Category Archives: Molecular Medicine

If the blood supply to your brain decreases, it can trigger Alzheimers disease. Scientists at UiO wanted to find out whether this leads to more or fewer blood vessels and what role one particular protein plays in such a process.

About 100,000 Norwegians suffer from dementia. Many of them have Alzheimers. The blood flow in the brain changes with Alzheimers disease.

"Nerve cells are destroyed and this must have something to do with the blood supply. Blood carries both oxygen and nutrients to the cells. The disease begins to develop long before patients get any symptoms - changes occur over 10 to 12 years before you notice that anything is wrong," explains researcher and Associate Professor Reidun Torp at the Institute of Basic Medical Sciences.

She is interested in what is called senile plaques in the brain and how the brain rids itself of them. Plaque is a form of waste matter that comes from incorrectly produced proteins that build up as deposits in the brain.

"The essential key to discovering how to prevent Alzheimers disease is to find out how the brain handles this plaque before it is too late," she says.

Torp and other researchers at the Department of Molecular Medicine have tried for many years to solve the puzzle of the various changes that occur in the brain. Their research represents stepping-stones on the way towards treating Alzheimers or preventing the disease.

One of the things Torp has studied is how particular proteinaceous fibres twist around each other in tangles and destroy brain cells.

"With Alzheimers, there is a connection between these two processes: the fibres that twist around each other and the senile plaque, which together result in the destruction of nerve tissue in the brain. They block the communication between nerve cells and disrupt the processes that nerve cells need to survive. We know a good deal about these two processes but this isnt much help if we cant stop it happening in the brain," she says.

Earlier research has shown that several of the same risk factors behind the development of cardiovascular disease also can lead to Alzheimers. In order to see the connection between the disease and the blood supply to the brain, the researchers wanted to find out whether the density of small blood vessels in the brain decreases, increases or remains unchanged in a patient with Alzheimers.

Her research team recentlypublished an article in the Journal of Alzheimers Disease.

Two of the methods used by the researchers were various microscopy techniques and biochemical analyses. Research fellow Gry Syverstad Skaaraas is the lead author of the study.

"We found that the density of blood vessels was unchanged in mice that had a lot of senile plaque, compared to mice without plaque," she says.

"What we found instead was that the protein deposits from the plaque affected the walls of the blood vessels and changed their growth factors, which would indicate that the vessels no longer function as they should.

Growth factors are proteins that break down and form new blood vessels in the brain. We believe that it is this process that is disrupted in Alzheimers disease," says Torp.

According to the researchers, the study led to several new discoveries. One was that a type of cells called pericytes are destroyed by senile plaques in the blood vessels. Pericytes lie partly round the smallest blood vessels, allowing these to contract and regulate the blood stream in the brain.

Torp points out that a great deal of research is being carried out into Alzheimers and she can see a lot of positive signs.

"I think we are at a turning point towards finding a better treatment," she says.

Reference: Skaaraas GHES, Melbye C, Puchades MA, et al. Cerebral Amyloid Angiopathy in a Mouse Model of Alzheimers Disease Associates with Upregulated Angiopoietin and Downregulated Hypoxia-Inducible Factor. Journal of Alzheimers Disease. 2021;83(4):1651-1663. doi:10.3233/JAD-210571

This article has been republished from the following materials. Note: material may have been edited for length and content. For further information, please contact the cited source.

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How Alzheimer's Disease Changes Small Blood Vessels in the Brain - Technology Networks

This story has been updated to include additional comments from Robert Green.

NEW YORK BabySeq, the next-generation sequencing-based universal screening program for newborns, is gearing up for a second, expanded study. The lead researchers said they want the four-year, $5.1 million grant to help address a lack of diversity in the first cohort.

The originalBabySeq cohort was not diverse and thus the findings are not generalizable, according to the project's co-principal investigators Robert Green of Brigham and Women's Hospital and Ingrid Holm of Boston Children's Hospital.

"They were pretty overwhelmingly wealthier people and of European ancestries," Green said. Holm added that in phase two, they're hoping to recruit more than half of the participants from African American or Hispanic families.

The grant, funded mostly by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), part of the National Institutes of Health, will help sequence 500 babies and their families at three clinics in the Eastern US. Whereas the first phase of BabySeq was conducted in a hospital setting, phase two will move to enroll participants in community clinics in Boston, New York, and Birmingham, Alabama. The program has partnered with Mount Sinai and the University of Alabama-Birmingham to enroll participants and will work with researchers at Baylor University on surveys and outcomes analysis. The Laboratory for Molecular Medicine will perform sequencing.

The new project will feature two other changes. The children will be a little older, up to 6 months in age, and they will receive whole-genome sequencing, rather than whole-exome sequencing.

"Primarily, [WGS] means that we can look for copy number variants," Holm said.

While some bioethicists have been skeptical of universal newborn screening with NGS, Green and Holm suggested that the case for it isgaining strength.

"There is a whole revolution occurring in terms of gene targeted therapies," Green said, with a handful already and a hundred more in development. "These are rare diseases, most of which the risk can be detected with early sequencing."

"It's a really strong team," said Josephine Johnston, a bioethicist and director of research at the Hastings Center who was first author on a 2018 report critical of universalnewborn sequencing. "If there is benefit to be had, if this project could be helpful to primary pediatric care, these people will find it because they are really enthusiastic about it and they're good researchers."

"My overall take on the first study was they had low enrollment and quite modest findings," she said. "But they still got another big grant, so they're going to try it in a different context."

Launched in 2013, BabySeq phase one wrapped up in 2019. The project produced more than 20 peer-reviewed papers and the researchers felt that their randomized controlled trial helped ease fears that newborn screening would have deleterious psychological effects on parents. In a paper published in September in JAMA Pediatrics, the BabySeq team suggested that there was no signal of increased anxiety or distress and no disruption in parent-child bonding, between the two arms of the study (the control group received a standard heel prick newborn screening test).

In other publicationsthey revealed that 18 infants, or 11 percent of the sequenced newborns, harbored a variant associated with risk of a childhood-onset disorder. In some cases, these variants helped explain phenotypic observations already made. The original BabySeq study curated a list of approximately 1,000 disease-associated genes to return results for.

"Based on these exciting data, we wrote several follow-up grants that were not funded," Holm said. One was an application for a follow-up study, submitted to the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development as part of an RFA. "It just wasn't innovative enough, for whatever reason," she said.

With their new funding, researchers are seeking to correct their earlier lapse by emphasizing community pediatric clinics. "This is a big issue in genomics, across every research domain and all over precision medicine," Green said. "It's partly access to care, which is exacerbated for all the reasons we're aware of: historical injustice, distrust, and failures of many research projects to make themselves culturally relevant. We are just trying our best to make sure BabySeq 2 does a better job of that."

They have also established a stakeholder board "that really represent perspectives from diverse sources that are helping with protocol design, education, and so forth," Holm said.

Moving to a community-based clinic may also help increase the participation rate, Johnston said. "BabySeq 1 did not get anything like the level of uptake that they were expecting," she said. "One of the possible explanations was because they were asking people who had just given birth. My thought is that they're hoping they'll get much higher enrollment if they do it in a primary care context."

Using whole-genome sequencing could lead to finding more newborns with risk-associated genetic variants. "My guess is that we'll find some, but I don't think it's going to increase to 20 percent [from 11 percent]," Holm said. Many variants could be of unknown significance, which the study will not return to patients.

Another rationale for expanding BabySeq relates to newly available treatments for rare diseases. The recommended uniform screening panel (RUSP) the list of conditions that the US Department of Health and Human Services recommends for states to screen for is "not keeping up with treatable genetic conditions," Green said. According to him, there are more than 800 treatablechildhood genetic conditions,while the RUSP currently has 35 (some states test for more conditions.)

Green said he believes that earlier critiques of the study's premise, including Johnston's were "written without appreciation of the flood of new treatments being developed, which completely changes the medical and ethical equation."

"There's just so much more going on now in ability to do genetic treatments that to put them all on the RUSP, you've got to have the exome. That's a big motivation, and thats why studies like this are timely," he said.

The researchers have not started recruiting yet but received conditional approval from their institutional review board late last month. "It's a big step," Green said. "It took us much, much longer the first time."

They're even looking toward bringing in partners with their own funding to increase the cohort size beyond what the new grant will support. "It would be nice to have several thousand [participants]," Holm said.

"The ultimate goal is to have a much larger group because we have a better chance of finding those n-of-ones," she said.

Link:
BabySeq Newborn Screening Project Aims For Increased Diversity in Second Phase - GenomeWeb

ROCKVILLE, Md., April 05, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- OpGen, Inc. (Nasdaq: OPGN, OpGen or the Company), a precision medicine company harnessing the power of molecular diagnostics and bioinformatics to help combat infectious disease, reported today that, following the successful completion of a reproducibility study earlier this year, it has now unblinded and analyzed a limited data set comprising of the first 150 prospectively enrolled U.S. patient samples. Clinical trial enrollment continues at all sites.

OpGens Unyvero Urinary Tract Infection (UTI) Panel tests for a broad range of pathogens as well as antimicrobial resistance markers directly from native urine specimens. The clinical performance evaluation, which aims at a subsequent FDA submission, includes a prospective multicenter trial at three U.S. sites.

The objective of the interim analysis was to confirm the absence of significant performance variations in results between the testing sites, and to furthermore confirm that blinded data collection across all data sources and study participants is executed as planned.

Were pleased to see that the clinical trial protocol has been implemented as planned across the different participating trial sites, said Johannes Bacher, COO of OpGen, Inc. and Managing Director of German based Curetis GmbH. Based on our preliminary analysis of the different data sources generated for this limited sample set, we have decided to continue enrollment towards our study goal of 1,500 prospective samples without any changes. We will furthermore include archived urine samples in order to complement the study data with additional data points for rare pathogens and antibiotic resistance markers.

DisclaimerCaution - Investigational Device, Limited by Federal (or United States) law to investigational use. The information contained in this communication does not constitute or imply an offer to sell or transfer any product. Performance characteristics for this device have not yet been established and the U.S. FDA has not yet cleared the panel.

About OpGen, Inc.

OpGen, Inc. (Rockville, MD, USA) is a precision medicine company harnessing the power of molecular diagnostics and bioinformatics to help combat infectious disease. Along with our subsidiaries, Curetis GmbH and Ares Genetics GmbH, we are developing and commercializing molecular microbiology solutions helping to guide clinicians with more rapid and actionable information about life threatening infections to improve patient outcomes and decrease the spread of infections caused by multidrug-resistant microorganisms, or MDROs. OpGens product portfolio includes Unyvero, Acuitas AMR Gene Panel and Acuitas Lighthouse, and the ARES Technology Platform including ARESdb, using NGS technology and AI-powered bioinformatics solutions for antibiotic response prediction.

For more information, please visit http://www.opgen.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release includes statements regarding the interim analysis results of OpGens clinical trial for its Unyvero Urinary Tract Infection. These statements and other statements regarding OpGens future plans and goals constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and are intended to qualify for the safe harbor from liability established by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that are often difficult to predict, are beyond our control, and which may cause results to differ materially from expectations. Factors that could cause our results to differ materially from those described include, but are not limited to, the success of our commercialization efforts, our ability to successfully, timely and cost-effectively develop, seek and obtain regulatory clearance for and commercialize our product and services offerings, the rate of adoption of our products and services by hospitals and other healthcare providers, the fact that we may not effectively use proceeds from recent financings, the continued realization of expected benefits of our business combination transaction with Curetis GmbH, the continued impact of COVID-19 on the Companys operations, financial results, and commercialization efforts as well as on capital markets and general economic conditions, the effect of the military action in Russia and Ukraine on our distributors, collaborators, and service providers, our liquidity and working capital requirements, the effect on our business of existing and new regulatory requirements, and other economic and competitive factors. For a discussion of the most significant risks and uncertainties associated with OpGens business, please review our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which are based on our expectations as of the date of this press release and speak only as of the date of this press release. We undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

OpGen:Oliver SchachtPresident and CEOInvestorRelations@opgen.com

OpGen Press Contact:Matthew BretziusFischTank Marketing and PR matt@fischtankpr.com

OpGen Investor Contact:Alyssa FactorEdison Groupafactor@edisongroup.com

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OpGen Announces Interim Analysis Results from Clinical Trial for Unyvero Urinary Tract Infection Panel - GlobeNewswire

Universal masking, high vaccination rate, early focus on ventilation: Japan seems to have gotten some things right in fighting the pandemic. Looking deeper, Japans success is not easy to explain. Particularly striking is the difference from South Korea, which is suffering its worst outbreak.

Tokyo is in awe of the cherry blossoms in this season. In Yoyogi park people were again sitting under the blooming trees, as if the pandemic had never happened. Meanwhile, security politely warned people not to linger. Japan has lifted all its quasi emergency antivirus measures. Still, residents have been advised against throwing hanami picnic parties.

RELATED: Sakura: Softly Blossoming Cherries Herald the Hope and Pleasures of Spring

With so much sunshine and pink petal magic, can Japan let its guard down?

On Thursday March 31, Japan reported 51,913 new cases and 101 deaths. Numbers had been going up for the past few days, after a steady decline since the Omicron peak in early February when more than 100,000 daily new infections were reported. It is unclear if this is the start of a new wave of infections this time, maybe driven by the Omicron sub type BA.2.

Japans path, however, stands in sharp contrast to its neighbor South Korea. The country is reporting around 344,000 new cases per day at the moment, and more than 300 deaths daily.

In gruesome news, last week health officials in South Korea instructed crematories to burn more dead bodies per day and funeral homes to add more refrigerators to store the dead. South Korea is still reeling under the omicron wave its biggest wave so far. But might have begun a turnaround.

South Korea and Japan share many similarities. They have similar demographics, a culture of mask wearing, and strong public health systems.

This latest development is therefore surprising, given that South Korea has been a success story in the first two years of the pandemic. With its unique test, track, tracing, and quarantine strategy, mask wearing and mass testing, the country had been able to fight virus surges until the highly contagious Omicron variant came along.

In part, South Koreas high numbers compared to Japan are due to its aggressive testing. It is using rapid antigen tests conducted by medical personnel at clinics, as well as PCR tests done at screening centers. And all positive test results are entered into the national case count.

This is unlike Japan, which does not use rapid tests at all for screening purposes. Counts of positive test results come only from PCR tests that have been initiated by a doctor for a patient who experiences symptoms.

Less easy to explain is the difference between Japan and South Korea in virus fatalities. While Japan has also seen a surge in infections due to Omicron, this did not translate into so many deaths.

As Eric Topol, professor of Molecular Medicine at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, recently pointed out on twitter: Despite a 2 fold higher booster vaccination percentage, a noteworthy difference in fatality rate and divergence of curves.

Japan and South Korea have similar vaccination rates. Tokyo has administered two shots for 80 percent of its population. Seoul reports an even higher rate at 86 percent.

Seoul has also done better at bringing the third shot or booster to its citizens. The booster vaccination rate is around 60 percent twice as high as that of Japan. Despite this South Korea has seen many more cases and fatalities.

There is no easy explanation here. Does the type of vaccine make a difference? Japan only uses mRNA shots by Pfizer and Moderna, while Seoul uses a substantial amount of AstraZeneca along with Pfizer, Moderna and Janssen.

Was Japan lucky, because it started the booster campaign late and thus vaccinated into the Omicron wave, while South Korea started earlier and did not get the same effect due to the waning for vaccines?

Is it down to genes or to diet? Are Japanese elders healthier than their South Korean counterparts? Do Japanese people have greater trust in their government or in their neighbors?

Or do South Koreans care simply less about getting infected?

A survey released on March 15 by Seoul National Universitys graduate school of public health, showed the number of South Koreans who worry about a serious health impact from COVID-19 had dropped to about 48 percent, the lowest since the surveys began in January 2020. In any case, Omicron has forced Seoul to abandon its stringent COVID-19 response of mass testing, aggressive contact tracing and quarantines. Instead, it has to focus its limited medical resources on the groups most at risk, like people 60 and older and those with chronic diseases.

We see what omicron can truly do when it enters a country where very very few have had COVID before, writes Vincent Rajkumar, professor of medicine at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota on twitter. But all is not failure and despair. This is only the first wave in South Korea. The wave in terms of deaths is much less than 4 of the waves in the US.

While the absolute death figures of South Korea may seem dramatic, the countrys fatality rate remains low relative to other countries. Cumulative confirmed COVID-19 deaths per 1 million people are 316.34 for South Korea and 222.28 for Japan a lot less than the United States with 2933.79, or Germany with 1543.72.

While confirmed COVID deaths figures are still biased by testing levels in places such as Belarus or Djibouti where testing is next to non-existent, a much lower percentage of COVID deaths have been identified excess mortality is often used to measure the brutality of the pandemic. It refers to the number of deaths from all causes during the crisis above what would be expected to be observed under normal, non-pandemic conditions.

For the first two years of the pandemic, South Koreas excess deaths are about 1 percent above average, while the excess deaths for Germany are 4 percent, and 16 percent for the United States. Japan seems to report no increase, but data is simply lacking.

Japan seems an outlier compared to other countries. Its COVID death rate is on par with countries that followed a zero COVID tolerance policy like Taiwan, China and New Zealand. Yet, it did not introduce any of their zero-COVID measures, such as lockdowns or mass testing.

Despite the latest Omicron surge, Japan still has fewer COVID deaths than other countries.

Very early on in the pandemic Japan focused on airborne transmission. Some experts think that its multilayered approach with mitigation of airborne transmission, a focus on ventilation, mask wearing and restriction of mass gatherings has been key to its success.

We might never know for sure why Japan has done a better job of protecting lives. One thing, however, is certain, however. No country is an island to a highly transmissible virus even those that are islands like Japan.

Agnes Tandler (Tokyo)

Since the start of the pandemic in 2020, Agnes Tandler has been based in Japan, where her reporting covers COVID-19 for a daily healthcare newsletter in Germany. Find other essays and reports for JAPAN Forward here.

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Living with COVID in the Season of Cherry Blossoms - JAPAN Forward

Awantipora, April 03: As part of the Green India Mission, the Islamic University of Science and Technology (IUST) Awantipora conducted a plantation drive this week, to continue its ongoing initiatives for enhancing campus green cover and valuing the environmental protection, conservation and sustainable management of biodiversity.

The plantation drive, themed as Donate, Plant & Own a Tree (DPOT) was organized by IUST's Landscaping Section and Biodiversity Park Project in association with the Department of Sericulture, Jammu & Kashmir.

During the drive saplings of Mulberry species supplied by the Department of Sericulture were planted in the campus. The event was carried out under the overall supervision of Registrar IUST Prof. Naseer Iqbal, who shared a brief overview about the objectives behind organizing such drives and said, "IUST is establishing Biodiversity Park in the campus so as to enhance the environment management and increase the ecosystem services in the area." He also congratulated the staff associated with Landscaping Section and Biodiversity Park in organising the event and also thanked the Department of Sericulture for their support in making the event a success.

Various officers, Faculty members, Staff and students from various Schools/departments of IUST participated in the drive and planted trees. Those present included Prof. Manzoor Ahmad Malik, Dean Academic Affairs, Prof. Shabir Ahmad Bhat, Dean Outreach, Prof. Hamidullah Marazi, I/C Director, International Centre for Spiritual Studies, Prof. Lily Want, I/C Director, Averroes Centre for Philosophical Studies, Prof. Ab. Rashid Malik I/C Director Habba Khatoon Centre for Kashmiri Language and Literature, Sameer Wazir, Finance Officer, Dr. S. Iqbal Quraishi, Deputy Registrar, Estates, Sheikh Asif, Deputy Registrar, Establishment, Dr. Afroz Bisati, I/C Librarian, Dr. Anisa Jan Dean of Students, Dr. Asif Fazili, Head, Department of Management Studies, Mudasir A. Mir, Assistant Registrar Finance, Mubashir Nazir, Assistant Registrar Procurement & Stores, Dr. Muzafar A Macha, I/C Watson-Crick Centre for Molecular Medicine, Dr. Rais A. Ganie, I/C Centre for Vocational Studies, Dr. Asheed A Ganie, Ramalingaswami Fellow, Watson-Crick Centre for Molecular Medicine. The Department of Sericulture was represented by Feroz Ahmad Mattoo, District Sericulture Officer, Pulwama, Gh Mohammad Hafiz Sericulture Assistant Tral Zone, Dr. Adil Abdullah Wani, Field Assistant Tral Zone, Mohd Amin Bhat, Nursery Man Tral and Ashiq Hussain Malik. The event was coordinated by Incharge Landscaping and Nodal Officer Biodiversity Park IUST, Dr. Aijaz A. Qureshi.

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Plantation drive themed Donate, Plant & Own a Tree held at IUST - Rising Kashmir

Distinctions in histology, molecular profiles, and tumor location have set diverging course of care for the treatment of patients with gastrointestinal cancers.

Distinctions in histology, molecular profiles, and tumor location have set diverging course of care for the treatment of patients with gastrointestinal (GI) cancers, according to John L. Marshall, MD. To address these varying pathways to care, cross-functional approaches to education and care have become paramount for clinicians.

Marshall was the coleader of the 7th Annual School of Gastrointestinal Oncology (SOGO), hosted by Physicians Education Resource, LLC (PER), a 1-day multidisciplinary educational conference on the emerging therapies and evolving standards of care in the management of patients with GI cancers. The hybrid symposium featured presentations on locoregional treatment of GI cancers, as well as case-based discussions on multidisciplinary, real-world management of GI cancers.

The main takeaway from this meeting is that there is a lot to learn, Marshall, chief of the Division of Hematology/Oncology at Medstar Georgetown University Hospital and director of The Ruesch Center for the Cure of Gastrointestinal Cancers in Washington, DC, said in an interview with OncLive. We learned a lot, we have moved the bar, but we have a long way to go. We know there are common malignancies, we know there are highly fatal malignancies as a group, and we know a lot of [clinicians] are familiar with them. It used to be an easy disease or group of diseases to take care of, [but] there is a lot going on in GI cancers.

Marshall provided an overview of the main highlights from the meeting, including progress made, anticipated trends in research, and optimal treatment benefits for GI cancer.

Marshall: When I first started in GI cancers, there was not much called bile duct cancer. We used to call that unknown primaries in the liver because you were not supposed to get adenocarcinomas in the liver. It has only been in the past 10 plus years that we have recognized that these adenocarcinomas in the liver cleanse [the body] of carcinomas and bile duct cancers.

We have to divide them into 3 categories [and] here I like to use a tree [analogy]: there is the trunk of the tree, and that is the common bile duct; there are the branches, the wood parts up in the tree, and those are intrahepatic bile ducts; and then there is that kind of knot off the side of the tree that is the gallbladder. And as we think about those 3 parts of the treethe 3 parts of the bile systemwe are increasingly recognizing that they are different. Yes, they are all adenocarcinomas [and] they are mostly included in all the clinical trials. But when we look at molecular profiling or precision medicine, we are seeing that they have different characteristics.

So, just like we did in upper GI cancers, where we separated esophageal GI junction and stomach, we are now increasingly separating common bile duct intrahepatic and gallbladder from each other.

I was charged with the job of reviewing what has been going on in bile duct cancers and the answer is: a lot. My title was from obscurity to the star of the show.

That is increasingly true because with precision medicine, we are learning that there are important molecular subtypesFGFR fusions or alterations, IDH1 alterations or mutations, and immunotherapy biomarkersall of which are present in a high-enough percentage that they are worth looking for. And there are therapies that have significant improvements in outcome when they are applied. So just as you would measure molecular tests for almost all your cancers, the same now is true for cholangiocarcinoma and bile duct cancers.

Now, one of the other places it has become the star of the show and it is one more of our GI cancers where immunotherapy has worked, is in the TOPAZ-1 clinical trial [NCT03875235], a randomized study of gemcitabine plus cisplatin vs gemcitabine plus cisplatin plus immunotherapy. What we saw was an improvement in overall survival in that patient population and we are expecting an FDA approval in that space. So immunotherapy [is making] its way to bile duct cancers as well.

[Bile duct cancer] is absolutely not that rare of a cancer if you know what you are looking for. Precision medicine is key, and immunotherapy is an important part of that.

When we look at next steps with cholangiocarcinoma and bowel cancers, first we are applying the precision medicine and so now we have subcategories of this based on not only anatomy, but now also molecular profile. With each of those areas, we are seeing further activity of combinations and different lines of therapy.

We are also increasingly seeing liver-directed therapy approaches [and we are doing] this with our interventional surgical and radiation [colleagues] who are helping us to manage this. We have a lot of patients with liver-dominant problems. That sort of multidimensional approach is required in optimal management.

And then, how do we make the toehold we have with immunotherapy get bigger through combinations and other molecular characterizations to better understand who should get in therapy and who should not? So, [there is] a lot of ongoing work in the biotech cancer space.

Each year we hold a crossfire session, and these are not intended to be slide-heavy, but [to rather to address] some critical questions that we all have about a key topic in GI cancers. This year, we picked immunotherapy; there is so much going on. It is really the Wild West. We were looking at immunotherapy being applied to GI cancers and so we walked through the GI tract [and asked] does PD-L1 expression matter in upper GI cancers? And we decided yes, it does. Immunotherapy has a place through lines of therapy even in the adjuvant setting in certain cancers. PD-L1 expression probably is a good marker for who benefits and who does not.

We [also] looked at hepatocellular carcinoma [HCC], [a space that is] dominated by immunotherapy approaches, in the frontline and also other lines of therapy. Durvalumab [Imfinzi] showed positive results even as a single agent in HCC. The data with durvalumab in cholangiocarcinoma and bile duct cancers was there.

In pancreas cancer, [immunotherapy] is still dormant, we have not figured out how to crack that nut. But then if you go on further south to colorectal cancer, particularly rectal cancer, we talked about MSI-H [microsatellite instabilityhigh] in the neoadjuvant setting [and asked] do we use immuno-oncology [IO] therapy in the neoadjuvant setting and in rectal cancer?

There are some highly provocative small phase 2 experience data showing 11 out of 11 [patients] having a complete clinical and radiographic response with just IO therapy and MSI-H rectal cancer. That would be transformative.

One of the main themes of the meeting was that molecular profiling is critical and in order to identify those patients who are candidates for immunotherapy and candidates for precision medicine target therapy. You need adequate tissue, you need to understand what the tests measure, and then you need to apply those in a multidisciplinary fashion to optimize treatment for our patients.

We are increasingly emphasizing organ preservation. And so, we are trying to not only care for our patients but allow them to maintain their quality of life. What we are seeing is what we were hoping, that these precision medicine tools are giving us those opportunities to both improve outcomes and maintain quality of life.

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Marshall Highlights the Importance of Distinct Approaches to GI Cancers - OncLive

Over the past 20 years, there have been several advancements in the treatment of patients with thyroid cancer which have improved survival and quality of life, according to an expert.

However, the same expert said that more work is needed to find a curative approach for this patient population.

Dr. Jessica Geiger, a medical oncologist specializing in head/neck and thyroid cancers at Cleveland Clinics Taussig Cancer Institute in Ohio, said that the biggest advancement made over the years in treating thyroid cancer has been the development of targeted therapies.

In particular, tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs), she said, have been shown to better improve survival and quality of life compared with the old standard of care.

I would say over the last decade, rather than 20 years there have been great monumental advancements in (the treatment of thyroid cancer), she said in an interview with CURE.

The earlier TKIs gave us options for patients whereas before we didn't have any, Geiger continued The newer drugs that have been developed and are now in use are a prime example of how personalized medicine can be groundbreaking and life-changing. Because now, instead of just getting an agent that has many different targets, and so many patients could just go on the same drug, it doesn't work very well. But if you have one particular specific type of mutation, or one specific gene fusion protein that'scausing this cancer to grow and spread and we have a targeted agent that targets that molecular aberration directly, you can have fantastic results that last for quite a long time.

Improved Survival and Quality of Life

These advancements, according to Geiger, give patients with thyroid cancer options that they didnt previously have. Prior to 2013, the only Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved systemic therapy for these patients was chemotherapy that was known to be ineffective and often led to many side effects, Geiger said.

Twenty years ago, a patient would first undergo surgery with radioactive iodine, depending on the subtype, and then the only other available treatment option was cytotoxic chemotherapy. There were no treatment options available at that time that could circulate through the bloodstream to attack cancerous cells in multiple locations with a patients body.

You would just try to attend to the problem areas where the disease popped up, but you could never do anything that treated all of the lesions at the same time with one form of treatment, Geiger said. No doubt, patients were suffering. (And) patients were dying sooner than what they are now.

Today, Geiger noted, patient survival has improved dramatically because the newer drugs can better target the disease and the genomic mutations.

Not only has survival improved over the past two decades, but so has quality of life. The initial TKIs that were previously used in these patients heavily affected their quality of life. Side effects such as fatigue, loss of appetite, changes in taste and the onset of nausea, can all lead to weight loss. The use of these TKIs was also associated with heart abnormalities, poor kidney function, high blood pressure, bleeding complications and wound healing complications.

But now, Geiger explained, the recently developed agents are much better tolerated than the previous ones.

Theres an all-around benefit where patients are living longer with their cancer, and theyre living with a better quality of life (with) many fewer side effects than what they normally would, she said.

Prior to the development of these agents, a patient may have had to undergo a total laryngectomy, which is the surgical removal of the larynx, which is better known as the voice box.

This procedure, Geiger said, can often become a huge quality-of-life issue for patients who now have to depend on and manage their tracheostomy (an opening created at the front of the neck so a tube can be inserted into the windpipe, or trachea, to help with breathing).

Patients who receive a tracheostomy often have to be trained in how to change the tubing, work with speech and language pathologists to make sure they are swallowing properly, or if they may be a candidate to be fitted for a voice prosthetic.

We have been more thoughtful of these patients where normally the standard of care is if youre able to have surgery, you have the surgery and avoid systemic therapy. But in a situation like that, some of these newer drugs have allowed us to question that treatment. And weve had patients who, for whatever reason, have said Yeah, Im not ready for such a big surgery, she said.

The recent developments of more effective TKIs luckily mean that a tracheostomy does not have to be a patients only option. In fact, as Geiger noted, some patients may only need to undergo a comprehensive surgery at first and then receive treatment with the more effective TKIs.

Depending on the molecular profile, weve saved patients, or at least delayed patients, from having a total laryngectomy or being (tracheostomy)-dependent, which again I think is a significant improvement, she said.

Watch and Wait

Even though there have been tremendous advancements that improve survival and quality of life, that doesnt mean that every patient should receive immediate treatment, she explained.

For instance, if a patients lesion is small enough, Geiger said she tells patients that shell see them again in six months.

However, all of this is dependent on the presence of genomic mutations. And, as Geiger added, every patient should receive genetic testing to find out which treatment might be best for them.

Its a combination of looking to see what their molecular profile is to see what options we have available, but then looking back at the patient characteristics, clinically how theyre doing and feeling and what is their overall tumor burden because not everybody warrants treatment at that time, she said. Even though we have better options and more options for treatment, that doesnt mean, at least right now, that Im more eager to use them sooner than I would otherwise.

More Room for Improvement

Although these advancements have been significant for patients with thyroid cancer, they only touch the surface, as they pertain to four or five different genetic mutations out of the dozens that exist in thyroid cancer, Geiger said.

Theres a lot of patients that are not getting these highly selective therapies because they dont exist, she explained.

The hope, Geiger said, is there will be more targeted therapies for all the different mutations over the next 20 years.

Another major concern she said is that cancer is very smart. A provider can give patients these therapies, but the cancer may find a way around it.

For instance, a patients cancer could develop a new mutation or a new driver that allows the cancer to unlock another door to progression that was once blocked by that other drug, Geiger explained.

Identifying those escape mechanisms or escape mutations and then developing another drug to (attack that), I think thats going to be important as the years go on, she said.

Another hot topic right now in the thyroid cancer space is immunotherapy, which is a treatment that has been commonly utilized in other cancers such as lung cancer.

While there are a few studies evaluating the use of immunotherapy in thyroid cancer, they havent shown the treatment to be as effective as has been seen in other cancers, she described. Again, Geiger noted that some patients may not need to receive immunotherapy.

Patients with targetable genomic mutations, she said, may respond to those treatments for years possibly eliminating the need for immunotherapy.

I have some patients who have been on these medicines for over two years and still get the same responses, which is amazing. Two years in the grand scheme of things is a long, long time, she added. We know that not everybody responds to immunotherapy. In thyroid cancer, the majority of patients actually will not benefit from immunotherapy; meaning that you could give it to them but theyre not going to respond to it. Its probably a very small subset of thyroid cancer patients where immunotherapy will work.

Of note, there is no FDA-approved immunotherapy available to patients with thyroid cancer, according to Geiger.

Unnecessary Stress and Anxiety

Technological advances over the past 20 years have significantly improved the capabilities of imaging and ultrasound testing. As a result, providers have been able to detect more thyroid cancers. While a good development for some patients, Geiger noted that this may have caused a tremendous amount of stress and anxiety in patients that may not have had to worry.

If you look to see the types of thyroid cancer were better at detecting, its the very small, very slow-growing ones that probably for a majority of those patients would never have come to clinical fruition, she said. The patients would have died with that small thyroid cancer rather than from it.

A Focus on Multidisciplinary Care

Despite the added concern for some patients that may have been considered low-risk, the treatment advancements over the past 20 years have been significant for those with a diagnosis of thyroid cancer, according to Geiger.

In the next 20 years, she continued, a shift to a multidisciplinary approach may lead to more treatment advancements and even better outcomes. Instead of a focus on the medical oncologists, a patients care team should also comprise Interventional radiologists (professionals who can perform minimally invasive surgeries), radiation oncologists and endocrinologists, so that they may all consult on what is the best treatment approach.

Having a multidisciplinary approach for some of these really advanced and aggressive thyroid cancers is key because theres a lot of moving pieces involved. I think molecular testing for whenever the patient is considered recurrent, or highly aggressive late-stage type of cancer, I think that is key because you need that information well before any other treatment is started, Geiger concluded.

For more news on cancer updates, research and education, dont forget to, subscribe toCUREs Newsletters here.

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'Monumental' Treatment Advancements Have Been 'Life-Changing' For Many Patients With Thyroid Cancer - Curetoday.com

Five second rule! her classmates shouted as they rushed to pick up some food they had dropped on the ground. At that moment, 10-year-old Isha Mehrotra knew what she wanted to do for the annual science fair.

After scouring the internet with her father, Mehrotra learned how to culture bacteria from home, first tossing food on the floor of her kitchen and swabbing samples onto agar plates her very first microbiology project. She remembers presenting the data to her peers, watching their faces fall as they realized how much bacteria was on the food even after just five seconds. The experience kindled Mehrotras love of learning about the natural world, and more importantly, sharing that knowledge with others.

Now a senior studying biology, Mehrotra enjoys the investigative quality of science above all else.

The more you study science, the more you realize what you dont know about it, she says.

MIT has also been a place for Mehrotra to learn more about herself. In the spring of her sophomore year, she worked in the lab of Alessio Fasano with Maureen Leonard at Massachusetts General Hospitals Mucosal Immunology and Biology Research Center, investigating the blood microbiome of pediatric patients with an autoimmune condition called celiac disease which Mehrotra herself was diagnosed with when she was a child.

Her diagnosis sparked an early interest in science and medicine. Today, she works to discover more about celiac, its causes, and effects on the individuals who have it, aiming for a future in which patients can be treated effectively or avoid getting the disease altogether.

Through her research experience, which has included publishing her work as a first author in the journal Current Research in Microbial Sciences, Mehrotra has learned that when presenting her findings, having faith in her work is half the battle, especially when challenging canonical scientific beliefs. At the end of the day, you know, your data is your data. And presenting that with conviction and confidence is something that Ive learned how to balance. I try to do that even when Im acknowledging that there are various aspects of the work that have yet to be understood or validated, she says.

Mehrotra also serves as a member on the Board of Directors at Boston Childrens Hospital Celiac Kids Connection, where she works to build a safe space for children with celiac. She she understands firsthand the physical and emotional toll celiac disease can have, and values the opportunity to learn more about how to support people and navigate these challenges. For instance, she recognized the connection of food insecurity to celiac early on, as celiac is treated with a gluten-free diet. One of her most fulfilling projects, funded through the PKG Center at MIT, has been helping reduce gluten-free food insecurity exacerbated by the pandemic, working with a team at Childrens to research and mitigate these food access issues.

It comes back to looking at things in different ways. How can I have a great impact in one area if I dont consider all the various facets of it? she asks.

In her classes, Mehrotra has also been drawn to complex public health topics with multiple perspectives, developing an anthropology background via her HASS coursework (for which she was named a Burchard Scholar) and an entrepreneurial framework by participating in MIT Sandbox. In January 2020, she took HST.434 (Evolution of an Epidemic), travelling to South Africa to study the evolution of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the area. The experience was eye-opening for Mehrotra; she saw firsthand the variety of factors social, political, biological needed to approach a singular issue.

In June of last year, Mehrotra participated in the MIT Washington Summer Internship Program, where she worked for Gryphon Scientific, studying data to see how pandemics emerge and evolve at the biological level and what can be done at the policy level to prevent them. The experience allowed Mehrotra to see how different players can influence a singular problem.

Social processes that underlie science and medicine are really important to me to continue studying, she says.

On campus, Mehrotra has also been working as a mentor in her dormitory, Maseeh Hall, and peer tutor. During her first year she joined dynaMIT, a STEM outreach program for middle school students in Boston through which she taught biology in ways that made it more fun and accessible. She has also found ways to bring MIT biology students together as co-president of the Biology Undergraduate Sudent Assocation and to provide funding for on-campus initiatives as a board member of the Harvard-MIT Cooperative. Mehrotra also taught chemistry and biology to students in Wales through the Global Teaching Labs program and was a teaching assistant for the biology lab course 7.002 (Fundamentals of Experimental Molecular Biology) and for 7.012 (Introduction to Biology). While she understands that not all students are excited to take a required class such as 7.012, Mehrotra enjoys helping them engage with the content in meaningful ways.

I just dont see a better use of gaining knowledge than spreading it to other people, she says.

Mehrotra is also a member of MITs womens lightweight crew team. As the coxswain, she steers the boat and directs the other rowers both technically and motivationally during practices and races. She says the position has helped her develop her teamwork and leadership skills and allowed her to learn something new that she had never done before MIT. It has been a great exercise in learning to be a leader and learning what I can do to support people even if I'm not experiencing exactly what they are, which is something I will have to do long term in my career as well, she says.

Mehrotra will attend Stanford Medical School in the fall, with the goal of becoming a physician-scientist, dedicated to sharing knowledge, doing science, and interfacing with humanistic issues. Mehrotra wants to work directly with patients and researchers to solve medical issues, discovering new information and working with people who bring diverse perspectives. In the long run, she would like to start her own multidisciplinary research practice, where she envisions being able to see and treat patients some days a week, while also running a lab with different types of researchers, such as technical and social scientists.

For now, she is savoring the last few months of her time at MIT. Im happiest when Im going around doing different things. Its a shame I have to graduate now because theres so much more to be done! she says.

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An early diagnosis sparks a lifelong interest in science and medicine - MIT News

PHILADELPHIA The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) today announced its newly elected class of Fellows of the AACR Academy.

The mission of the AACR Academy is to recognize and honor distinguished scientists whose scientific contributions have propelled significant innovation and progress against cancer. Fellows of the AACR Academy serve as a global brain trust of top contributors to cancer science and medicine who help advance the mission of the AACR to prevent and cure all cancers through research, education, communication, collaboration, science policy and advocacy, and funding for cancer research.

All Fellows are nominated and elected through an annual, multi-step peer review process conducted by existing Fellows of the AACR Academy and ratified by the AACR Academy Steering Committee and AACR Executive Committee in conjunction with the AACR Academy Nomination and Election Oversight Committee. This process involves a rigorous assessment of each candidates scientific accomplishments in cancer research and cancer-related sciences. Only individuals whose work has had a significant and enduring impact on cancer research are considered for election and induction into the AACR Academy.

This year, we are thrilled to announce the election of 33 new Fellows of the AACR Academy. These individuals from across the globe have all made quintessential contributions to cancer research, said Margaret Foti, PhD, MD (hc), chief executive officer of the AACR. The 2022 class consists of various luminaries who span the gamut of scientific disciplines. Collectively, their work has significantly accelerated the pace of progress against cancer and has served as an inspiration for countless cancer researchers. We are honored to have them join our 256 existing Fellows and look forward to celebrating their individual scientific achievements.

The members of the 2022 class of Fellows of the AACR Academy are:

Anne-Lise Brresen-Dale, PhD, MD (hc)

Professor Emerita, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

Scientific Areas of Expertise: Breast Cancer Profiling, Genomics, Molecular Genetics

For seminal research contributions involving breast cancer, DNA damage and repair, and the identification of molecular profiles that contribute to cancer risk, tumor staging, and therapy resistance led by conducting extensive gene expression profiling of breast carcinomas.

Otis Webb Brawley, MD

Associate Director, Community Outreach and Engagement, Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center; Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Oncology and Epidemiology, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland

Scientific Areas of Expertise: Epidemiology of Cancer, Health Disparities, Medical Oncology

For significant contributions to the fields of cancer prevention, early detection, diet and nutrition, cancer health disparities, tobacco cessation, and whole-patient care; and for his contributions to the promotion of appropriate screening efforts for malignancies such as breast, colon, and prostate cancer.

Peter J. Campbell, MBBCh, PhD

Head of Cancer, Ageing and Somatic Mutation, and Senior Group Leader, Wellcome Sanger Institute, Cambridge, England, United Kingdom

Scientific Areas of Expertise: Cancer Genomics, Somatic Cell Evolution, Structural Variation

For innovative contributions to defining the genetics and evolution of normal and cancerous cells including leveraging large-scale cancer genome sequencing technologies to develop cutting-edge computational tools capable of analyzing cancer genomic datasets, characterizing tumor mutational burden, and informing how best to improve the clinical management of cancer patients.

Neal G. Copeland, PhD

Professor of Practice, Department of Genetics, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas

Scientific Areas of Expertise: Cancer Genetics, Insertional Mutagenesis, Mouse Models of Human Cancer

For groundbreaking contributions to cancer genetics and quintessential studies involving the Sleeping Beauty transposable element system to establish various mouse models of cancer, which have been essential to the understanding of cancer initiation and progression, and for the identification of numerous candidate genes involved in carcinogenesis.

Luis Alberto Diaz Jr., MD

Head, Division of Solid Tumor Oncology; Grayer Family Chair, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, New York

Scientific Areas of Expertise: Cancer Therapeutics, Gastrointestinal Malignancies, Molecular Diagnostics

For pioneering efforts to provide the first definitive examples of circulating tumor DNA being successfully used as a cancer biomarker for screening, monitoring, and detection of occult disease, and for the discovery of the therapeutic link between immunotherapy and cancer genetics in patients with mismatch repair deficient tumors.

James R. Downing, MD

President and Chief Executive Officer, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, Tennessee

Scientific Areas of Expertise: Genetics and Genomics, Pediatric Oncology, Precision Medicine

For instrumental contributions to the creation and implementation of the Pediatric Cancer Genome Project, which has resulted in the sequencing of more than 800 genomes of children with cancer and several landmark discoveries in the biology of brain tumors, leukemia, cancer of the peripheral nervous system, and tumors of the eye.

Connie J. Eaves, OC, FRSC, FRS, CorrFRSE

Distinguished Scholar and Professor of Medical Genetics, School of Biomedical Engineering, University of British Columbia; Co-founder and Distinguished Scientist, Terry Fox Laboratory, British Columbia Cancer Research Centre, Vancouver, Canada

Scientific Areas of Expertise: Mammary Cell Biology, Normal and Malignant Hematopoiesis, Stem Cells

For essential contributions to the development of functional methods to quantify and characterize hematopoietic, mammary, and cancer stem cells that are now considered benchmarks in the field, and for co-discovering quiescent malignant stem cells in chronic myeloid leukemia.

Denise A. Galloway, PhD

Scientific Director, Pathogen-Associated Malignancies Integrated Research Center; Professor, Human Biology Division; Professor, Public Health Sciences Division; Paul Stephanus Memorial Endowed Chair, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, Washington

Scientific Areas of Expertise: Anogenital Cancers, Merkel Cell Carcinoma, Virology

For breakthrough studies involving human papillomavirus (HPV) and subsequent research that has contributed to the development of HPV vaccines, and for her seminal contributions to the understanding of pathogen-associated cancers, specifically HPV-induced cervical cancer.

Patricia A. Ganz, MD

Distinguished Professor of Health Policy and Management, Fielding School of Public Health; Professor of Medicine, David Geffen School of Medicine; Director, Center for Cancer Prevention and Control Research, Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California

Scientific Areas of Expertise: Cancer Survivorship, Health-related Quality of Life, Patient Reported Outcomes

For pioneering efforts to enhance cancer prevention and improve patient survivorship, quality of life, and the understanding of the late effects of cancer treatment, which have been essential to the evolution of clinical cancer care, particularly in the areas of psychosocial distress, cancer-related cognitive impairment, and post-treatment fatigue.

K. Christopher Garcia, PhD

Younger Family Professor; Professor of Structural Biology, Stanford University; Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Stanford, California

Scientific Areas of Expertise: Immunology, Protein Engineering, Structural Biology

For world-renowned contributions to the fields of immunology and structural biology, defining the biophysical properties of receptor-ligand binding, and the visualization of protein complexes crucial to the understanding of the immune system and drug design, including the first structural view of a T-cell receptor bound to a peptide-MHC complex and for defining the crystal structures of several important immunoregulatory proteins, including interleukins and interferons.

Jennifer R. Grandis, MDAmerican Cancer Society Professor; Distinguished Professor of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California

Scientific Areas of Expertise: Precision Medicine, Signal Transduction, Translational Research

For illuminating research on genomic alterations and key signaling pathways in head and neck cancer with the goal of enabling precision medicine studies.

James R. Heath, PhD

President and Professor, Institute for Systems Biology, Seattle, Washington; Professor of Molecular and Medical Pharmacology, University of California, Los Angeles, California

Scientific Areas of Interest: Biotechnology, Chemical Synthesis, Systems Biology

For pivotal contributions to the fields of biotechnology and cancer immunotherapy, bridging chemical synthesis and physics with biology to develop nanoscale technologies including single cell barcoding, the isolation of T cells recognizing neoantigens to generate novel T-cell therapies, and microfluidic chips for diagnostic purposes that provide an opportunity to stratify patients and analyze a patients antitumor response to drug treatment.

Nancy A. Jenkins, PhD

Professor of Practice, Department of Genetics, Division of Basic Science Research, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas

Scientific Areas of Expertise: Cancer Genetics; Insertional Mutagenesis, Mouse Models of Human Cancer

For pioneering contributions to cancer genetics and unrivaled efforts dedicated to establishing the Sleeping Beauty transposable element system to model human cancer in mice, a breakthrough that has since allowed for the identification of innumerable candidate genes responsible for tumors.

Thomas J. Kelly, MD, PhD

Benno C. Schmidt Chair of Cancer Research; Member, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center; Professor, Weill Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Cornell University, New York, New York

Scientific Areas of Expertise: DNA Damage and Repair, DNA Replication, Cell Cycle Control

For seminal discoveries that delineated the key principles governing the process of genetic replication and for developing the first cell-free DNA replication system capable of duplicating the complete genomes of viruses including SV40, effectively revolutionizing the cancer research field by creating a tool that allows for the identification and functional characterization of proteins and enzymes required for DNA replication.

Crystal L. Mackall, MD

Ernest and Amelia Gallo Family Professor; Professor of Pediatrics and Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California

Scientific Areas of Expertise: Cellular Immunotherapy, Pediatric Immuno-oncology, T cell Homeostasis

For pioneering contributions to the fields of pediatric oncology, immunology, and immunotherapeutics including the discovery of the role of IL-7 in T cell homeostasis, significant efforts to advance the use of CAR-T cell therapies, and for consistent and groundbreaking translational research dedicated to establishing novel treatments for pediatric cancer patients.

Alex Matter, MD

Chief Executive Officer, Experimental Therapeutics Centre, Agency for Science, Technology, and Research (A*STAR), Singapore

Scientific Areas of Expertise: Drug Discovery and Development, Molecularly Targeted Therapeutics, Precision Medicine

For unparalleled contributions to establishing personalized, anticancer therapeutics including his co-development of imatinib, the first tyrosine kinase inhibitor effective for the treatment of chronic myelogenous leukemia and beneficial when administered to patients with gastrointestinal stromal tumors or small cell lung cancer, research which has since provided the foundation for the development of numerous molecular targeted therapeutics.

Ira Mellman, PhD

Vice President of Cancer Immunology, Genentech Inc., South San Francisco, California; Professor, Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of California, San Francisco, California

Scientific Areas of Expertise: Cancer Immunology, Dendritic Cell Biology, T Cell Biology

For essential contributions to cancer immunology including the elucidation as to how dendritic cells trigger immune reactions, illuminating the mechanisms of checkpoint inhibition, and defining the cellular underpinning of membrane trafficking by discovering endosomes, findings that have collectively informed the development of cancer immunotherapies and have had a profound impact on our understanding of cancer immunity.

Gordon B. Mills, MD, PhD

Wayne and Julie Drinkward Endowed Chair in Precision Oncology, Director of Precision Oncology, Knight Cancer Institute, Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, Oregon

Scientific Areas of Expertise: Functional Proteomics, Systems Biology, Targeting Adaptive Responses in Cancer

For visionary efforts to advance precision medicine through genomics and systems biology, including seminal discoveries of the role of PI3K signaling in breast cancer and how alterations in this pathway contribute to tumor progression and therapeutic response, and for trailblazing the use of systems biology toward a personalized approach to breast cancer treatment.

Nikola P. Pavletich, PhD

Chair of Structural Biology, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center; Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, New York, New York

Scientific Areas of Expertise: Cell Cycle Regulation, Molecular Biology, Structural Biology

For pioneering the structural analysis of cancer-related proteins and pathways that has led to fundamental discoveries in the areas of cell cycle regulation and DNA-damage response, including his groundbreaking work on the crystal structure of the critically important P53 tumor suppressor protein bound to both DNA and the MDM2 oncoprotein.

Cecil B. Pickett, PhD

Former President, Research and Development, Biogen Idec Inc., Cambridge, Massachusetts

Scientific Areas of Interest: Drug Discovery and Development, Gene Expression

For instrumental research studies involving glutathione-S-transferases (GST) and for work related to cancer drug development, leading some of the earliest studies responsible for the cloning and characterization of GST genes, contributing to the understanding of the regulation of GST expression, and culminating with the discovery of antioxidant response elements.

Jennifer A. Pietenpol, PhD

Director, Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center; Chief Scientific and Strategy Officer and Executive Vice President for Research, Vanderbilt University Medical Center; Benjamin F. Byrd Jr. Professor of Oncology; Professor of Biochemistry, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee

Scientific Areas of Interest: Breast Cancer Research, Translational Molecular Genetics, Tumor Suppressors

For seminal contributions to the understanding of p53 protein family function (p53, p63, and p73) and triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) including the development of techniques to analyze p53 family-chromatin binding, deciphering the p63 and p73 cistrome, discovering that p73 is required for multiciliogenesis and ovarian folliculogenesis, and integrating molecular genetics and bioinformatics to develop and implement novel analytical methods to molecularly subtype difficult-to-treat TNBC.

Terence H. Rabbitts, FRS, FMedSci

Professor of Molecular Immunology, Institute of Cancer Research, London, England, United Kingdom

Scientific Areas of Expertise: Chromosomal Translocations, Protein Engineering, Protein Macromolecule Delivery Mechanisms

For fundamental work involving the characterization of human antibody and T-cell receptor gene diversity and rearrangement, establishing cDNA cloning technology widely used in molecular biology, discovery of chromosomal translocation genes in cancer, and creating the first gene fusion knock-in mice, work that has led to the development of methods using intracellular antibodies for small molecule drug discovery applied to hard-to-drug targets including mutant RAS and LMO2.

Neal Rosen, MD, PhD

Enid A. Haupt Chair in Medical Oncology, Member, Program in Molecular Pharmacology and Department of Medicine, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, New York

Scientific Areas of Expertise: Mechanism-based Combination Therapies, Mitogenic Signaling Pathways, Oncogene-induced Signaling Networks

For pioneering work dedicated to elucidating cell signaling mechanisms responsible for human cancers, identifying oncoprotein-dependent feedback inhibition of signaling networks as an important factor in tumor evolution and in the clinical response to targeted inhibitors, characterizing the functional classes of BRAF mutants, and developing numerous inhibitors of malignant transformation by targeting the RAS-RAF-MEK-ERK and PI3K-AKT-mTOR pathways.

Varda Rotter, PhD

Professor, Department of Molecular Cell Biology; Director, FAMRI Center of Excellence, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel

Scientific Areas of Expertise: p53 Biology and Function, Molecular Biology, Tumor Suppressors

For unrivaled research efforts dedicated to understanding p53 biology including how this crucial protein, when mutated, contributes to the activation of specific target genes and oncogenic signaling pathways associated with tumor initiation, progression, and drug resistance; and for recent research focused on developing novel mutant p53-dependent small peptide therapies capable of modifying the confirmation of mutant p53 proteins into wild-type protein confirmations able to induce apoptosis.

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AACR announces Fellows of the AACR Academy Class of 2022 - EurekAlert

image:EQRx and Insilico partner to Advance AI-driven Discovery & Development of Multiple Targets view more

Credit: Insilico

New York, New York, March 24, 2022-- Insilico Medicine ("Insilico"), a clinical stage end-to-end artificial intelligence (AI)-driven drug discovery company, today announced it has entered into a strategic collaboration with EQRx, a company committed to developing and delivering innovative medicines to patients at radically lower prices.

The collaboration will combine Insilicos Pharma.AI platform to advance de novo small molecule design and generation with EQRxs clinical development and commercialization expertise. EQRx and Insilico will engage in a co-development partnership whereby each party will be eligible for a profit share proportional to its respective level of investment.

Pursuant to the collaboration agreement, the parties will identify and select up to three therapeutics targets leveraging Insilicos AI-driven platform, Pharma. AI. Insilico will lead the drug discovery from small molecule hit identification through lead optimization and preclinical candidate nomination to Investigational New Drug (IND) application. EQRx will assume responsibility for driving clinical development, regulatory activities and commercialization. Insilico has the option to invest in the product candidate(s) at various clinical development stages in return for increased commercialization profits.

Both EQRx and Insilico Medicine strive to accelerate the discovery and development of new medicines and make effective therapeutics more accessible and affordable. This partnership will combine our end-to-end AI-powered drug discovery capabilities with EQRxs innovative partnership model and expertise in clinical development and patient access to accelerate the discovery and development of innovative therapies said Alex Zhavoronkov, PhD, founder and CEO of Insilico Medicine.

We are pleased to partner with Insilico Medicine, a leader in AI-based drug discovery, said Carlos Garcia-Echeverria, PhD, chief of Rx Creation at EQRx. This collaboration will further expand our early-stage R&D efforts to fuel potential pipeline growth as we continue to apply the best of todays innovation in biomedical sciences and digital solutions to discover high-quality, innovative and more affordable medicines.

About Insilico Medicine

Insilico Medicine, a clinical stage end-to-end artificial intelligence (AI)-driven drug discovery company, is connecting biology, chemistry, and clinical trials analysis using next-generation AI systems. The company has developed AI platforms that utilize deep generative models, reinforcement learning, transformers, and other modern machine learning techniques to discover novel targets and to design novel molecular structures with desired properties. Insilico Medicine is delivering breakthrough solutions to discover and develop innovative drugs for cancer, fibrosis, immunity, central nervous system (CNS) diseases and aging-related diseases.

For more information, visit http://www.insilico.com.

For media inquiry, please contact media@insilicomedicine.com.

Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.

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EQRx and Insilico partner to advance ai-driven discovery and development of multiple targets - EurekAlert