In June 2019, a doctor in Spain dismissed her symptoms as menopause and it was only six months later that she found out it was stage 4 bowel cancer.
Category: biotech/medical – Page 960
Immunotherapy approach shows potential in some people with metastatic solid tumors
The genetically modified lymphocytes were then multiplied into the hundreds of millions in the laboratory and infused back into the patients, where they expressed the tumor-specific T-cell receptors and continued to multiply.
“By taking the natural T-cell receptors that are present in a very small number of cells and putting them into normal lymphocytes for which we have enormous numbers—a million in every thimbleful of blood—we can generate as many cancer-fighting cells as we want,” Dr. Rosenberg explained.
As part of a larger phase 2 trial, seven patients with metastatic colon cancer were treated with the experimental personalized cellular immunotherapy. All seven received several doses of the immunotherapy drug pembrolizumab (Keytruda) before the cell therapy and another immunotherapy drug called IL-2 afterward. Three patients had substantial shrinkage of metastatic tumors in the liver, lung, and lymph nodes that lasted for four to seven months. The median time to disease progression was 4.6 months.
Dr. Oren Milstein, PhD — CEO, StemRad — Personal Radiation Protection Solutions For Earth And Space
Personal radiation protection solutions for earth and space — dr. oren milstein, phd — CEO and co-founder, stemrad.
Dr. Oren Milstein, Ph.D. is CEO and Board Member of StemRad (https://stemrad.com/), a world leader in the provision of personal radiation protection solutions and is the first company to offer life-saving protection from penetrating ionizing radiation and is making the lives of first responders, military personnel, utility personnel, medical teams, and astronauts safer without compromising mission objectives. Comprised of radiation biology experts, nuclear physicists, designers, and engineers and backed by dozens of prominent doctors and scientists including three Nobel Laureates, StemRad provides cutting-edge technology to protect these heroes on Earth and beyond.
Dr. Milstein co-founded StemRad in 2011, shortly after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in Japan. He has been leading R\&D efforts ever since and was appointed CEO in February of 2016.
Dr. Milstein has more than 12 years of Life Sciences research experience; formerly, Dr. Milstein was an European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) fellow at NYU’s Skirball Institute of Biomolecular Medicine, where his research provided basic insights into the mechanism of T cell activation. Later in his career, as an NIH fellow at the Scripps Research Institute, he discovered a novel mechanism for iron deficiency anemia. Subsequently, Dr. Milstein focused his research on radiation-induced autoimmune hemolytic anemia.
Dr. Milstein received his Ph.D. degree from The Weizmann Institute of Science in 2008, where he developed novel strategies for successful bone marrow transplantation into irradiated subjects. He received his B.Sc., Magna Cum Laude, from The Hebrew University in Jerusalem. His research has resulted in several peer-reviewed publications and patents.
Discovery of gene linked to neurodevelopmental disorders offers hope for future treatments
A global collaboration involving University of Manchester scientists has discovered a gene whose variants potentially cause neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) in hundreds of thousands of people across the world.
The findings of the University of Oxford led study, published in Nature, are an exciting first step towards the development of future treatments for the disorders which have devastating impacts on learning, behavior, speech, and movement.
While most NDDs are thought to be genetic and caused by changes to DNA, to date around 60% of individuals with the conditions do not know the specific DNA change that causes their disorder.
Cannabis Use in Chronic Musculoskeletal Pain Management: Patterns and Efficacy
How does cannabis alleviate the symptoms associated with chronic musculoskeletal (MSK) pain in patients? This is what a recent study published in the Journal of Cannabis Research hopes to address as a team of researchers from Canada investigated patient perception regarding cannabis use and treating their MSK symptoms. This study comes as an increasing number of MSK patients have turned to cannabis to alleviate their pain symptoms without hard data to support that use.
For the study, the researchers conducted a self-reported survey with 629 MSK patients in Canada with an average age of 56 years old and comprised of 44 percent men and 56 percent women. For the surveys, the patients were asked to privately disclose their past or present cannabis use in managing their MSK pain. In the end, 144 (23 percent) of participants reported past or present cannabis use with 63.7 percent disclosing that cannabis was effective at treating their MSK pain and 26.6 percent disclosing it as “slightly effective”, per the study.
The researchers concluded, “One in five patients presenting to an orthopaedic surgeon with chronic MSK pain are using or have used cannabis with the specific intent to manage their pain, and most report it to be effective. Among non-users, two-thirds reported an interest in using cannabis to manage their MSK pain, but common barriers to use existed. Future double-blind placebo-controlled trials are required to understand if this reported efficacy is accurate, and what role, if any, cannabis may play in the management of chronic MSK pain.”
Shaping the future of polymer nanocarriers
Scientists have taken a significant step towards the development of tailor-made chiral nanocarriers with controllable release properties. These nanocarriers, inspired by nature’s helical molecules like DNA and proteins, hold immense potential for targeted drug delivery and other biomedical applications.
The study, led by Professors Emilio Quiñoá and Félix Freire at the Center for Research in Biological Chemistry and Molecular Materials (CiQUS), highlights the intricate relationship between the structure of helical polymers and their self-assembly into nanospheres. By carefully designing the secondary chain, the researchers were able to modulate the acidity of the polymers, influencing their aggregation patterns and leading to the formation of nanoespheres with varying densities.
Intriguingly, the size of these nanospheres could be precisely controlled by simply adjusting the water-to-solvent ratio during their preparation, eliminating the need for stabilizers. This eco-friendly approach paves the way for sustainable synthesis of these particles.