Pancreatic cancer is notoriously hard to treat and often resists the most advanced immunotherapies. Northwestern Medicine scientists have uncovered a novel explanation for that resistance: Pancreatic tumors use a sugar-based disguise to hide from the immune system. The scientists also created an antibody therapy that blocks the sugar-mediated “don’t-attack” signal.

For the first time, the team identified how this sugar trick works and showed that blocking it with a monoclonal antibody reawakens immune cells to attack cancer cells in preclinical mouse models.

“It took our team about six years to uncover this novel mechanism, develop the right antibodies and test them,” said study senior author Mohamed Abdel-Mohsen, associate professor of medicine in the division of infectious diseases at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

Researchers from Mass General Brigham have unveiled the results of a large clinical trial that found that adding the drug evolocumab to patients’ treatment significantly reduced the risk of major adverse cardiovascular events in those who are at high risk. Results were presented today at the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions and simultaneously published in The New England Journal of Medicine.

“The results of this trial offer hope for preventing a first heart attack, stroke, or other cardiovascular event in patients who are at high risk,” said corresponding author Erin Bohula, MD, a cardiologist in the Mass General Brigham Heart and Vascular Institute. “Our findings reflect the promise of prevention strategies and reflect our ongoing commitment to conducting rigorous clinical trials to advance patient care with the goal of saving lives and improving quality of life.”

PCSK9 inhibitors, such as evolocumab, are designed to reduce LDL cholesterol, a major risk factor for cardiovascular events. Previous studies have found that PCSK9 inhibitors can prevent subsequent cardiovascular events in patients who have previously had a heart attack or stroke, but the current study—known as The Effect of EVolocumab in PatiEntS at High CArdiovascuLar RIsk WithoUt Prior Myocardial Infarction or Stroke (VESALIUS)-CV trial—is the first to study the drug’s preventive effects in people who have not previously had a heart attack or stroke.

Laser amplifiers with a wide bandwidth require special crystals that are particularly short and thin. Efficient amplifiers, on the other hand, require especially long crystals. Connecting several short crystals in series is one possible way to combine both. It is already being pursued in research. The key is to ensure that the pulses from the pump laser and the signal laser remain synchronized.

New multipass concept

Researchers have now solved this problem with a new multipass procedure. Instead of using a single long crystal or many short crystals, they use a single short crystal and repeatedly run the light pulses through this crystal in their optical parametric amplifier.

New research has updated the understanding of how sugars, known as glycans, help immune cells move into the skin in the inflammatory disease, psoriasis.

The paper titled “Leukocytes have a heparan sulfate glycocalyx that regulates recruitment during psoriasis-like skin inflammation” was published in the journal Science Signaling.

The lead authors are Dr. Amy Saunders from Lancaster University and Dr. Douglas Dyer from the University of Manchester, with their joint Ph.D. student, Dr. Megan Priestley (now at MIT) as the first author.