KINSHASA (Reuters) — Authorities in Congo announced a new Ebola outbreak in the western city of Mbandaka on Monday, adding to another epidemic of the virus that has raged in the east since 2018.
Eli Lilly and AbCellera dosed the first patients in a Phase I study of a potential antibody treatment for COVID-19. The two companies were able to get their antibody candidate into the clinic within two months of announcing their collaboration in response to the global pandemic.
The announcement was made a day after it was announced that more than 6 million people across the globe have been infected with the virus, including 1.79 million in the United States. COVID-19 has been responsible for the deaths of more than 372,000 people, with nearly one-third (104,383) in the U.S.
Patients were dosed with LY-CoV555, a neutralizing IgG1 monoclonal antibody (mAb) directed against the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2. It is designed to block viral attachment and entry into human cells, which should neutralize the virus, and potentially prevent and treat COVID-19. Because it’s an antibody derived from the blood of a recovered patient, Eli Lilly said LY-CoV555 is the first potential new medicine specifically designed to attack SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
Circa 2015
Natural killer (NK) cells were discovered 40 years ago, by their ability to recognize and kill tumor cells without the requirement of prior antigen exposure. Since then, NK cells have been seen as promising agents for cell-based cancer therapies. However, NK cells represent only a minor fraction of the human lymphocyte population. Their skewed phenotype and impaired functionality during cancer progression necessitates the development of clinical protocols to activate and expand to high numbers ex vivo to be able to infuse sufficient numbers of functional NK cells to the cancer patients. Initial NK cell-based clinical trials suggested that NK cell-infusion is safe and feasible with almost no NK cell-related toxicity, including graft-versus-host disease. Complete remission and increased disease-free survival is shown in a small number of patients with hematological malignances. Furthermore, successful adoptive NK cell-based therapies from haploidentical donors have been demonstrated. Disappointingly, only limited anti-tumor effects have been demonstrated following NK cell infusion in patients with solid tumors. While NK cells have great potential in targeting tumor cells, the efficiency of NK cell functions in the tumor microenvironment is yet unclear. The failure of immune surveillance may in part be due to sustained immunological pressure on tumor cells resulting in the development of tumor escape variants that are invisible to the immune system. Alternatively, this could be due to the complex network of immune-suppressive compartments in the tumor microenvironment, including myeloid-derived suppressor cells, tumor-associated macrophages, and regulatory T cells. Although the negative effect of the tumor microenvironment on NK cells can be transiently reverted by ex vivo expansion and long-term activation, the aforementioned NK cell/tumor microenvironment interactions upon reinfusion are not fully elucidated. Within this context, genetic modification of NK cells may provide new possibilities for developing effective cancer immunotherapies by improving NK cell responses and making them less susceptible to the tumor microenvironment. Within this review, we will discuss clinical trials using NK cells with a specific reflection on novel potential strategies, such as genetic modification of NK cells and complementary therapies aimed at improving the clinical outcome of NK cell-based immune therapies.
Keywords: natural killer cells, adoptive cell therapy, immunotherapy, cancer, clinical trials, expansion, tumor microenvironment, genetic modifications.
Who has heard of mitochondrial medicine?
“We know that increased rates of mtDNA mutation cause premature aging,” said Bruce Hay, Professor of biology and biological engineering at the California Institute of Technology. “This, coupled with the fact that mutant mtDNA accumulates in key tissues such as neurons and muscle that lose function as we age, suggests that if we could reduce the amount of mutant mtDNA, we could slow or reverse important aspects of aging.”
This brings us to the second major development relevant to mitochondria in disease — that genetic technology is now at a point where the targeted removal of the problem mitochondrial genes can become the basis for clinical intervention. This is the implication of research that Hay and colleagues both at Caltech and the University of California at Los Angeles described in a paper published in the journal Nature Communications.
Customizable magnetic iron nanowires pinpoint and track the movements of target cells.
Living cells inside the body could be placed under surveillance—their location and migration noninvasively tracked in real time over many days—using a new method developed by researchers at KAUST.
The technique uses magnetic core-shell iron nanowires as nontoxic contrast agents, which can be implanted into live cells, lighting up those cells’ location inside a living organism when scanned by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The technique could have applications ranging from studying and treating cancer to tracking live-cell medical treatments, such as stem cell therapies.
A Bristol academic has achieved a milestone in statistical/mathematical physics by solving a 100-year-old physics problem – the discrete diffusion equation in finite space.
The long-sought-after solution could be used to accurately predict encounter and transmission probability between individuals in a closed environment, without the need for time-consuming computer simulations.
In his paper, published in Physical Review X, Dr. Luca Giuggioli from the Department of Engineering Mathematics at the University of Bristol describes how to analytically calculate the probability of occupation (in discrete time and discrete space) of a diffusing particle or entity in a confined space – something that until now was only possible computationally.
GUANGZHOU/TOKYO — Tech startups in Shenzhen, known as China’s Silicon Valley, are set to experience a range of outcomes as the novel coronavirus pandemic appears to near its end, with some seeing their businesses thrive while others face headwinds following significantly reduced investment.
AI and robot companies feel positive impact, while some face harsh climate.
Summary: Study reports SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, was well suited to making the jump from animals to humans by shapeshifting as it gained the ability to infect human cells. The virus’s ability to infect humans occurred via exchanging gene fragments from a coronavirus that infected pangolins. The species-to-species transmission was a result of the ability of SARS-CoV-2 to bind to host cells through alterations to its genetic material.
Source: Duke University
A team of scientists studying the origin of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that has caused the COVID-19 pandemic, found that it was especially well-suited to jump from animals to humans by shapeshifting as it gained the ability to infect human cells.
Circa 2015
Physicists have created a wormhole device that can tunnel a magnetic field through space. It sounds like Star Trek, but we won’t be zapping humans across the universe anytime soon. Still, the breakthrough could revolutionize certain magnet-based technologies, including MRIs.
The kit has been granted approval under ‘emergency use’ provisions, and should help to ease testing backlogs in the country.
