Lifeboat Foundation

Sharing for fellow researchers and others who have interest in GBM news.

Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most common primary malignant brain tumor in adults and is uniformly lethal. T-cell-based immunotherapy offers a promising platform for treatment given its potential to specifically target tumor tissue while sparing the normal brain. However, the diffuse and infiltrative nature of these tumors in the brain parenchyma may pose an exceptional hurdle to successful immunotherapy in patients. Areas of invasive tumor are thought to reside behind an intact blood brain barrier, isolating them from effective immunosurveillance and thereby predisposing the development of “immunologically silent” tumor peninsulas. Therefore, it remains unclear if adoptively transferred T cells can migrate to and mediate regression in areas of invasive GBM. One barrier has been the lack of a preclinical mouse model that accurately recapitulates the growth patterns of human GBM in vivo. Here, we demonstrate that D-270 MG xenografts exhibit the classical features of GBM and produce the diffuse and invasive tumors seen in patients. Using this model, we designed experiments to assess whether T cells expressing third-generation chimeric antigen receptors (CARs) targeting the tumor-specific mutation of the epidermal growth factor receptor, EGFRvIII, would localize to and treat invasive intracerebral GBM. EGFRvIII-targeted CAR (EGFRvIII⁺ CAR) T cells demonstrated in vitro EGFRvIII antigen-specific recognition and reactivity to the D-270 MG cell line, which naturally expresses EGFRvIII. Moreover, when administered systemically, EGFRvIII⁺ CAR T cells localized to areas of invasive tumor, suppressed tumor growth, and enhanced survival of mice with established intracranial D-270 MG tumors. Together, these data demonstrate that systemically administered T cells are capable of migrating to the invasive edges of GBM to mediate antitumor efficacy and tumor regression.

Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most common form of primary malignant brain tumor in adults and remains one of the most deadly neoplasms. Despite multimodal therapy including maximal surgical resection, radiation, and temozolomide (TMZ), the median overall survival is less than 15 months [1]. Moreover, these therapies are non-specific and are ultimately limited by toxicity to normal tissues [2]. In contrast, immunotherapy promises an exquisitely precise approach, and substantial evidence suggests that T cells can eradicate large, well-established tumors in mice and humans [3] –[7].

Continue reading “EGFRvIII-Specific Chimeric Antigen Receptor T Cells Migrate to and Kill Tumor Deposits Infiltrating the Brain Parenchyma in an Invasive Xenograft Model of Glioblastoma” »

A simple blood test can rapidly and accurately detect mutations in two key genes in non-small cell lung tumors, researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and other institutions report in a new study – demonstrating the test’s potential as a clinical tool for identifying patients who can benefit from drugs targeting those mutations.

Bringing awareness on a syndrome that makes it hard for families and patients trying to have genetic testing on cancers in their families. I first came across this syndrome with a researcher at Swedish Medical Center’s Cancer Research Group. Some families can have so many various cancers that genetic testing is extremely costly to patients and may not be able to pinpoint the mutation due to this syndrome.

Yet misdiagnosis remains an ongoing challenge, and a recent international study involving more than 100 countries and nearly 2000 patients revealed the average case takes between 5 and 9 years to properly diagnose after the first symptoms appear, and the average patient may see five or six doctors, noted Richard R.P. Warner, MD, in an interview with Oncology Nursing News.

“You can’t detect it, if you don’t suspect it,” said Warner, who directs the Center for Carcinoid and Neuroendocrine Tumors at Mount Sinai Hospital. Most doctors will only see one or two cases in their lifetime, and symptoms of NETs, like diarrhea and recurrent episodes of flushing, are associated with other, more commonly seen conditions.

Continue reading “Understanding Neuroendocrine Tumors and Carcinoid Syndrome” »

Israel’s Eximo has successfully completed a multicenter clinical trial of its laser system and unique catheters for treating peripheral artery disease, and after 100% successful Mexican and European trials it has now been approved by Israel’s Ministry of Health and administered to a patient at Beilinson Hospital.

American woman gets biologically younger after gene therapies.

Elizabeth Parrish, CEO of Bioviva USA Inc. has become the first human being to be successfully rejuvenated by gene therapy, after her own company’s experimental therapies reversed 20 years of normal telomere shortening.

Telomere score is calculated according to telomere length of white blood cells (T-lymphocytes). This result is based on the average T-lymphocyte telomere length compared to the American population at the same age range. The higher the telomere score, the “younger” the cells.

Continue reading “First gene therapy successful against human aging” »

Nice

A group of physicists recently built the smallest engine ever created from just a single atom. Like any other engine it converts heat energy into movement — but it does so on a smaller scale than ever seen before. The atom is trapped in a cone of electromagnetic energy and lasers are used to heat it up and cool it down, which causes the atom to move back and forth in the cone like an engine piston.

Continue reading “Meet the Nanomachines That Could Drive a Medical Revolution” »

“IL-33 is a protein produced by various cell types in the body and is particularly abundant in the central nervous system (brain and spinal cord),” says lead researcher, Eddy Liew from the University of Glasgow in the UK. “We found that injection of IL-33 into aged APP/PS1 mice rapidly improved their memory and cognitive function to that of the age-matched normal mice within a week.”

Before we go any further, we should make it clear that these results are restricted to mice only, and at this stage, we have no idea if they will translate at all in humans with Alzheimer’s.

And the odds aren’t great — one study put successful translation of positive results in mice to humans at a rate of about 8 percent, so we can never get too excited until we see how things fare in human trials.

Continue reading “New protein injection reverses Alzheimer’s symptoms in mice in just one week” »

Whether it’s hay fever, food allergies, or asthma that plagues you, there’s no denying that our immune system can be a real punishment when it’s not working properly.

Which is why it’s so exciting to hear that researchers might have just come up with a system that could, in theory, put an end to all allergies — simply by forcing our bodies to recognise harmless objects, such as peanuts or pollens, as friend, rather than foe.

I know what you’re thinking — that sounds too good to be true, right? Because scientists have been trying to find a way to stop our immune system freaking out over harmless things, such as cat hair and pollen, for decades, and so far, nothing’s really stuck.

Continue reading “Scientists just got a step closer to creating a universal allergy treatment” »

Many think author, inventor and data scientist Ray Kurzweil is a prophet for our digital age. A few say he’s completely nuts. Kurzweil, who heads a team of more than 40 as a director of engineering at Google, believes advances in technology and medicine are pushing us toward what he calls the Singularity, a period of profound cultural and evolutionary change in which computers will outthink the brain and allow people—you, me, the guy with the man-bun ahead of you at Starbucks—to live forever. He dates this development at 2045.

Raymond Kurzweil was born February 12, 1948, and he still carries the plain, nasal inflection of his native Queens, New York. His Jewish parents escaped Hitler’s Austria, but Kurzweil grew up attending a Unitarian church. He worshipped knowledge above all, and computers in particular. His grandmother was one of the first women in Europe to earn a Ph.D. in chemistry. His uncle, who worked at Bell Labs, taught Ray computer science in the 1950s, and by the age of 15, Kurzweil was designing programs to help do homework. Two years later, he wrote code to analyze and create music in the style of various famous composers. The program won him the prestigious Westinghouse Science Talent Search, a prize that got the 17-year-old an invitation to the White House. That year, on the game show I’ve Got a Secret, Kurzweil pressed some buttons on a data processor the size of a small car. It coughed out original sheet music that could have been written by Brahms.

After earning degrees in computer science and creative writing at MIT, he began to sell his inventions, including the first optical character recognition system that could read text in any normal font. Kurzweil knew a “reading machine” could help the blind, but to make it work, he first had to invent a text-to-speech synthesizer, as well as a flatbed scanner; both are still in wide use. In the 1980s Kurzweil created the first electronic music keyboard to replicate the sound of a grand piano and many other instruments. If you’ve ever been to a rock concert, you’ve likely seen the name Kurzweil on the back of a synthesizer.