imaging and biopsy. To improve the sensitivity and specificity of screening mammography, one solution is to have two readers interpret every mammogram.

According to the researchers, double reading increases cancer detection rates by 6 to 15% and keeps recall rates low. However, this strategy is labor-intensive and difficult to achieve during reader shortages.

Cancer is a deadly disease with multiple risk factors. Risk factors are dependent on the type of cancer and each one is treated differently. The heterogeneity of various cancers is the main reason there is no cure. Additionally, cancer evolves and can also come back after being treated and lying dormant for years. Therefore, it is very difficult to find an effective treatment that provides high quality of life for patients.

One aggressive cancer that is difficult to treat includes glioblastoma. This brain tumor is fast-growing and results in the form of many different symptoms including headache, vomiting, and seizures. Unfortunately, there is not much known on glioblastoma. The cause of this disease is unclear and treatment options are limited. This tumor stays in the brain and does not metastasize, but because of its location, glioblastoma is hard to treat. Currently, treatment options include radiation, chemotherapy, and surgery with limited success. Even immunotherapy, a more recent treatment, which activates the body’s immune system to kill the tumor has limited efficacy in the brain.

A group of researchers led by Dr. Robert Prins at the David Geffen School of Medicine at University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) recently published an article in the Journal of Clinical Investigation (JCI) describing new research that could help overcome obstacles to glioblastoma treatment. More specifically, Prins and colleagues have reported why glioblastoma that originates from other parts of the body respond better to immunotherapy compared to glioblastoma that originates in the brain.

Our immune system is made of various cell types responsible for fighting pathogens and disease that enter the body. There are two distinct arms or responses of the immune system: innate and adaptive. The innate immune response is the first line of defense that includes immune cells that are not specific to the invading pathogen, but recognize it is foreign and tries to kill it. Cells that are included in this response are neutrophils, basophils, eosinophils, monocytes, macrophages, mast cells, and natural killer cells. The adaptive immune response is the second line of defense and made up of cells that are more specific to the invading pathogen. The adaptive immune system includes dendritic cells, T cells, and B cells. T cells specifically have different subsets and function differently to effectively kill invading pathogens.

Although scientists know a lot about the immune system, there is still much unknown about how the cells that make up these immune responses completely function. One unclear phenomenon includes the mechanism by which immune cells know which way to travel to the site of infection. Researchers lead by Drs. Michael Sixt and Edouard Hannezo at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) recently reported in Science Immunology that immune cells generate their own path to navigate environments throughout the body.

One particular immune cell type, dendritic cells, are not exclusively part of the adaptive immune system. They work to bridge the innate and adaptive immune systems to help cohesively deliver a response that will efficiently kill the pathogen. More specifically, dendritic cells detect pathogens and then travel to the lymph nodes to coordinate a systemic attack. Dendritic cells move according to chemokines, or small proteins that help cells migrate to specific locations. Previously, it was believed that the chemokines produce a gradient and it was this gradient that allowed cells to migrate to specific locations. However, Sixt, Hannezo, and colleagues reported that this gradient might not be the only way for migrating cells.

Lenovo’s next 27-inch 4K monitor is unlike any display it has released before. Featuring a lenticular lens and real-time eye-tracking, it’s a 3D monitor that doesn’t require any glasses. Other companies are already pushing stereoscopic products, but Lenovo’s ThinkVision 27 3D Monitor, announced at the IFA conference today, takes the glasses-free experience to a bigger screen.

The technology behind Lenovo’s 3D monitor and the accompanying software, 3D Explorer, are proprietary, a Lenovo spokesperson confirmed to Ars. 3D Explorer includes a 3D player and SDK for building 3D apps. Lenovo is targeting the monitor and app at content creators, like 3D graphic designers and developers.

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Ukraine’s security agency claims that the Russian military intelligence service GRU can access compromised Android devices with a new malware called Infamous Chisel, which is associated with the threat actor Sandworm, previously attributed to the Russian GRU’s Main Centre for Special Technologies (GTsST).

Sandworm uses this new malware to target Android devices used by the Ukrainian military, enables unauthorized access to compromised devices, and is designed to scan files, monitor traffic, and steal information.

Sights and sounds are easily digitized, but scents have eluded researchers until now.