Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells have proven that engineered immune cells can serve as a powerful new class of cancer therapeutics. Clinical experience has helped to define the major challenges that must be met to make engineered T cells a reliable, safe, and effective platform that can be deployed against a broad range of tumors. The...
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Poisoning the Devil
Our sight was caught by the subject line of an email we received on March 12, 2016: “American Society of Hematology (ASH) Ernest Beutler Lecture and Prize.” It came from Charles Abrams, President of the ASH Society, congratulating Zhu Chen for being the recipient of the 2016 Ernest Beutler Lecture and Prize together with our...
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Applications of Immunogenomics to Cancer
Cancer immunogenomics originally was framed by research supporting the hypothesis that cancer mutations generated novel peptides seen as “non-self” by the immune system. The search for these “neoantigens” has been facilitated by the combination of new sequencing technologies, specialized computational analyses, and HLA binding predictions that evaluate somatic alterations in a cancer genome and interpret...
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Primary, Adaptive, and Acquired Resistance to Cancer Immunotherapy
Introduction Metastatic cancers remain an incurable disease for the great majority of patients, as the intrinsic genomic instability common to all cancers facilitates the escape from cytotoxic or targeted therapies. The recent breakthroughs in the understanding of tumor immune biology and the development of newer generation of cancer immunotherapies have opened a brand new chapter...
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Ethicists advise caution in applying CRISPR gene editing to humans
An artist’s rendering of the powerful genome editing tool, CRISPR-Cas9. Ethicists have been working overtime to figure out how to handle CRISPR, the revolutionary gene-editing technique that could potentially prevent congenital diseases but could also be used for cosmetic enhancements and lead to permanent, heritable changes in the human species. The latest iteration of this...
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Elon Musk: If Humans Are to Survive, We Must Merge With Machines
IN BRIEF Elon Musk thinks that, as AI technology and automation continue to replace jobs and more traditional technology, humans will become obsolete and need to merge with machines Since computers can communicate at speeds well beyond an organic organisms’ capacity, Musk thinks that creating a symbiotic relationship between us and our tech will give...
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One Country Has Eliminated HIV Transmission to Newborns
IN BRIEF Thailand has become the first Asian country to completely eliminate mother to child transmission of HIV Since HIV is still a global pandemic, it is important for other countries to take note of the enormous success that Thailand has found through government support of health guidelines MOTHER-TO-CHILD TRANSMISSION While the virus existed earlier,...
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PTSD Symptoms May Be Prevented With Ketamine
Study in mice shows drug’s potential to prevent PTSD in soldiers and others likely to experience psychological trauma NEW YORK, NY (Feb. 8, 2017)—Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) researchers have found that a single dose of ketamine, given one week before a stressful event, can buffer against a heightened fear response. The study, conducted in...
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That's not hard to swallow! Daily aspirin could stop cancer in its tracks by shutting down blood clot enzyme
The popular pain-killer disrupts the way blood platelets react with growths Specifically, it switches off down the enzyme COX-1, reducing their activity This, in turn, denies the malignant masses the ‘nutrients’ needed to expand It has already been credited with helping to reduce heart attack risk, but now it seems that daily doses of...
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How to stop your worries keeping you awake at night, six of the best sleep trackers and the best ways to beat the heat: The one-week insomnia cure
All this week, in the Mail’s life-changing series, Professor Jason Ellis, Director of the Northumbria Sleep Research Laboratory, has drawn on his vast experience to help tackle your sleep problems — whether it’s a duvet-hogging partner or chronic insomnia. Today, he reveals the clever tricks you can use to banish late-night anxiety… For many people...