Category Archives: Texas Stem Cells

Abdomen The area of the body between the bottom of the ribs and the top of the thighs.

Abdominal aorta The portion of the aorta in the abdomen.

Ablation Elimination or removal.

ACE (angiotensin-converting enzyme) inhibitor A medicine that lowers blood pressure by interfering with the breakdown of a protein-like substance involved in blood pressure regulation.

Acetylcholine A type of chemical (called a neurotransmitter) that transmits messages among nerve cells and muscle cells.

Acquired heart disease Heart disease that arises after birth, usually from infection or through the build-up of fatty deposits in the arteries that feed the heart muscle.

Alveoli Air sacs in the lungs where oxygen and carbon dioxide are exchanged.

Amiodarone A kind of medicine (called an antiarrhythmic) used to treat irregular heart rhythms such as atrial fibrillation and ventricular tachycardia. It works by regulating nerve impulses in your heart. Amiodarone is mainly given to patients who have not responded to other antiarrhythmic medicines.

Aneurysm A sac-like protrusion from a blood vessel or the heart, resulting from a weakening of the vessel wall or heart muscle.

Angina or angina pectoris Chest pain that occurs when diseased blood vessels restrict blood flow to the heart.

Angiography An x-raytechnique in which dye is injected into the chambers of your heart or the arteries that lead to your heart (the coronary arteries). The test lets doctors measure the blood flow and blood pressure in the heart chambers and see if the coronary arteries are blocked.

Angioplasty A nonsurgical technique for treating diseased arteries by temporarily inflating a tiny balloon inside an artery.

Angiotensin II receptor blockerA medicine that lowers blood pressure by blocking the action of angiotensin II, a chemical in the body that causes the blood vessels to tighten (constrict).

Annulus The ring around a heart valve where the valve leaflet merges with the heart muscle.

Antiarrhythmics Medicinesused to treat patients who have irregular heart rhythms.

Anticoagulant Any medicine that keeps blood from clotting; a blood thinner.

Antihypertensive Any medicine or other therapy that lowers blood pressure.

Antiplatelet therapy Medicines that stop blood cells (called platelets) from sticking together and forming a blood clot.

Aorta The largest artery in the body and the main vessel to supply blood from the heart.

Aortic valve The valve that regulates blood flow from the heart into the aorta.

Aphasia The inability to speak, write, or understand spoken or written language because of brain injury or disease.

Arrhythmia (or dysrhythmia) An abnormal heartbeat.

Arrhythmogenic right ventricular dysplasia (ARVD) ARVD is a type of cardiomyopathy with no known cause. It appears to be a genetic condition (passed down through a familys genes). ARVD causes ventricular arrhythmias.

Arteriography A test that is combined with cardiac catheterization to visualize an artery or the arterial system after injection of a contrast dye.

Arterioles Small, muscular branches of arteries. When they contract, they raiseresistance to blood flow, and blood pressure in the arteries increases.

Artery A vessel that carries oxygen-rich blood to the body.

Arteritis Inflammation of the arteries.

Arteriosclerosis A disease process, commonly called hardening of the arteries, which includes a variety of conditions that cause artery walls to thicken and lose elasticity.

Artificial heart A manmade heart. Also called a total artificial heart (TAH).

Ascending aorta The first portion of the aorta, emerging from the hearts left ventricle.

AspirinAcetylsalicylic acid; a medicine used to relieve pain, reduce inflammation, and prevent blood clots.

Atherectomy A nonsurgical technique for treating diseased arteries with a rotating device that cuts or shaves away material that is blocking or narrowing an artery.

Atherosclerosis A disease process that leads to the buildup of a waxy substance, called plaque, inside blood vessels.

Atrium (right and left) The two upper or holding chambers of the heart (together referred to as atria).

Atrial flutter A type of arrhythmia in which the upper chambers of the heart (the atria) beat very fast, causing the walls of the lower chambers (the ventricles) to beat inefficiently as well.

Atrial septal defect See septal defect.

Atrial tachycardia A type of arrhythmia that begins in the hearts upper chambers (the atria) and causes a very fast heart rate of 160 to 200 beats a minute. A resting heart rate is normally 60 to 100 beats a minute.

Atrioventricular block An interruption or disturbance of the electrical signal between the hearts upper two chambers (the atria) and lower two chambers (the ventricles).

Atrioventricular (AV) node A group of cells in the heart located between the upper two chambers (the atria) and the lower two chambers (the ventricles) that regulates the electrical current that passes through it to the ventricles.

Atrium Either one of the hearts two upper chambers.

Autologous Relating to self. For example, autologous stem cells are those taken from the patients own body.

Autoregulation When blood flow to an organ stays the same although pressurein the artery that delivers blood to that organ may have changed.

Bacteria Germs that can lead to disease.

Bacterial endocarditis A bacterial infection of the lining of the hearts chambers (called the endocardium) or of the hearts valves.

Balloon catheterA long tube-like device with a small balloon on the end that can be threaded through an artery. Used in angioplasty or valvuloplasty.

Balloon valvuloplasty A procedure to repair a heart valve. A balloon-tipped catheter is threaded through an artery and into the heart. The balloon is inflated to open and separate any narrowed or stiffened flaps (called leaflets) of a valve.

Beta-blocker An antihypertensivemedicine that limits the activity of epinephrine, a hormone that increases blood pressure.

Biopsy The process by which a small sample of tissue is taken for examination.

Blalock-Taussig procedure A shunt between the subclavian and pulmonary arteries used to increase the supply of oxygen-rich blood in blue babies (see below).

Blood clot A jelly-like mass of blood tissue formed by clotting factors in the blood. Clots stop the flow of blood from an injury. Clots can also form inside an artery when the arterys walls are damaged by atherosclerotic buildup, possibly causing a heart attack or stroke.

Blood pressure The force or pressure exerted by the heart in pumping blood; the pressure of blood in the arteries.

Blue babies Babies who have a blue tinge to their skin (cyanosis) resulting from insufficient oxygen in the arterial blood. This condition often indicates a heart defect.

Body mass index (BMI) A number that indicates an increased risk of cardiovascular disease from a person being overweight. BMI is calculated using a formula of weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared (BMI =W [kg]/H [m2]).Click here for a BMI calculator.

Bradycardia Abnormally slow heartbeat.

Bridge to transplant Use of mechanical circulatory support to keep heart failure patients alive until a donor heart becomes available.

Bruit A sound made in the blood vessels resulting from turbulence, perhaps because ofa buildup of plaque or damage to the vessels.

Bundle branch block A condition in which parts of the hearts conduction system are defective and unable to conduct the electrical signal normally, causing an irregular heart rhythm (arrhythmia).

Bypass Surgery that can improve blood flow to the heart (or other organs and tissues) by providing a new route, or bypass around a section of clogged or diseased artery.

Calcium channel blocker (or calcium blocker) A medicine that lowers blood pressure by regulating calcium-related electrical activity in the heart.

Capillaries Microscopically small blood vessels between arteries and veins that distribute oxygen-rich blood to the bodys tissues.

Cardiac Pertaining to the heart.

Cardiac amyloidosis A disorder caused by deposits of an abnormal protein (amyloid) in the heart tissue, which make it hard for the heart to work properly. Also called stiff heart syndrome.

Cardiac arrest The stopping of the heartbeat, usually because of interference with the electrical signal (often associated with coronary heart disease).

Cardiac cachexia A term for the muscle and weight loss caused by severe heart disease. It is often related to the depressed cardiac output associated with end-stage heart failure, but it can also occur with severe coronary artery disease.

Cardiac catheterization A procedure that involves inserting a fine, hollow tube (catheter) into an artery, usually in the groin area, and passing the tube into the heart. Often used along with angiography and other procedures, cardiac catheterization has become a primary tool for visualizing the heart and blood vessels and diagnosing and treating heart disease.

Cardiac enzymes Complex substances capable of speeding up certain biochemical processes in the heart muscle. Abnormal levels of these enzymes signal heart attack.

Cardiac output The amount of blood the heart pumps through the circulatory system in one minute.

Cardiologist A doctor who specializes in the study of the heart and its function in health and disease.

Cardiology The study of the heart and its function in health and disease.

Cardiomegaly An enlarged heart. It is usually a sign of an underlying problem, such as high blood pressure, heart valve problems, or cardiomyopathy.

Cardiomyopathy A disease of the heart muscle that leads to generalized deterioration of the muscle and its pumping ability.

Cardiopulmonary bypass The process by which a machine is used to do the work of the heart and lungs so the heart can be stopped during surgery.

Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) An emergency measure that can maintain a persons breathing and heartbeat. The person who performs CPR actually helps the patients circulatory system by breathing into the patients mouth to give them oxygen and by giving chest compressions to circulate the patients blood. Hands-only CPR involves only chest compressions.

Cardiovascular (CV) Pertaining to the heart and blood vesselsthat make upthe circulatory system.

Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) A general term referring to conditions affecting the heart (cardio) and blood vessels (vascular system). May also simply be called heart disease. Examples include coronary artery disease, valve disease, arrhythmia, peripheral vascular disease, congenital heart defects, hypertension, and cardiomyopathy. Refer to specific conditions for detailed explanations.

Cardioversion A technique of applying an electrical shock to the chestto convert an abnormal heartbeat to a normal rhythm.

Carotid artery A major artery (right and left) in the neck supplying blood to the brain.

Cerebral embolism A blood clot formed in one part of the body and then carried by the bloodstream to the brain, where it blocks an artery.

Cerebral hemorrhage Bleeding within the brain resulting from a ruptured blood vessel, aneurysm, orhead injury.

Cerebral thrombosis Formation of a blood clot in an artery that supplies part of the brain.

Cerebrovascular Pertaining to the blood vessels of the brain.

Cerebrovascular accident Also called cerebral vascular accident, apoplexy, or stroke. Blood supply to some part of the brain is slowed or stopped, resulting in injury to brain tissue.

Cerebrovascular occlusion The blocking or closing of a blood vessel in the brain.

Cholesterol An oily substance that occurs naturally in the body, in animal fats and in dairy products, and that is transported in the blood. Limitedamounts are essential for the normal development of cell membranes. Excess amounts can lead to coronary artery disease.

Cineangiography The technique ofusing moving pictures to show how a special dye passes through blood vessels,allowing doctors to diagnose diseases of the heart and blood vessels.

Circulatory system Pertaining to circulation of blood through the heart and blood vessels.

Claudication A tiredness or pain in the arms and legs caused by an inadequate supply of oxygen to the muscles, usually due to narrowed arteries or peripheral arterial disease (PAD).

Collateral circulation Blood flow through small, nearby vessels in response to blockage of a main blood vessel.

Commissurotomy-A procedure used to widen the opening of a heart valve that has been narrowed by scar tissue.

Computed tomography (CT or CAT scan) An x-ray technique that uses a computer to create cross-sectional images of the body.

Conduction system Special muscle fibers that conduct electrical impulses throughout the heart muscle.

Congenital Refers to conditions existing at birth.

Congenital heart defects Malformation of the heart or of its major blood vessels present at birth.

Congestive heart failure A condition in which the heart cannot pump all the blood returning to it, leading to a backup of blood in the vessels and an accumulation of fluid in the bodys tissues, including the lungs.

Coronary arteries Two arteries arising from the aorta that arch down over the top of the heart and divide into branches. They provide blood to the heart muscle.

Coronary artery anomaly(CAA) A congenital defect in one or more of the coronary arteries of the heart.

Coronary artery bypass (CAB) Surgical rerouting of blood around a diseased vessel that supplies blood to the heart. Done by grafting either a piece of vein from the leg or a piece of the artery from under the breastbone.

Coronary artery disease (CAD) A narrowing of thearteries that supply blood to the heart. The condition results from a buildup of plaque and greatly increases the risk of a heart attack.

Coronary heart disease Disease of the heart caused by a buildup of atherosclerotic plaque in the coronary arteries thatcan lead to angina pectoris or heart attack.

Coronary occlusion An obstruction of one of the coronary arteries that hinders blood flow tothe heart muscle.

Original post:
Cardiovascular Glossary A-Z (All) | Texas Heart Institute

LAUSANNE, Switzerland--(BUSINESS WIRE)--ADC Therapeutics SA (NYSE: ADCT) today announced that ZYNLONTA (loncastuximab tesirine-lpyl) and camidanlumab tesirine (Cami) abstracts have been accepted for presentation at the Tenth Annual Meeting of the Society of Hematologic Oncology (SOHO 2022), which will be held in Houston, Texas from September 28October 1, 2022.

We are looking forward to sharing the encouraging initial safety run-in results from our LOTIS-5 Phase 3 clinical trial evaluating ZYNLONTA in combination with rituximab in patients with relapsed or refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma at SOHO 2022, said Joseph Camardo, MD, Chief Medical Officer of ADC Therapeutics. This is one of several clinical studies of ZYNLONTA in combination with other drugs intended to evaluate ZYNLONTA in earlier lines of treatment.

LOTIS-5 Initial Safety Run-In Results

LOTIS-5 is a Phase 3, randomized, openlabel, twopart, twoarm, multicenter study of loncastuximab tesirine in combination with rituximab (Lonca-R) in patients with relapsed or refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL). Twenty patients were enrolled in part 1 in a nonrandomized safety runin. In part 2, approximately 330 patients will be randomized 1:1 to receive LoncaR or rituximabgemcitabineoxaliplatin (RGemOx).

The 20 patients in the safety runin were a median age of 74.5 years (range 3593) and received a median of 1 previous therapy (range 16). As of the February 28, 2022, data cutoff:

These data will be presented in the following poster:

Initial Safety RunIn Results of the Phase 3 LOTIS5 Trial: Novel Combination of Loncastuximab Tesirine With Rituximab (LoncaR) Versus Immunochemotherapy in Patients With R/R DLBCLPoster Number: ABCL-320

Details of ADC Therapeutics other poster presentations:

A Phase 2, Open-Label Study of Loncastuximab Tesirine in Combination with Rituximab (Lonca-R) in Previously Untreated Unfit/Frail Patients with Diffuse Large B-cell Lymphoma (DLBCL) (LOTIS-9) (Encore data, first time as presentation)Poster Number: ABCL-272

Health-Related Quality of Life and Tolerability in Patients With/Without Skin Toxicity During Loncastuximab Tesirine Treatment in a Phase 2 Clinical Trial (LOTIS-2)Poster Number: ABCL-316

Long-term survival projections of loncastuximab tesirine-treated patients in relapsed or refractory (R/R) diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) (Encore data, first time as presentation)Poster Number: ABCL-334

Camidanlumab Tesirine: Updated Efficacy and Safety in an Open-Label, Multicenter, Phase 2 Study of Patients with Relapsed or Refractory Classical Hodgkin Lymphoma (R/R cHL) (Encore)Poster Number: HL-339

All posters will be presented on Wednesday, September 28 from 5:05 to 6:30 p.m. CT in Ballroom of Americas on Level 2 of the Hilton-Americas Houston. Posters will remain in the poster hall for viewing throughout the day on Thursday and Friday. Online access to posters for registered attendees will begin on Thursday, September 29.

Details of ADC Therapeutics oral presentation:

Camidanlumab Tesirine: Updated Efficacy and Safety in an Open-Label, Multicenter, Phase 2 Study of Patients with Relapsed or Refractory Classical Hodgkin Lymphoma (R/R cHL) (Encore)Date and Time: Friday, September 30, 5:48-5:58 p.m. CTLocation: Grand Ballroom G-L, 4th floorPresenter: Alex Herrera, MD, City of Hope, Duarte, California, USASession XII: Hodgkin Lymphoma

About ZYNLONTA (loncastuximab tesirine-lpyl)

ZYNLONTA is a CD19-directed antibody drug conjugate (ADC). Once bound to a CD19-expressing cell, ZYNLONTA is internalized by the cell, where enzymes release a pyrrolobenzodiazepine (PBD) payload. The potent payload binds to DNA minor groove with little distortion, remaining less visible to DNA repair mechanisms. This ultimately results in cell cycle arrest and tumor cell death.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved ZYNLONTA (loncastuximab tesirine-lpyl) for the treatment of adult patients with relapsed or refractory (r/r) large B-cell lymphoma after two or more lines of systemic therapy, including DLBCL not otherwise specified, DLBCL arising from low-grade lymphoma and also high-grade B-cell lymphoma. The trial included a broad spectrum of heavily pre-treated patients (median three prior lines of therapy) with difficult-to-treat disease, including patients who did not respond to first-line therapy, patients refractory to all prior lines of therapy, patients with double/triple hit genetics and patients who had stem cell transplant and CAR-T therapy prior to their treatment with ZYNLONTA. This indication is approved by the FDA under accelerated approval based on overall response rate and continued approval for this indication may be contingent upon verification and description of clinical benefit in a confirmatory trial.

ZYNLONTA is also being evaluated as a therapeutic option in combination studies in other B-cell malignancies and earlier lines of therapy.

About Camidanlumab Tesirine (Cami)

Camidanlumab tesirine (Cami) is an antibody drug conjugate (ADC) comprised of a monoclonal antibody that binds to CD25 (HuMax-TAC, licensed from Genmab A/S), conjugated to the pyrrolobenzodiazepine (PBD) dimer payload, tesirine. Once bound to a CD25-expressing cell, Cami is internalized into the cell where enzymes release the PBD-based payload, killing the cell. This applies to CD25-expressing tumor cells and also to CD25-expressing Tregs. The intra-tumoral release of its PBD payload may also cause bystander killing of neighboring tumor cells, and PBDs have also been shown to induce immunogenic cell death. All of these properties of Cami may enhance immune-mediated anti-tumor activity.

Cami is being evaluated in a pivotal Phase 2 clinical trial in patients with relapsed or refractory Hodgkin lymphoma and a Phase 1b clinical trial as monotherapy and in combination with pembrolizumab in solid tumors.

About ADC Therapeutics

ADC Therapeutics (NYSE: ADCT) is a commercial-stage biotechnology company improving the lives of those affected by cancer with its next-generation, targeted antibody drug conjugates (ADCs). The Company is advancing its proprietary PBD-based ADC technology to transform the treatment paradigm for patients with hematologic malignancies and solid tumors.

ADC Therapeutics CD19-directed ADC ZYNLONTA (loncastuximab tesirine-lpyl) is approved by the FDA for the treatment of relapsed or refractory diffuse large b-cell lymphoma after two or more lines of systemic therapy. ZYNLONTA is also in development in combination with other agents. Cami (camidanlumab tesirine) is being evaluated in a pivotal Phase 2 trial for relapsed or refractory Hodgkin lymphoma and in a Phase 1b clinical trial for various advanced solid tumors. In addition to ZYNLONTA and Cami, ADC Therapeutics has multiple ADCs in ongoing clinical and preclinical development.

ADC Therapeutics is based in Lausanne (Biople), Switzerland and has operations in London, the San Francisco Bay Area and New Jersey. For more information, please visit https://adctherapeutics.com/ and follow the Company on Twitter and LinkedIn.

ZYNLONTA is a registered trademark of ADC Therapeutics SA.

Originally posted here:
ADC Therapeutics Announces Abstracts to be Presented at the Tenth Annual Meeting of the Society of Hematologic Oncology (SOHO 2022) - Business Wire

Transcript:

Yi-Bin Chen, MD: Welcome to this Cancer Network presentation, Developments in Graft versus Host Disease Prevention and Treatment. I am your host, Dr Yi-Bin Chen. I am the director of the hematopoietic cell transplant and cell therapy program and the Rogers Endowed Chair at Massachusetts General Hospital and associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston. Joining me today are my friends and colleagues, Drs Amin Alousi, Nelson Chao, and Hana Safah. Would you introduce yourselves? Nelson, go ahead.

Nelson J. Chao, MD, MBA: I am Nelson Chao. I run the hematology malignancy and cell therapy program at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina.

Yi-Bin Chen, MD: Amin?

Amin M. Alousi, MD: Thank you, Yi-Bin. I am Amin Alousi, professor of medicine at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, and I lead our GVHD [graft versus host disease] program multidiscipline clinic and long-term follow-up. I am the medical director.

Yi-Bin Chen, MD: Hana?

Hana F. Safah, MD: Thank you. I am Dr Safah. I am a professor of medicine at Tulane School of Medicine in New Orleans, Louisiana, and I am the director of the stem cell transplant program, as well as the hematology malignancy program at Tulane.

Yi-Bin Chen, MD: Today we are going to review background information on hematopoietic cell transplants, specifically focusing on graft vs host disease. We will review treatment options, recent development, and future direction. Well review a couple of clinical scenarios and discuss the information that we are all using in the clinic to make treatment decisions.Hematopoietic cell transplantation is something that none of us take likely. I think all of our centers perform a good number of these transplants every year, and the numbers are increasing. Its interesting to think about because not everyone understands why we do transplants and how that is interlaced with this complication of graft versus host disease. Nelson, do you want to talk a little bit about the underlying mechanism of how transplant helps patients, and how that relates to GVHD?

Nelson J. Chao, MD, MBA: Sure. Transplant is the first immunotherapy that we have. It was probably 45 plus years ago when it became pretty clear that you could alter somebodys immune system with new bone marrow cells. When we do a bone marrow transplant, there tends to be 3 components: you have to ablate the recipient so there is no rejection, give the stem cells with hematopoiesis, and then because of hematopoiesis, you actually replace the immune system. The immune system is a big component of the transplant. You give the preparatory regimen to treat the underlying disease, but the immune system thats new also can cause what we call graft versus leukemia [GVL] or graft versus tumor effect [GVTE], which is recognizing the host tumor as foreign and getting rid of it. That piece, graft versus leukemia, has a counterpart that is graft versus host [GVH]. Just as leukemia can be formed to the donor cells, host tissue can be formed to the donor cells as well and cause disease we call graft versus host.

Yi-Bin Chen, MD: When I was first training, I was always told that the holy grail in what we do in transplant is finding a way to separate this graft versus leukemia from graft versus host disease. I think weve made a lot of efforts , trying to do that over the past few decades, but Im not sure if they have been super successful. I think that recent work may be starting to do that. I think if you look at where we used to be with transplant back in the 1970s, when this all started or actually gained more popularity, youll see there is so much more heterogeneity these days. All of us use a lot of different graft sources. Hana, do you want to talk about the different sources of hematopoietic stem cells that we use these days? And maybe how that has changed over the past few years in terms of popularity?

Hana F. Safah, MD: Of course. The easiest one to speak of is where the stem cell is coming from the peripheral blood versus the bone marrowbut there is also the umbilical cord. As a transplanter of adult stem cells, I use the cord in a very few instances; it is more common when it comes to using stem cell transplant in the pediatric state. But mostly, it is the peripheral blood versus the bone marrow. With each 1 of those stem cell source and grafts, there are complications that we expect, especially when we are talking about GVHD and mainly chronic GVHD. That has been shown in studies. Data are available that support that with bone marrow stem cells, there is less chronic GVHD and a smaller burden of chronic GVHD on the patients after stem cell transplantation, as well as better recovery and quality of life. However, having said that, between them there isnt a difference in relapse and overall survival [OS]. Keep that in mind.

Now, first we go through the match-related then we go to the donor themselves. When you look at the donors, you have the match related or the match unrelated. There is mismatch related and there is mismatch unrelated. When we talk about the mismatch related, we are talking mostly about the haploidentical, which is becoming the newest fashion in stem cell transplant. We have learned so much from doing haploidentical stem cell transplants especially when it comes to learning how to take care of GVHD and the effect of treatment that is being applied for haploidenticaland now it is being used in trials, as well as being used by us in practice to take care of GVHD when we deal with match unrelated or mismatch unrelated.

Yi-Bin Chen, MD: Again, when I first trained and I think thats true for all of usI used to take into account the patients donor options to think about a transplant. These days, we accept the transplant if youre a match sibling, match unrelated donor, mismatch unrelated donor, haploidentical donor, or if youre using umbilical cord blood. Amin, do we have any data that say that a certain type of donor works best, or whatever that means in terms of overall outcomes? Or is there an algorithm you use at MD Anderson when youre trying to figure this out?

Amin M. Alousi, MD: Yes, data are still coming in and evolving, but in terms of algorithms at MD Anderson and elsewhere, we still say match-related donors are the top of that algorithm and would be the first donor of choice. The reason for that is because numerous studies have shown lower rates of graft versus host disease and treatment related mortality. In some settings, that may not always be the case. There are data to suggest that if a patient has advanced disease or high-risk disease, that may not apply. There are some conflictingdata to suggest benefits, or lack thereof, if donors are ofolder age, match sibling versus younger age match. There is analysis that we did anumber of years ago within the CIBMTR[Center for International Blood and Marrow Transplant Research] that showed that an older match sibling still has a better algorithm versus an unrelated transplant with regard to complications in GVHD, treatment-related mortality, and overall mortality. Some recent data suggest that in MDS [myelodysplastic syndromes]. Thats no longer the case, but generally speaking, a match related donor is still the preferred donor of the choice. Once you get away from that, there are a number of analyses that suggest comparable outcomes for half-match or haploidentical family member donors as match-term related donors.Data increasingly suggest that outcomes of even mismatch-related donors can be comparable, provided the right type of graft versus host disease prophylaxis is employed in those strategies.

Transcript edited for clarity.

See more here:
GVHD in the Context of Stem Cell or Allogeneic Transplant - Cancer Network

The thylacine has long been an icon of human-caused extinction. In the 1800s and early 1900s, European colonizers in Tasmania wrongly blamed the dog-sized, tiger-striped, carnivorous marsupial for killing their sheep and chickens. The settlers slaughtered thylacines by the thousands, exchanging the animals skins for a government bounty. The last known thylacine spent its days pacing a zoo cage in Hobart, Tasmania, and died of neglect in 1936.

Now the wolflike creaturealso known as the Tasmanian tigeris poised to become an emblem of de-extinction, an initiative that seeks to create new versions of lost species. Colossal Biosciences, a Texas-based de-extinction company that made headlines last September when it revealed that it planned to bring back the woolly mammoth, announced today that its second project will be resurrecting the thylacine.

Australian scientists have been hoping since 1999 to use emerging genetic technologies to try to bring the thylacine back from the dead. When the species went extinct, Tasmania lost its top predator. In theory, reintroducing proxy thylacines could help restore balance to Tasmanias remaining forests by picking off sick or weak animals and controlling overabundant herbivores such as wallabies and kangaroos, some researchers say. But early attempts at cloning the animal from museum specimens DNA failed, and the effort has not attracted significant fundinguntil this year.

Colossal Biosciences, co-founded by Harvard University geneticist George Church and tech entrepreneur Ben Lamm, is working with the University of Melbournes Andrew Pask, who has already sequenced most of the thylacine genome. The thylacine is the perfect candidate for de-extinction, Pask says, because it died out relatively recently, good-quality DNA is available, and its prey and parts of its natural habitat still exist.

In March his team established the Thylacine Integrated Genetic Restoration Research Lab with a philanthropic gift of five million Australian dollars (about $3.6 million). Colossal is providing more than that sum, Pask sayshe wont divulge exactly how muchas well as access to equipment, another dedicated thylacine lab in Texas and a large team of researchers.

With this partnership established, Pask now says its reasonable to expect to have a de-extincted thylacine-ish thing in a decade. That first iteration might be 90 percent thylacine, he says, though the ultimate goal is more like 99.9 percent. Eventuallyafter many years of monitoring the engineered animals in a large enclosed areaColossals goal is to release a viable, genetically-diverse population of perhaps 100 proxy thylacines into the wild.

To resurrect the woolly mammoth, Colossals researchers plan to introduce mammoth genes into the genome of the Asian elephant, its closest living relative. They will then try to create an embryo carrying that modified DNA that could gestate in an African elephant surrogate or an artificial uterus. The resulting creature would not be a mammoth per se but rather a cold-adapted Artic elephant with small ears, shaggy hair, a domed forehead and curved tusks, Lamm says. Yet if he showed the creature to his grandmother, shed say thats a woolly mammoth, he adds.

Already, Lamm says, Colossal has fully sequenced the Asian and African elephant genomes, collected more than fifty mammoth genomes, and begun making edits to elephant cellsbut he thinks the thylacine could turn out to be easier to revive than the mammoth because of the gestation times involved. Both projects still face many hurdles, however.

For the thylacine, the first task is to complete the sequencing of the animals genome. Pasks lab has about 96 percent of it down, but the final 4 percent is the trickiest, he says. Its like doing one of those horrible puzzles thats all baked beans or all blue sky. Every bit looks the same, and were trying to figure out how it goes together.

Next the researchers will compare the genome of the thylacine to that of one of its closest living relatives: the fat-tailed dunnart, a mouse-sized marsupial that is relatively abundant and copes well in captivity. Using CRISPR gene-editing technology, the scientists will engineer the dunnarts genome to more closely resemble the thylacines.

The researchers have already figured out how to re-program dunnart skin cells into stem calls, and are currently testing them to see whether theyre capable of generating an entire embryosomething that hasnt yet been done in marsupials, which develop differently from placental mammals such as humans and mice. Once theyve fine-tuned the recipe, theyll be able to use the stem cells to create a gene-edited living embryo they can insert into either a dunnart mother or an artificial marsupial womb, which they would have to invent.

Thylacine pregnancies are estimated to last just a few weeks, compared with 22 months for mammoths. And like other newborn marsupials, the baby thylacines would be little larger than a grain of rice, so even a diminutive dunnart mother could nourish them in her pouch at first. But Lamm says Colossal will work on developing a synthetic pouch, as well as a marsupial milk formula appropriate for each stage of development.

Collectively, these new marsupial reproductive technologies could become crucial tools for the conservation of extant species such as koalas or numbats, Pask says. There is absolutely no way I would have the millions that I have now for marsupial conservation if I [wasnt] trying to bring the Tasmanian tiger back, he says.

Other scientists are considerably less optimistic about the project. Mammal expert Kris Helgen of the Australian Museum, who worked on sequencing the thylacines mitochondrial genome in 2009, thinks altering the dunnarts DNA to truly resemble a thylacines will be an impossible feat. The two species are separated by as much as 40 million years of evolution, he says. Thylacines are so unlike other animals that theyre in their own taxonomic family, just as dogs are in one family of mammals and catsfrom tigers to tabbiesare in another. Turning a dunnart into a thylacine, Helgen says, would be the equivalent of editing a dogs genome until the resulting animal looked like a cat. (Mammoths and elephants are far more closely related.)

Even if Colossal could overcome the technical challenges involved, the prospect of resurrecting the thylacine raises ethical concerns, according to Carol Freeman, an animal studies researcher at the University of Tasmania. The whole discourse is about bringing this animal back, but the welfare of the individual animals isnt really talked about, she says. Both dunnarts and almost-thylacines would inevitably suffer in the course of these experiments, which cannot be justified for such an uncertain result. It would be many years, if ever, that cloned thylacines could have anything like the life they may have hadand deservein the wild.

If the scientists do get to the point where they have actual living thylacines in hand, Pask says they would consult the public, including Indigenous communities, about any release. But Bradley Moggridge, a Kamilaroi environmental scientist at the University of Canberra in Australia, says Indigenous Australians should be involved nowespecially Tasmanian Aboriginal peoples, who were themselves hunted by white settlers in the 19th century. They may have ideas; they might need to get [their traditional lands] ready for this species. That could take a long time, he says. Discussions between the Colossal team and Indigenous Australians could be beneficial for everyone, Moggridge says. Aboriginal ecological knowledge about the thylacine would have been encoded in stories and songs, and de-extinction could reignite some of them, but the researchers need to start those conversations now.

Other critics worry the glamour of de-extinction will rob attention and funding from conservation projects. One study in 2017 found that allocating sums to existing endangered species programs rather than giving the same amount of money to de-extinction efforts would see about two to eight times as many species saved. Its better to spend the money on the living than the dead, lead author Joseph Bennett of Carleton University in Ontario told Science.

The idea that science could restore the thylacine is just so lovely; it captures the imagination, says Helgen, who once made a pilgrimage to visit every museum specimen of the animal in existence. But the thylacine is extinct in Australia and in Tasmania, and theres no way to bring it back. Some species are simply gone forever because of how unique they were, and the thylacine is one of them, he says. A few million dollars [are] not going to give us an escape hatch from extinction.

See the original post:
De-extinction Company Aims to Resurrect the Tasmanian Tiger - Scientific American

More than 40 years and 1,000 or so patents after selling his first company, AutoSyringe, to healthcare giant Baxter, Dean Kamen still gets a charge describing breakthrough innovation. Its been five years since his organ fabricating project ARMI (Advanced Regenerative Manufacturing Institute) divided critics.

The project made more waves early last month, at the CNN-hosted conference Life Itself. Kamen paints the picture appearing on a panel at TC Sessions: Robotics today:

Doris Taylor, who moved up here from where she spent more than a decade in Texas, at the Texas Heart Institute, she gets on stage with a beaker. In the beaker is a miniature, pediatric-scale beating heart that was manufactured with induced pluripotent stem cells were put into a scaffold of preexisting organ. Within an hour of that presentation, Martine Rothblatt, the founder and chairman of United Therapeutics, is on stage and they roll out from backstage an almost surrealistic, lit from the top of the box. A panel opens, and what emerges out of the top of this platform is a scaffold of a human lung, that was printed, entirely printed at the smallest scale any printer has ever operated.

Inventor Dean Kamen looks on as over 110,000 pounds of personal protective equipment (PPE), shipped from Shanghai, China, is unloaded from a cargo plane at Manchester-Boston Regional Airport in Manchester, New Hampshire, Thursday, April 30, 2020. The equipment will be used for medical workers and first responders in their fight against the virus outbreak. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Kamen is first to admit, however, that the path to all success is paved with failure. The trick is learning the right lesson.

What Ive learned from failure is go back and decide was the fundamental goal wrong thats why it failed, you succeeded, but nobody needs this or did the available technology and your systems integration and application have it wrong, in which case, youve now learned enough, go try again, go use a different approach, Kamen explains. Pick yourself up, try again, using a different approach. And it really doesnt matter how many times you fall down. If you fall down five times, but you stand up six, its okay. And in the end, you only need a win every once in a while to keep your confidence up. And hopefully, to give you the resources to keep going even though inevitably youll have failures, let the projects fail, dont let the people fail.

These are among the fundamentals Kamen has attempted to infuse into FIRST, the education program he co-founded in 1989, with MIT professor Woodie Flowers. It is best known for its robotics competitions, which center around competitive builds of robots and other projects, bringing the teamwork and enthusiasm of sports to STEM education subjects that might otherwise turn off students who traditionally encounter them in more formal and staid settings.

Kids wont go to class, or theyll take math for 45 minutes between phonics and spelling, one day a week. But theyll go after school for three hourse, every single day to get better at football or get better at basketball. So I said, look, were not competing for the hearts and minds of kids with the science fair and the spelling bee, were competing with the things that they invest all of their time, energy and passion in. So lets use that model make it aspirational, make it after school. Dont give them quizzes and tests, give them letters and trophies. Bring the school band and the mascots.

U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), right, looks toward inventor Dean Kamen as over 110,000 pounds of personal protective equipment (PPE) from Shanghai, China, delivered to protect medical workers and first responders fighting the COVID-19 virus outbreak, is unloaded from a cargo plane at Manchester-Boston Regional Airport in Manchester, New Hampshire, Thursday, April 30, 2020. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Perhaps the hardest-fought lesson of all, however, is understanding, accepting and even welcoming the fact that progress in technology and sciences means that one day your best work will be eclipsed.

You have to be more than prepared for it. You have to be confident it will happen, and you have to celebrate it. I celebrate it more when its me that obsoleted the last thing I did, but if somebody else can obsolete it and if I get to a point where I need a better clinical solution than a dialysis machine or an insulin pump, if I can get to a place with somebody elses technology to gave me a new organ or a prosthetic limb or something, I need to have a better quality of life, I will thank that person. And I hope I will return that favor by giving them something of value that we invented.

Excerpt from:
Dean Kamen on the power of celebrating your own obsoletion - TechCrunch

CAR T-cell therapy, autologous stem cell transplant (ASCT), and novel agents each have a role to play in the second-line management of patients with primary refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL), according to Jason Westin, MD, MS, FACP, and Laurie H. Sehn, MD, MPH, who provided perspective on the optimal use of each modality during a case-based presentation at the 2022 Pan Pacific Lymphoma Conference.1,2

Westin, director, Lymphoma Clinical Research, section chief, Aggressive Lymphoma, and associate professor, Department of Lymphoma/Myeloma, Division of Cancer Medicine at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, started the session by presenting a case of a 70-year-old man with a failure to thrive with progressive bowel obstruction. The man had decreased urine output, a performance status of 1, rising lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) of 1.5 x the upper limit of normal, and an International Prognostic Index (IPI) of 4. A biopsy confirmed high-grade double-hit DLBCL with MYC and BCL2 translocations.

The patient was started with dose-adjusted R-EPOCH and although his gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms improved during the first cycle of chemotherapy, he developed worsening shoulder pain in weeks 2 and 3 of cycle 2 of treatment. An interim PET scan performed after 2 cycles of treatment confirmed a significant improvement in tumor burden but persistent hypermetabolic lesion in the right humerus and a standardized uptake value of 7.

There is a lot of controversy in our field about how we interpret an interim positive PET [result], Westin said. We know the negative predictive value is strong, but the positive predictive value is rather poor.

As such, a bone biopsy was performed on the lesion in the humerus, confirming CD10-positive B-cell lymphoma. Westin argued that the patient was unlikely to achieve a complete response (CR) at the end of treatment, and as such, alternative regimens should then be considered. However, patients with refractory disease have poor outcomes with salvage chemotherapy, which led Westin to consider a clinical trial.

[ZUMA-12 (NCT03761056)] was the clinical trial we had open at the time, which Ill argue is something we should consider for our patients who have high-risk disease in the frontline setting: an early switch to a CAR T-cell therapy, Westin said.

The phase 2 trial enrolled patients with high-grade double-hit or triple-hit B-cell lymphoma and large B-cell lymphoma with an IPI score of at least 3.3 Patients had to have a positive interim PET scan following 2 cycles of an anti-CD20 monoclonal antibody and anthracycline-containing regimen.

Patients underwent leukapheresis and optional nonchemotherapy bridging therapy followed by conditioning chemotherapy consisting of 30 mg/m2 of intravenous (IV) fludarabine and 500 mg/m2 of IV cyclophosphamide on days 5, 4, and 3. They subsequently received a single IV infusion of axicabtagene ciloleucel (axi-cel; Yescarta) at 2 x 106 CAR T cells/kg on day 0.

The CR rate achieved with the CAR T-cell therapy was impressive, according to Westin, at 78% (n = 29) and benefit was consistent across subgroups. The 1-year event-free survival rate with axi-cel was 72.5% (95% CI, 53.1%-84.9%).

In terms of safety, cytokine release syndrome (CRS) occurred in all patients, but the rate of grade 3 CRS was low, at 8%, Westin said.

Westin acknowledged that although axi-cel could be saved for relapse, findings presented at the 2021 ASH Annual Meeting and Exposition comparing the populations in ZUMA-12 and ZUMA-1 (NCT02348216) showed better CAR T-cell expansion in patients who had received less chemotherapy.4

With this in mind, the patient was enrolled to ZUMA-12. He developed late, low-grade CRS and immune effector cellassociated neurotoxicity syndrome (ICANS) but went on to achieve a CR with treatment.

Hes more than 2 years out now without any relapse or any late toxicities, Westin said. Should you switch all patients with a positive interim PET? No. However, if you have circulating tumor DNA or a positive biopsy, its reasonable to consider switching to a different therapy. Having a non-chemotherapy option for chemorefractory disease makes treatment switch more attractive.

Laurie H. Sehn, MD, MPH, a clinical associate professor in the division of medical oncology at the University of British Columbia and the British Columbia Cancer Agency, subsequently presented a case of a 66-year-old man with stage IVB DLBCL with lymphadenopathy above and below the diaphragm. He had a large bowel mass that was biopsied, confirming germinal center B-cell DLBCL and was negative for MYC, BCL2, and BCL6 on fluorescence in situ hybridization.

The patient was treated with 6 cycles of R-CHOP and achieved a CR; however, 6 months later, the patient developed GI bleeding and was found to have recurrent DLBCL of the GI tract. He was started on 2 cycles of R-GDP and achieved a CR, with the intention of heading to ASCT.

Our longstanding management for relapsed/refractory DLBCL has been to take patients down the ASCT route, Sehn stated. However, only approximately half of patients will respond to salvage chemotherapy and proceed to transplant, making the decision on what to pursue a difficult one, Sehn explained.

The 3 randomized trials that have evaluated second-line CAR T-cell therapyZUMA-7 (NCT03391466), TRANSFORM (NCT03575351), and BELINDA (NCT03570892)have yet to show an overall survival (OS) benefit, supporting the rationale to opt for a stepwise approach.

Sehn noted that although all 3 trials demonstrated that CAR T-cell therapy would be the preferred approach in the second-line setting in the intent-to-treat population, they do not provide insight into the preferred approach for patients who respond to salvage chemotherapy.

This is a scenario we all face because most people do receive bridging therapy prior to going on to CAR T-cell therapy, even if your intention is to give it in the second-line setting, Sehn said. As such, we all face this question.

Although not randomized data, Sehn highlighted findings from a Center for International Blood and Marrow Transplant Research retrospective registry analysis which showed that patients in partial remission after salvage chemotherapy had a lower rate of relapse and disease progression (P = .010), as well as improved OS (P = .007).5

Moreover, supplementary findings from the ZUMA-7 trial demonstrated a comparable duration of response among responders, regardless of whether they were randomized to axi-cel or standard of care (HR, 0.763; 95% CI, 0.488-1.108).6

Additionally, Sehn stated that the one-size-fits-all design of the CAR T-cell therapy trials is not likely to hold up in the real world because not everyone will benefit from cellular therapy. Sehn cited data published in Blood Advances showing that predictive factors, including at least 2 extranodal sites, total metabolic tumor volume greater than 80 mL, and elevated LDH, is associated with poor outcomes following CAR T-cell therapy.7

In the CAR T trials, everybody went to CAR T based on an intent-to-treat approach, and even though those arms did better, most patients did relapse or progress subsequently, Sehn said. Just blindly taking everyone on to CAR T is probably not going to be feasible in most clinical settings.

In addition, the short- and long-term toxicities associated with CAR T-cell therapy are worth considering, said Sehn, who highlighted CRS, ICANS, prolonged cytopenias, hypogammaglobulinemia, CD19 loss, and B-cell aplasia in particular, which was present in 34% of patients on the ZUMA-7 trial up to 18 months after infusion.5

For patients who are not candidates to receive CAR T-cell therapy or ASCT, Sehn highlighted the potential of novel agents such as polatuzumab vedotin-piiq (Polivy) plus bendamustine and rituximab (Rituxan) and the combination of tafasitamab-cxix (Monjuvi) and lenalidomide (Revlimid), which have shown responses of 40.2% and 60%, and a median progression-free survival of 5.1 months and 11.6 months, respectively.7,8

For patients with primary refractory or early relapsing DLBCL, the data do argue for CAR T-cell therapy as the preferred potential second-line therapy. However, theres still a role for ASCT; [this approach] still might be suitable for patients who respond to salvage or bridging therapy, Sehn concluded. One of the main things we need to figure out is who shouldnt go to CAR T-cell therapy, as its unlikely to work for patients with fully uncontrollable disease. As far as the novel agents go, there are encouraging data to suggest that these [drugs] will improve outcomes in the refractory setting, although we do need predictive markers to figure out which option to select for which patient.

See the original post:
Westin and Sehn Carve Out the Role of CAR T-Cell Therapy and Transplant in Primary Refractory DLBCL - OncLive

Cancer cells express different genes than normal cells, and these new gene expression patterns are key to cancer behavior. One way cells can alter gene expression is by adding small chemical modifications to the DNA or associated proteins called epigenetic markers that determine which genes are turned on or off.

Take brain tumors, for example. A team led by researchers at Baylor College of Medicine has investigated the genetic regulation of brain tumor behavior. Specifically, they studied Sox9-mediated mechanisms of epigenetic dysregulation in two mouse models of human brain tumors: high-grade glioma (HGG) and ependymoma (EPN).

Sox9, a well-known transcription factor, has emerged as a key regulator of epigenetic modifications and gene expression programs that contribute to brain tumor growth; however, how Sox9 achieves this is not well known, said co-first author Dr. Debosmita Sardar, postdoctoral associate in the lab of Dr. Benjamin Deneen at Baylor.

We knew that Sox9 is elevated in both HGG and EPN. Also, we knew that these tumors have different epigenetic profiles, said co-first author Hsiao-Chi-Eileen-Chen, graduate student in the Deneen lab. We wanted to know whether Sox9 was involved in shaping these distinct profiles and the mechanism that led to them.

We expected that Sox9s contribution to set up the tumors epigenetic patterns would be the same, said Deneen, professor and Dr. Russell J. and Marian K. Blattner Chair of neurosurgery and the Center for Cancer Neuroscience at Baylor. Deneen also is the corresponding author of the work.

The function of a gene, in this case Sox9, is assumed to be the same regardless of the cell type in which the gene is expressed. We found something unexpected in that Sox9 function was dramatically different in these two different tumors.

The researchers manipulated Sox9 expression in the mouse models and found that increasing Sox9 suppressed tumor growth in HGG but promoted it in EPN. Surprisingly, Sox9 regulated the epigenetic patterns of HGG and EPN in different ways. In HGG, Sox9 mediated its effect by interacting with a group of proteins called histone deacetylation complex, while in EPN Sox9 interacted with oncofusion proteins. Sox9 has different protein-protein interactions in different tumors.

This is what is really driving the different ways Sox9 regulates epigenetic patterns in these tumors, Sardar said. Its actions are tumor-specific and we essentially took advantage of state-of-the art proteomic technologies to uncover these distinct mechanisms.

Importantly, we also see these distinct Sox9 protein-protein interactions in human HGG tumor samples graciously provided by Dr. Ganesh Rao, Marc J. Shapiro professor and chair of neurosurgery at Baylor, Chen said. Also, our collaboration with Dr. Stephen Mack at St. Jude Childrens Research Hospital was crucial for comparing epigenetic datasets of our mouse models with clinical tumor samples from human patients.

This revealed a strong overlap between epigenetic profiles in our mouse models and human tumors, establishing these mouse models as powerful tools to understand clinically relevant tumor behaviors. These findings suggest new possibilities for developing novel therapies directed at epigenetic mechanisms.

Looking to read all the details of this work? Find it in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Other contributors to this work include Amanda Reyes, Srinidhi Varadharajan, Antrix Jain, Carrie Mohila, Rachel Curry, Brittney Lozzi, Kavitha Rajendran, Alexis Cervantes, Kwanha Yu, Ali Jalali and Ganesh Rao. The authors are affiliated with one or more of the following institutions: Baylor College of Medicine, Center for Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine at Baylor, Center for Cancer Neuroscience at Baylor, St. Jude Childrens Research Hospital, University of Houston and Texas Childrens Hospital.

Financial support for this project was provided by grants from the National Institutes of Health (R01-NS071153 to BD, R01-NS124093, R01NS094615, K08-NS110976, 1R01NS116361, 1K99-DC019668, P30 CA125123, S10OD026804), National Cancer Institute-Cancer Therapeutic Discovery (U01-CA217842) and the Diana Helis Henry and Adrienne Helis Malvin Medical Research Foundation. Further support was provided by an ALSF A Award, a CPRIT Scholar in Cancer Research Award, CPRIT Core Facility Award (RP210227), Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation, V Scholar Foundation and ALSAC St Jude Childrens Research Hospital.

By Ana Mara Rodrguez, Ph.D.

Originally posted here:
Unanticipated findings cast new light on the genetic regulation of different brain tumors - Baylor College of Medicine

July 18, 2022 7:45 AM

Posted: July 18, 2022 7:45 AM

Updated: July 18, 2022 1:44 PM

A damning report and hours of body camera footage laid bare the chaotic response to a mass shooting at a Uvalde, Texas, elementary school.

Hundreds of law enforcement officers massed at the scene but then waited to confront the gunman even after a child trapped with the shooter called 911. The findings of an investigative committee were released Sunday.

The penalty trial of Florida school shooter Nikolas Cruz is about to begin. Opening statements will be made and the first witnesses called Monday. Jurors will decide whether the 23-year-old Cruz will be executed or sentenced to life without parole for the 2018 massacre of 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.

Police say three people were fatally shot and two were injured at an Indiana mall after a man with a rifle opened fire in a food court and an armed civilian shot and killed him. Greenwood Police Department Chief Jim Ison says the man entered the Greenwood Park Mall on Sunday evening with a rifle and several magazines of ammunition and began firing in the food court. He says a legally armed 22-year-old from nearby Bartholomew County killed the man.

Jury selection is scheduled to begin in the trial of former Trump presidential adviser Steve Bannon. Bannon faces criminal contempt of Congress charges after refusing for months to cooperate with the House committee investigating the U.S. Capitol insurrection. A conviction on each count carries a minimum of 30 days of jail and as long as a year behind bars.

France is scrambling more water-bombing planes and hundreds more firefighters to combat spreading wildfires being fed by hot swirling winds from a searing heat wave broiling much of Europe. At least two people have been killed in blazes in Spain.

A prime-time hearing Thursday will offer the most compelling evidence yet of then-President Donald Trumps dereliction of duty on the day of the Jan. 6 insurrection. Thats according to the House committee investigating last years attack.

Police say a man fired a gun inside a comedy club in North Carolina before actor and comedian Craig Robinson was set to perform. The shot was fired Saturday night at The Comedy Zone in Charlotte. No one was injured.

In sports highlights from Sunday, the British Open produces a new Major champion, the Yankees win again, the Mariners extend their winning streak, the NL East leaders fall and sons of major league fathers go 1-2 in the MLB draft.

An Associated Press survey of state election officials across the U.S. found that the expanded use of drop boxes for mailed ballots during the 2020 election didnt lead to any widespread problems. The survey revealed no cases of fraud, vandalism or theft that could have affected the results.

Thats contrary to claims made by former President Donald Trump and his allies, who have intensely criticized their use and falsely claimed they opened the door to fraud.

Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck were wed in a small ceremony Saturday in Las Vegas, culminating a relationship that stretched over two decades in two separate romances and countless tabloid covers. Lopez announced their marriage Sunday in her newsletter for fans with the headline We did it.

Houses of worship are meant to be places of shelter, reflection and peace, where strangers are welcome. But after recent high-profile shootings nationwide, worshippers and leaders across faiths are facing uneasy decisions on the best ways to guard their sanctuaries.

President Joe Biden has wrapped up his four-day visit to the Middle East. Even before he stepped foot in Saudi Arabia, Biden knew there would be trouble. He was risking criticism by visiting a country he had vowed to make a pariah for human rights abuses, and there was no guarantee the visit would immediately yield higher oil production to offset rising gas prices.

The Marvel sequel Thor: Love & Thunder dropped a hefty 68% in its second weekend of release but still held the top spot at the box office. Studio estimates Sunday also show Taika Waititis Love and Thunder led all films with an estimated $46 million, bringing its two-week global total to $498 million.

The bestseller adaptation Where the Crawdads Sing debuted with a better-than-expected $17 million despite poor reviews. The Minions clung to second place. Minions: The Rise of Gru continued to hold strong with $26 million in its third weekend of release.

Scientists are shooting stem cells into space, hoping to make discoveries that help people on Earth. Some aim to overcome the difficulty of mass producing the cells on Earth that could be useful in future treatments for various diseases. Others explore how space travel impacts the body on a cellular level. And some help scientists better understand diseases such as cancer.

View post:
Chaotic response in Uvalde, Parkland shooter faces death penalty, mall shooting leaves 3 dead and jury selection begins in Bannon trial | Hot off the...

June 2007 http://www.hli.org/sr_june_07.pdfUkrainian trafficking in baby partsReported by Brian Clowes, March 2007:

The trafficking of baby parts in the Ukraine & the Institute for Regenerative Medicine in Barbados. This follow-up report exposes the horrific industry that connects these distant locales. The March 2006 HLI Special Report described how John Fusto and I visited Barbados in 2005 and exposed the Institute for Regenerative Medicine, or IRM.

The doctors at this facility claim on the IRM Website that they can completely cure or ameliorate every disease or injury known to man including spinal cord trauma, Parkinsons and Alzheimers diseases, diabetes, cancer, arthritis, and diseases of the liver, nervous system, blood, heart, and bowel.

The IRM has gone a long way towards fulfilling its promise to make Barbados the Embryonic Stem Cell Capital of the World. It imports aborted baby parts from Ukraine, liquefies them into a kind of preborn pure, then injects them directly into the arms or body organs of customers. According to the IRM, these cells use a kind of radar to seek out diseased or damaged cells in the patients body and repair them. The IRM claims an astonishing 96% improvement rate in curing virtually every disease ever recorded.

Rich English and American women find their way to this remote complex (at their own expense, of course), and are injected with fetal stem cells at $25,000 per session. Barnett Suskind, CEO of the IRM, says that Its the most natural form of healing there is. You think better, sleep better, look better. Your quality of life improves and your libido certainly improves.

Only the BeginningWhen John and I were investigating the IRM in Barbados, we had no clue that we were taking the first steps towards uncovering an international conspiracy involving corruption at the highest levels of several governments, mad scientists by the score, a Nazi-style eugenics breeding program, mass murder, and Russian Mafia executions of witnesses.

When youve spent a few years in the pro-life movement, nothing tends to surprise you. But I have to tell you, this sure comes close. Upon arriving back at Human Life International, I was curious to see if the Institute for Regenerative Medicine was just a fluke a unique facility unlike any other in the world. It turns out that the IRM is anything but unique. It is just a small part of a worldwide network of trafficking in human stem cells and organs not only from embryos and fetuses, but from late-term aborted babies and even newborn babies.

In fact, I found websites and newspaper articles on more than 50 clinics that specialize in the alleged treatment of various diseases using fetal materials. All of these clinics possess features that should scare off the naive and desperate. Every single one of them is located in tourist destinations. Not one of them is regulated by any local or national government body. Not one of them has any form of medical supervision, except from those who are closely associated with the operations themselves. And all of them have refused to become members of the only recognized board regulating ethical stem cell research The International Stem Cell Forum.

Oh, and one other thing their cures dont work.

At these institutes and clinics, unqualified doctors practice untested treatments under unregulated conditions on uninformed patients, a perfect atmosphere for ruthless exploitation. In fact, the only requirement that is strictly observed by these centers is the pre-operative palpitation of the prospective clients wallet. If it is thick enough, then they are qualified for treatment.These clinics require only six things in order to set up shop and rake in millions of dollars: A little space, a poor government hungry for cash, someone with M.D. after their name, a website, a source of fetal material, and desperate patients.

Let's begin with Malibu psychiatrist William C. Rader's anti-aging Medra clinic in the Bahamas, which he co-founded with Yuliy Baltaytis, who now runs the Institute for Regenerative Medicine.

Rader's previous specialty was eating disorders, but he raked in more than $30 million in just three years before being kicked off the island. Rader says that he has not published anything in the medical literature because it would leave him vulnerable to attacks from a "conspiracy of scientists, government authorities, and pro-lifers" as convenient an excuse as any. Medra's website [www.medra.com] claims to cure every known disease, including physical brain damage.

Biomark International was founded in a condominium by a former model with no medical training whatsoever. She "treated" at least 220 patients at a cost of up to $21,000 each by injecting them with fetal stem cells, regardless of the disease they were suffering. The co-founders of Biomark fled the USA after their operation was shut down by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and they promptly set up a Swiss bank account and began operations in London, contracting with Mexican doctors to do fetal stem-cell injections.

Kiev's Embryonic Tissues Center (EmCell) is operated by Alexander Smikodub and Alexey Karpenko, who have treated more than 2,000 patients at a total cost of more than $30 million. Both have worked with William Rader in the past. EmCell's website [www.emcell.com] makes the usual bombastic claims about dramatic improvements in treating a stunning range of infirmities and diseases. When the ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) Therapy Development Foundation investigated EmCell, all of its employees refused to answer any of its questions on procurement, procedure, or follow-up. Doctors from the ALS Foundation found that EmCell personnel did not understand even the most basic principles of stem-cell physiology.

China's Hongyun Huang drills holes in the skulls of people with ALS and injects fetal stem cells directly into their brains. He presented his findings to a team of Harvard University doctors but admitted having no scientific data, and he essentially confessed to the assembly that he had absolutely no idea what he was doing. Clinical testing of such injections for Parkinson's disease ended in tragedy: More than half of the patients developed irreversible and uncontrollable movements of their limbs. Researchers reported that patients began to c

hew constantly and writhe and twist, jerk their heads, and fling their arms about. One doctor said that the results are absolutely devastating It was tragic, catastrophic. Its a real nightmare. And we cant selectively turn it off.

There are dozens of other "institutes" offering miracle cures from the injection of fetal or embryonic stem cells and the transplantation of fetal tissue. These include EmbryoTech [www.embryotech.com]; The Kharkov Clinic "Dr. Alex" [doctor-alex-ua/e/clinica.html]; Stem Cell Therapy International (SCTI) [www.scticorp.com]; StemCure, co-founded by disgraced cloner Panayiotis Zavos [www.stemcure.com]; and Donetsk's VitaCell [www.vitacell.com.ua].Dr. LazaryevResearch Digs Up Horror

The more I researched the international fetal stem cell industry, the deeper the rabbit hole turned out to be. The only problem was that this rabbit hole didnt lead to a Wonderland, but instead to a continent-wide chamber of biological horrors.

In late 2006, I heard about Vadym Lazaryev and Vladymyr Ischenko, two Ukrainian medical doctors who set up a small pro-life group that finally pierced the shroud of secrecy around the ghastly activities in Eastern Europe for the first time in the mid-1990s. After numerous death threats and then an actual attempt to murder them, the two doctors flew to Shannon, Ireland,and requested asylum.

Father Tom Euteneuer, President of Human Life International, sent me to Ireland to interview Drs. Lazaryev and Ischenko. Dr. Ischenko was reluctant to testify because he feared retaliation against his family in Ukraine

While practicing medical oncology in Donetsk, Dr. Lazaryev began to wonder why doctors tell almost all pregnant women in Ukraine that there is a very high probability that their preborn children have serious birth defects. His own wife Elena was advised to have an abortion on the grounds that her preborn son would have severe birth defects which, of course, he did not. Dr. Lazaryevs own mother had thirteen pregnancies, eleven of which ended in abortion between his older brother and him.

He found that all Ukrainian women are advised to abort because preborn children are excellent sources of organs and stem cells.

Dr. Lazaryev found that the abortion rate in Ukraine is much, much higher than the official figures would suggest in fact, about 1.2 million annually in a nation with a population of about 46 million, or more than six times higher than the abortion rate in the United States.

As Dr. Lazaryev says, The only thing which protects unborn life in Ukraine is the courage of pregnant women.

Continuing his investigations, Dr. Lazaryev found that women were paid $200 to $300 three months salary to carry their pregnancies to a very late stage and to deliver the babies alive in a kind of forced premature birth. This procedure allows the living babys organs to be harvested while they are still as fresh as possible.

Dr. Lazaryev also found that every region of Ukraine has twin institutions. One does the late-term artificial deliveries, and the other dismembers the live-born baby and passes the parts on to other buyers, who screen the material and then sell it at a huge markup to the worldwide network of clinics like the Institute for Regenerative Medicine.

Abortion clinics located in the poorest parts of Donetsk and Kharkov sell aborted babies to middlemen, who ship the sad little bodies to cities like Moscow, where there are more than 50 beauty parlors using fetal injections.

One of these is the Cellulite Clinic, where rich Russian and Western women go to have fetal injections that supposedly eliminate cellulite from their buttocks, thighs, and arms. The costs of these treatments range up to $20,000.

Dr. Lazaryev also found several Ukrainian websites that advertised prices for the parts of late-term preborn children. One of these is Cell Transplantation, which features practically every part of early- and late-term fetuses liver, neuronal cells, thymus and thyroid, ovaries and testicles, eyes, and suspensions of liquefied fetal liver, brain, and spine.

The [Stem Cell] Empire Strikes BackOne of the many contradictions of all of the anti-life movements is that they are all absolutely convinced that what they are doing is moral and acceptable but they savagely attack those who make their activities public.

Dr. Lazaryev discovered this principle firsthand.

First, his supervisor called him a traitor and fired him. Then a government investigator became a constant and unwanted part of his life, visiting him at home on a weekly basis and grilling him on his activities.

Dr. Lazaryev refused to quit, so the stem-cell empire increased the pressure. He lost his medical benefits, which almost cost him his life when he became gravely ill in 2004. One doctor told him that your politics are your death. A government official called him and informed him that he was coming over with a gang of thugs to break his head off. Then the Tax Police suddenly began a long and exhaustive examination of his business, which shut it down. An SBU (Ukrainian Security Service) official visited him and told him that he had better get rid of all the evidence he had or his life would be in danger.

Finally, while Dr. Lazaryev was driving to a meeting in Slavyansk on a dark and deserted country road with his colleague Dr. Vladymyr Ischenko, a bus rammed their car at high speed and then drove off into the night. A police investigator said that the incident had been carried out by professionals, because the bus had aimed for the cars fuel tank and had expertly run the car off the road.

In September 2004, Drs. Lazaryev and Ischenko finally concluded that their position was hopeless, and they fled the country of their birth, leaving their families behind. Dr. Lazaryev was finally reunited with his wife and children in 2006. Dr. Ischenkos wife and twin infant sons are still in Ukraine [see http://www.savethedoctors.org].

There is no doubt in Dr. Lazaryevs mind that if he returns to Ukraine, I will be killed because investors lost money. I will be killed as a

lesson for people who one day decide to raise their voice against this evil.

Yet, after all of this, Drs. Ischenko and Lazaryev have still not been granted asylum in Ireland, despite the obvious threat to their lives. Speaking of their cases, Irish Member of the European Parliament (MEP) Kathy Sinnott said that Their situation is very straightforward in terms of being genuine asylum seekers, and went on to explain that they are being denied permanent asylum because Ireland wants to become a leader in the pharmaceutical field. Ireland would place no limitations on the activities of drug firms and would like the Irish people to get over our ethical problems and get on with the real business of making money and attracting pharmaceutical companies and frontline research.

In other words, the case of the Ukrainian doctors is embarrassing to Ireland. If the nation grants them asylum, it will implicitly be condemning the very activities it would like to attract to the shores of the Emerald Isle.

Even Worse AtrocitiesIn an environment of total corruption, the organ harvesters have no reason to stop carving up late-term babies delivered alive.

In 2005, Council of Europe investigators found that hundreds of newborn babies had been stolen from their mothers in the Ukrainian cities of Kiev and Kharkov. In each case, the mothers were poor and powerless and were told that their babies had simply died or were gone.

The investigators exhumed many of the missing babies. Their arms and legs had been severed, their chest cavities were empty, and their brains were missing. As investigator Tatyana Zakharova said, They were like gutted rabbits.

These newborn babies are dismembered without the benefit of expensive anesthesia. As Zakharova testified upon seeing one of the babys bodies, Look, here is the grimace of a human crying, it is hurt It has the grimace of a shouting person. So this is the proof. Im saying that he was alive when he was being cut.

The poor Ukrainians are jaded to tales of biological horrors, corruption, genocide, and lawbreaking on a massive scale. But, as one reporter poignantly lamented, They used to say we were selling Ukraine. Now we are selling Ukrainians; moreover, in parts.

Perhaps it is not at all surprising that the atrocities that have happened in Ukraine are now being committed in Barbados, home of the Institute for Regenerative Medicine. After all, why bother to import babies from 5,000 miles away when you can get them locally?

Barbados news sources are now reporting that women are having their newborn babies stolen atQueen Elizabeth Hospital. They are told their babies are gone or have died, and they never see them again. Perhaps not coincidentally, one of the members of the Board of Directors of Queen Elizabeth Hospital is George Griffith, who is director of the Barbados Family Planning Association, the islands largest abortion provider and an affiliate of the International Planned Parenthood Federation [www.bfpa.net].

Fetal AttractionWhat drives the fetal and newborn tissue machinery is a huge and increasing demand for stem cells and organs.

Dr. Bernard Nathanson has estimated that tons of fetal organs and stem cells will be required annually as the basic material that fuels this gigantic conspiracy against life.

The vast amount of money involved in such transactions is staggering. The international pharmaceutical corporations, laboratories, and all of the fake rejuvenation clinics demand a reliable and constant supply of human embryonic and fetal tissue. This fact alone ensures that unethical and inhumane practices will continue, regardless of what legal restrictions are put in place.

The organs from a single disease-free late-term aborted baby in Ukraine can fetch about $17,000. The body of a newborn baby is worth even more.

Given the 1.2 million annual abortions in Ukraine, we find that the fetal and embryonic stem cell and organ trade in this one country is worth multiple hundreds of millions perhaps even billions of dollars annually, even if only a small percentage of the aborted babies are used for research and harvesting. This money goes a long, long way in a nation where the average yearly salary of a highly-trained doctor is only about $2,500.

No End to the AtrocitiesEvil is virtually impossible to contain once it is released. For some people, there is only one rule: Do it if it is profitable, if you can find enough helpless victims, and if you can get away with it. Once all limitations and ethics have been cast aside, literally anything goes and has, indeed, already gone

Brothel owners bid openly outside the Gatwick Airport Starbuck's for enslaved Slavic and Asian women, who are lured to England with promises of legitimate jobs. Right after they clear immigration, they are seized and sold.

The Albanian and Russian Mafias run "baby factories" in Athens and other cities, where young Bulgarian and Romanian Gypsy women are selected for health and appearance and impregnated by male Mafia members. The women give birth in a secret location, and the Mafia then sells their babies to rich Westerners under the guise of a legitimate adoption service.

Once they have borne their babies, the women are either forced into prostitution or simply murdered.

This systematic rebirth of the German Nazi Lebensborn program is not confined to Eastern Europe.

The San Antonio, Texas-based Abraham Center of Life is now advertising custommade embryos to order. For a fee of $10,000, prospective parents can buy an embryo that has the preferred hair and eye color, skin color, hair color, intelligence, and other many other characteristics [www.theabrahamcenteroflife.com].

Romania's flourishing human egg trade ruthlessly exploits poor female factory workers.

They are paid more than a month's salary to submit to an allegedly "safe, easy, and painless" medical procedure. Their ovaries are hyperstimulated to produce dozens of eggs at a time, which are then harvested. This proced

ure is forced on the women repeatedly, and they are never told that they can opt out. They are prohibited from seeking independent medical or legal advice. Hearings found that some of these women were so ruthlessly harvested that their personalities were destroyed and they became physically paralyzed.

ConclusionWe in the United States can learn a stern lesson from Eastern Europe. We are heading in the same direction as the Ukrainians and the Romanians we are just getting there at a more leisurely pace. We already have clinics offering babies to order through preimplantation genetic diagnosis. We have late-term abortions for mild depression. We allow handicapped newborn babies to die of starvation and thirst. And we also starve to death those adults who have become inconvenient (remember Terri Schaivo?).[June 2007, Special Report, HLI, hli.org, http://www.hli.org/sr_june_07.pdf%5D

December 2006

REPORTER FURTHER EXPOSES ABORTION-STEM CELL-BEAUTY TREATMENT SCANDAL British reporter Matthew Hill has uncovered a grisly practice where babies from Ukraine are killed via infanticide or become victims of abortions for their stem cells for dubious beauty treatments. The practice involves ravaging the babies' bodies for organs and stem cells.

As LifeNews.com previously reported, Hill produced a documentary for the BBC showing how a hospital is snatching newborns and aborted babies and giving their parts and cells to stem cell firms around the world for controversial beauty injections.

Hill writes in a Monday article in the London Daily Mail newspaper about how he uncovered the scandal, including a videotape of post-mortem examinations.

He says a charity worker at a hospital in the eastern Ukrainian city Kharkiv showed him the videotape.

"Officially, the cells are taken from aborted fetuses with the mothers' consent," Hill writes, but "there could also be hundreds of babies stolen to order, to feed demand for stem cells from around the world."

Hill says the first hint he found of the bizarre trade came from stem cell researcher Stephen Minger, from Kings College.

Minger told Hill that a Barbados clinic called the Institute For Regenerative Medicine, had contacted him to get his endorsement of the IRM beauty treatments involving the injection of stem cells from the dead babies.

Minger said he refused, saying there were no studies backing up IRM's claims the injections would have the desired effect. He also was upset at how the babies were harvested for their stem cells, saying some of the babies could have been "liquidized" to obtain the cells.

"I find it very distasteful that they are used for beauty treatments," Minger told Hill. "As far as I can tell from what's been published, a lot of people go to this clinic in Barbados feeling a bit run down, or that their skin has just lost some elasticity, and they are getting 'smoothies' or perk-me-ups."

The Daily Mail report says IRM buys the stem cells from the Ukraine hospital.

Hill went to Barbados to get more information and he eventually met with one of IRM's senior doctors, Shami Ramesh.

Ramesh said he would show Hill proof of how the beauty injections work or how they help patients with various diseases.

"This 'proof' turned out to be one study of a single patient with motor neurone disease and another of eight cardiac patients. The numbers were too small for proper analysis and the data had not been published in any reputable peer-reviewed journal," Hill wrote.

Ramesh said the best proof was in how many patients kept coming back for more injections.

Hill said Ramesh denied allegations that the stem cells his firm uses come from newborn babies snatched form their mothers and killed for their cells and body parts.

"He said he had faith in the Institute of Cryobiology in Kharkiv, the source of the stem cells used by the Barbados clinic, but added that 'maybe in the future we will go and check it out,'" Hill wrote in the newspaper report.

Hill then traveled to Ukraine and said Dr. Valentin Greshenko, head of the Institute of Cryobiology refused to be interviewed.

Searching for details, he went to the Maternity Hospital Number Six, located in a high-crime section of Kharkiv.

There, he interviewed a 26 year-old woman, Svetlana Plusikova, who had a normal pregnancy but was told after birth that her baby was stillborn. Doctors refused to let her see the baby.

"I think she was stolen. If she was dead I should have been allowed to see her. I think a lot of young mothers like me lost their children, but right now nobody turns to the police," she told HIll.

Dimitry and Olena Stulnev shared with Hill their own story of how their baby was shown to them and then doctors claimed the baby died the next day. Hospital officials refused to provide them more information or allow them to see their baby.

Hill said he eventually obtained videotaped evidence of the infanticides and abortions from Tatyana Zhakarova, from the Federation Of Families With Many Children.

"Tatyana discovered many more infants had died at the hospital in similarly odd circumstances. And after intensive lobbying, the authorities eventually agreed to have the tiny bodies of around 30 babies exhumed and examined," Hill wrote in the Daily Mail.

"Tatyana showed me the video she had been allowed to record of the post-mortem examinations that followed. The gruesome film shows the carcasses of babies, some of whom were full-term, with their organs and brains missing," Hill added.

In an attempt to prevent exposing the truth, officials have apparently apprehended Tatyana's 20 year-o

ld son. He has been missing since October and she fears he's been killed.

Ultimately, Hill was granted five minutes to talk with Maternity Hospital Number Six's chief doctor Larysa Nazarenko.

"The children are not lost," she told Hill. "They are not stolen that's just somebody else's illusion."

"There is no such therapy," she said, according to the London newspaper. "No work in this hospital is connected with the use of cells. This is the wrong address. I deny everything."

Hill reports that the Council Of Europe has started its own investigation of the barbaric stem cell trade and it's first report talks of a "culture of trafficking of children snatched at birth and a wall of silence from hospital staff upwards over their fate."Related news stories:Clinics Use Tissue From Babies Killed in Abortions for Cosmetic Injectionshttp://www.lifenews.com/nat2486.htmlAbortion, Infanticide of Ukraine Babies Fuels Stem Cell Research Industryhttp://www.lifenews.com/bio1910.html[18Dec06, Ertelt, LifeNews.com London, England]

2006

UKRAINE ABORTIONS.You may have seen the BBC story in December on Ukraine maternity hospital suspected of killing babies for stem cells http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6171083.stm. There was an additional story in the UK Telegraph: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/12/17/wbaby17.xml

Read this article:
Stem Cells, Abortion, Baby Parts, & the Ukraine - Physicians for Life

HOUSTON, June 16, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Invectys, Inc. (Invectys), The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and the Cell Therapy Manufacturing Center (CTMC), a joint venture between MDAnderson and National Resilience, Inc., today announced a strategic collaboration to jointly develop a reliable, compliant and scalable process for human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-G targeted chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy for solid tumors.

The collaboration will build upon the HLA-G platform pioneered by Invectys to advance novel CAR T cell therapies through preclinical development with CTMC into early-phase clinical studies at MDAnderson. The collaboration brings Invectys technology together with the cell therapy development and manufacturing expertise of CTMC and the clinical trials expertise of MDAnderson.

Uniting the complementary capabilities of Resilience and MD Anderson, CTMC was launched to accelerate the development and manufacturing of innovative cell therapies for patients with cancer.

This agreement is truly about joining the strengths of each collaborator for the benefit of cancer patients, said Praveen Tyle, Ph.D., President and Chief Executive Officer of Invectys. Invectys is a cancer immunotherapy company developing novel approaches to target HLA-G. With our combined expertise and sharedgoals, we can act quickly to advance impactful new cell therapies.

The HLA-G molecule is a powerful modulator of the human immune system that is normally found during pregnancy, when it acts to protect the fetus from rejection by the mothers immune system. However, HLA-G is aberrantly expressed in cancer, making it an attractive tumor-specific antigen because the HLA-G tumor cells suppress a patients own innate immune responses. Invectys technology is designed to target and remove tumor cells that express HLA-G, thus reducing theseimmunosuppressive effects and thereby reactivating the patients own immune system.

Immunotherapies have revolutionized the treatment landscape for cancer, but currently approved treatments are able to overcome immune suppression only in limited groups of patients, said Aung Naing, M.D., professor of Investigational Cancer Therapeutics at MDAnderson. This novel HLA-G technology can revitalize immune cells by identifying and killing solid tumor cancer cells, thereby offering the potential to improve treatment outcomes for a wider group of cancer patients.

Together with researchers at Invectys, the CTMC team will work to develop a clinical-grade HLA-G targeted CAR T cell therapy for solid tumors that can be produced at scale. The collaboration will facilitate therapeutic development toward a Phase I clinical trial to be co-led by Naing and Samer Srour, M.D., assistant professor of Stem Cell Transplantation and Cellular Therapy at MD Anderson.

CTMC was established to accelerate patient impact by addressing the hurdles associated with the development and manufacturing of cell therapies, said Jason Bock, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer of CTMC. We are excited to work with the Invectys team and their unique technology to enable the anti-HLA-G CAR T cell therapy to reach its full potential, hopefully bringing an effective new treatment option to patients in need.

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Disclosure

MD Anderson has an institutional conflict of interest with National Resilience, Inc., and the Cell Therapy Manufacturing Center due to MD Andersons ownership interest in CTMC. These relationships will be managed according to an MD Anderson Institutional Conflict of Interest Management and Monitoring Plan.

About CTMC

The Cell Therapy Manufacturing Center (CTMC), a joint venture between MD Anderson Cancer Center and Resilience, was launched to accelerate the development and manufacturing of innovative cell therapies for patients with cancer. Uniting the strengths of Resilience and MDAnderson, CTMC advances its work within a culture of academic innovation alongside industrial expertise. CTMC operates a 60,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in the Texas Medical Center with a team focused on process and analytical development as well as clinical-stage manufacturing. Learn more at http://www.ctmc.com.

CTMC Contact:press@ctmc.com

About Invectys

Invectys, transforming innovative immunotherapies to eradicate cancer, is a clinical stage immuno-oncology company spun-out of the world-renowned Pasteur Institute in Paris. Invectys has two wholly owned subsidiaries, Invectys, S.A. (Paris) which is focused on scientific research and innovation and Invectys USA, Inc. (Houston), whose lead product is the development of a first-in-human HLA-G /CAR T initiative. Since 2010, Invectys has raised over $63 million in private funds to develop two innovative platforms of immunotherapy products that target universal tumor antigens. Invectys has also received a grant of $14.2 million from the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (Grant ID DP200034) to help fund its HLA-G CAR T program.

Invectys, Inc. Contact:Rosie Williamscontactus@invectys.com

About MD Anderson

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston ranks as one of the world's most respected centers focused on cancer patient care, research, education and prevention. The institutions sole mission is to end cancer for patients and their families around the world. MD Anderson is one of only 52 comprehensive cancer centers designated by the National Cancer Institute (NCI). MD Anderson is No. 1 for cancer in U.S. News & World Reports Best Hospitals rankings. It has been named one of the nations top two hospitals for cancer since the rankings began in 1990. MD Anderson receives a cancer center support grant from the NCI of the National Institutes of Health (P30 CA016672).

MD Anderson Contact:Clayton Boldt, Ph.D.crboldt@mdanderson.org

Continued here:
INVECTYS, MD ANDERSON AND CTMC ANNOUNCE STRATEGIC COLLABORATION FOR CAR T CELL THERAPY DEVELOPMENT - BioSpace