Category Archives: Immunology

Immunology

‘Dr Tedros’, the WHO Chief Leading the Fight Against the Pandemic – The New York Times

GENEVA Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, head of the World Health Organization (WHO), has become the public face of the global fight against coronavirus.

Here are some details of his career:

- A former health minister and foreign minister of Ethiopia, he was elected in May 2017 as the WHO's first African director-general, vowing to make universal health care his central priority.

His surprise appointment that year of Zimbabwes President Robert Mugabe as a goodwill ambassador outraged Western donors and activists and he was forced to withdraw it.

- Tedros, who goes by the name of Dr. Tedros, was born in Asmara, Eritrea. Now 55, he holds a doctorate of philosophy in community health and a master of science in immunology of infectious diseases, both from British universities.

- He is the first director-general in the WHO's 72-year history not to be a medical doctor. Since taking the helm, he has instituted reforms at the U.N. agency's headquarters in Geneva and 150 country offices, with a total of 7,000 staff.

- Tedros prides himself on going into the field to support WHO operations, making 10 trips to eastern Democratic Republic of Congo during its 19-month-old Ebola epidemic, now close to being halted.

- Weeks after the new coronavirus emerged in China, he flew to Beijing, returning with lavish praise for the Chinese leadership's commitment to fighting the disease through drastic lockdowns and other measures.

Lawrence Gostin, professor of global health law at Georgetown University Law School, told Reuters: "He's very political, there is no question. And sometimes he is too political."

"But what I love about him is that he wears his heart on his sleeve. He is out there personally, becoming the face of WHO, the face of the epidemic."

- Tedros, who now describes the new coronavirus as a pandemic, has voiced concern at the disease's "alarming levels of spread and severity", adding: "We have rung the alarm bell loud and clear."

(Editing by Giles Elgood)

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'Dr Tedros', the WHO Chief Leading the Fight Against the Pandemic - The New York Times

Immunology

Harbour BioMed Tacks on $75M to Advance Broad Biologics Pipeline – Xconomy

XconomyBoston

A biotech born out of an antibody platform company has added another $75 million to its investment haul, money it says will allow it to advance its clinical-stage compounds and continue to build its portfolio of earlier-stage therapeutics.

Shanghai-based Harbour BioMed emerged in 2016 after acquiring technology developed by Harbour Antibodies, a Dutch company that built a business around licensing out its antibody drug discovery technologytwo kinds of mice genetically engineered to create fully human antibodies, rather than engineered antibodies from mouse DNA.

Since then, Harbour BioMed, which launched with a plan focusing on drug development, has established a pipeline of experimental oncology and immunology treatments, including some developed using those mouse models.

Its most advanced proprietary candidate is HBM4003, a Phase 1 cancer immunotherapy designed to block the immune-system protein CTLA-4. (That is also the target of ipilimumab (Yervoy), which was the first FDA-approved checkpoint inhibitor, a type of immunotherapy.) A trial, underway in Australia, is the first in an international development program that will include studies in the US, EU and China, the company says. Its other immune-oncology programs are preclinical.

Its immunology products pipeline includes five in-licensed clinical-stage programs. Harbour BioMed is evaluating its most advanced, the dry eye disease treatment tanfanercept, with partner HanAll in a Phase 3 clinical trial. It has the rights to that and its other immunology programs in-licensed from HanAll in the China market.

Harbour BioMed founder and CEO Jingsong Wang previously worked at Sanofi (NYSE: SNY) as head of China R&D and head of translational medicine for the Asia Pacific region. In January 2019 Harbour BioMed added another Sanofi vet: Atul Deshpande, most recently global operations lead of Sanofi Genzymes dupilumab (Dupixent) franchise, who joined as chief strategy officer and head of US operations.

Since we have this in-house technology and really significant expertise in antibody engineering and antibody production itself, we have a lot of leverage in terms of playing around with different targets and formats of molecules, Deshpande says. That kind of innovation is what his team in the US is primarily focused on, he added.

The company says it plans to put its new money toward accelerating the advancement of its clinical-stage drug candidates and continuing to build its preclinical pipeline.

Harbour says its mouse models are especially useful because they eliminate the need for antibody humanization. And one of the two strains it has developed can generate antibodies that are smaller than usualthey consist of only heavy chains, rather than heavy chains and light chains like typical antibodieswhich makes them useful in the development of antibody fragment-based therapeutics such as nanobodies, bi-specific antibodies, and CAR-T.

Instead of solely licensing out the technology, as the iteration of the company from which it acquired the mouse models did, Harbour has entered into a number of collaborationsincluding one with the Mount Sinai Heath System in New York announced this month, through which the academic medical system will use the antibody discovery platform to seek potential treatments for COVID-19 as part of a larger multiyear collaboration to develop antibodies for treatment and prevention of disease.

The investment, announced Thursday, stemmed from a continuation of the conversations we started in preparation for the round B, an $85 million financing the company completed in August 2018, Deshpande says.

New investors that participated in the financingwhich the company dubbed its B plus roundwere Korean multinational SK Holdings, the Hong Kong-based Greater Bay Area Fund, Efung Capital, Zheshang Venture Capital, Zhejiang University Future Capital, and JT New Century. Earlier investors, including Legend Capital, private equity firm Advantech Capital, and GIC, a Singaporean sovereign wealth fund, also kicked in funds.

Harbour has about 170 employees, mostly in China in offices in Suzhou and Shanghai. About 10 people with the company work in Cambridge, MA. The company also has an office in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, where the mouse model technology was invented, which focuses on advancing those platforms.

Sarah de Crescenzo is an Xconomy editor based in San Diego. You can reach her at sdecrescenzo@xconomy.com.

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Harbour BioMed Tacks on $75M to Advance Broad Biologics Pipeline - Xconomy

Immunology

GEMoaB Announces Internationally Renowned Experts to Newly Formed Strategic and Scientific Advisory Board – Yahoo Finance

DRESDEN, Germany, March 12, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- GEMoaB, a biopharmaceutical company focused on the development of next generation immunotherapies for hard-to-treat cancers, today announced the appointment of five distinguished scientific, clinical and public affairs leaders to its inaugural Strategic and Scientific Advisory Board. The group will provide counsel to support the continued development of the company's proprietary immune-oncology platforms and help to shape the company's broader strategic and scientific decisions and plans.

GEMoaB Logo (PRNewsfoto/GEMoaB GmbH)

"We are thrilled to have this group of experts join our Strategic and Scientific Advisory Board," said Michael Pehl, CEO of GEMoaB. "We look forward to working closely with our Strategic and Scientific Advisory Board members as we continue to build a fully integrated and leading biopharmaceutical company and accelerate our UniCAR, RevCAR and ATAC pipeline efforts to bring them to cancer patients in need."

Members of GEMoaB's Strategic and Scientific Advisory Board are:

Professor Dr. Gerhard Ehninger Gerhard is GEMoaB's co-founder and Chief Medical Officer and will chair the Strategic and Scientific Advisory board. He is a pioneer in the field of cancer cell therapies and has dedicated his career to clinical and translational oncology research. Gerhard was Head of Hematology & Oncology, University Hospital 'Carl Gustav Carus', Technical University Dresden, Germany as well as the former President of the German Society of Hematology and Oncology (DGHO). Furthermore, Gerhard is co-founder of the German Bone Marrow Donor Registry (DKMS), Chief Executive Officer and founding shareholder at Cellex Gesellschaft fr Zellgewinnung mbH and founding shareholder of GEMoaB Monoclonals GmbH.

Professor Dr. Michael BachmannDr. Bachmann is an internationally leading expert in tumor immunology and founding shareholder of GEMoaB Monoclonals GmbH. Dr. Bachmann is Director of the Institute for Radiopharmaceutical Cancer Research, Helmholtz-Center Dresden, Germany as well as Head of Radioimmunology, Helmholtz-Center Dresden, Germany. In addition, Dr. Bachmann is Head of Tumor Immunology, University Cancer Center (UCC), University Hospital 'Carl Gustav Carus', Technical University Dresden, Germany and Deputy Head of the Working Group Tumor Immunology of the German Society for Immunology (Deutsche Gesellschaft fr Immunologie, DGfI).

Professor Dr. Bob Lwenberg Dr. Lwenberg's unique scientific career has focused on the pathobiology, molecular diagnostic, clinical and translational research of acute myeloid leukemia. Dr Lwenberg is Professor of Hematology and is the former Chairman of the Department of Hematology at Erasmus University Medical Center, Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Dr. Lwenberg was one of the founders and has served as President of the European Hematology Association (EHA). He has been president of the International Society of Experimental Hematology and the International Society of Hematology. He is former Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board and current member of the Board of the European School of Hematology (Paris). He founded and subsequently served as the first president of the Dutch-Belgian Cooperative Group on Hemato-Oncology in Adults (HOVON), one of the leading cooperative clinical trial consortia in hemato-oncology in Europe. Between 2013-2020, Dr. Lwenberg was the Editor-in-Chief of Blood, the official journal of the American Society of Hematology. Bob Lwenberg is an elected member of the Royal Academy of Sciences and Arts of the Netherlands.

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Dr. Thomas de Maizire Dr. de Maizire is a member of the German Parliament, Member of the Finance Committee of the German Parliament, former German Federal Minister and has throughout his distinguished career served in multiple key public and governmental roles in Germany. Dr. de Maizire has been Head of State Chancellery of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Minister of State and Head of State Chancellery of Saxony, Minister of State of Finance of Saxony, Minister of State of Justice of Saxony, Minister of State of the Interior of Saxony, Federal Minister and Head of Federal Chancellery of Germany, German Federal Minister of the Interior and German Federal Minister of Defence.

Professor Dr. Katy Rezvani Dr. Rezvani is the Director of Translational Research, Medical Director of the MD Anderson GMP and Cell Therapy Laboratory and Chief, Section of Cellular Therapy, Department of Stem Cell Transplant and Cellular Therapy, MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston/Texas, USA. Dr. Rezvani joined the faculty at the MDACC in 2012 from the Hammersmith Hospital in London, where she was Director of the allogeneic adult stem cell transplant program, Medical Director of the GMP facility and Director of the Transplant Immunology Research Laboratory. Dr. Rezvani has an active research laboratory program in transplantation immunology where the focus of her research group is to study the role of natural killer cells (NK) cells in mediating immunity against leukemia, and to understand the mechanisms of tumor-induced NK cell dysfunction

"Our efforts are focused on maximizing the potential of engineered cellular therapies in hematology and oncology," said Professor Dr. Gerhard Ehninger, GEMoaB's co-founder and Chief Medical Officer. "The deep expertise and past experiences of all of our Strategic and Scientific Advisory Board members will bolster GEMoAB's ability to positively impact patients' lives."

About GEMoaB

GEMoaB is a privately-owned, clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company that isaiming to become a globally leading biopharmaceutical company. By advancing its proprietary UniCAR, RevCAR and ATAC platforms, the company will discover, develop, manufacture and commercialize next generation immunotherapies for the treatment of cancer patients with a high unmet medical need.

GEMoaB has a broad pipeline of product candidates in pre-clinical and clinical development for the treatment of hematological malignancies as well as solid tumors. Its clinical stage assets GEM333, an Affinity-Tailored Adaptor for T-Cells (ATAC) with binding specificity to CD33 in relapsed/refractory AML, and GEM3PSCA, an ATAC with binding specificity to PSCA for the treatment of castrate-resistant metastatic prostate cancer and other PSCA expressing late-stage solid tumors, are currently investigated in Phase I studies and globally partnered with Bristol-Myers Squibb/Celgene. A Phase IA dose-finding study of the first UniCAR asset, UniCAR-T-CD123 for treatment of relapsed/refractory AML and ALL has been initiated, UniCAR-T-PSMA against CRPC and other PSMA-expressing late-stage solid tumors, is planned to be tested in a Phase I study initiated by H2 2020.

Manufacturing expertise, capability and capacity are key for developing cellular immunotherapies for cancer patients. GEMoaB has established a preferred partnership with its sister company Cellex in Cologne, a world leader in manufacturing hematopoietic blood stem cell products and a leading European CMO for CAR-T cells, co-operating in that area with several large biotech companies.

About UniCAR

GEMoaB is developing a rapidly switchable universal CAR-T platform, UniCAR, to improve the therapeutic window and increase efficacy and safety of CAR-T cell therapies in more challenging cancers, including solid tumors. Standard CAR-T cells depend on the presence and direct binding of cancer antigens for activation and proliferation. An inherent key feature of the UniCAR platform is a rapidly switchable on/off mechanism (less than 4 hours after interruption of TM supply) enabled by the short pharmacokinetic half-life and fast internalization of soluble adaptors termed targeting modules (TMs). These TMs provide the antigen-specificity to activate UniCAR gene-modified T-cells (UniCAR-T) and consist of a highly flexible antigen-binding moiety, linked to a small peptide motif recognized by UniCAR-T.

About ATAC

GEMoaB's platform of Affinity-Tailored Adaptors for T-Cells (ATAC) is characterized by high binding affinity to tumor antigens and lower affinity to the CD3 antigen on effector T-cells, preventing T-cell auto-activation in pre-clinical models. Safety and tolerability of the treatment are also increased by the relatively short serum half-life (60 min). The use of fully humanized antibodies reduces the risk of immunogenicity even in case of chronic dosing. Half-life extended ATACs are in pre-clinical development.

More information can be found at http://www.gemoab.com.

Forward-looking Statements

This announcement includes forward-looking statements that involve risks, uncertainties and other factors, many of which are outside of our control, that could cause actual results to differ materially from the results and matters discussed in the forward looking statements. Forward looking statements include statements concerning our plans, goals, future events and or other information that is not historical information.

The Company does not assume any liability whatsoever for forward-looking statements. The Company assumes that potential partners will perform and rely on their own independent analyses as the case may be. The Company will be under no obligation to update the Information.

GEMoaB Monoclonals GmbHTatzberg 4701307 DresdenGERMANY

For further information please contactConstanze Medackc.medack@gemoab.com; Tel.: +49 351 4466-45027

Investor ContactMichael Pehlm.pehl@gemoab.com; Tel.: +49 351 4466-45030

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GEMoaB Announces Internationally Renowned Experts to Newly Formed Strategic and Scientific Advisory Board - Yahoo Finance

Immunology

Test Kits, Antiviral Drugs And Vaccines: The Science You Need To Know About Coronavirus – Iowa Public Radio

For resources on the coronavirus, visit the CDCs page here. NPRs coverage of the coronavirus outbreak is available here.

What does it take to make an effective vaccine quickly? Why are testing kits so hard to find? What makes this coronavirus so virulent? Well dig deep into the science you need to know.

Tina Hesman Saey, senior writer on molecular biology for Science News. (@thsaey)

Dr. Yvonne Maldonado,An expert on infectious diseases. Professor of pediatrics and health research and policyat Stanford University Medical School. (@StanfordMed)

Dr. Mark Denison, professor of pathology, microbiology, immunology and pediatrics at Vanderbilt University. (@DenisonLab)

Science News:Repurposed drugs may help scientists fight the new coronavirus As the new coronavirus makes its way around the world, doctors and researchers are searching for drugs to treat the ill and stop the spread of the disease, which has already killed more than 3,800 people since its introduction in Wuhan, China, in December.

The culprit virus is in the same family as the coronaviruses that caused two other outbreaks, severe acute respiratory syndrome and Middle East respiratory syndrome. But the new coronavirus may be more infectious. In early March, the number of confirmed cases of the new disease, called COVID-19, had exceeded 100,000, far surpassing the more than 10,600 combined total cases of SARS and MERS.

Health officials are mainly relying on quarantines to try to contain the virus spread. Such low-tech public health measures were effective at stopping SARS in 2004, Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said January 29 in Arlington, Va., at the annual American Society for Microbiologys Biothreats meeting.

Science News: What you need to know about coronavirus testing in the U.S. U.S. government officials say a million promised tests for diagnosing coronavirus infections will soon be in the mail. But that still leaves many state and local laboratories without the ability to test for the virus, crucial for curbing its spread around the country.

Some states have developed their own tests. Clinical testing companies are now joining the ranks. LabCorp announced March 5 that physicians or other authorized health care providers could already order its test. Quest Diagnostics announced the same day that the company will also offer commercial tests as soon as March 9, pending U.S. Food and Drug Administration reviews.

Participation of those two commercial laboratories could greatly expand testing capacity in the United States. But for now, we still find ourselves as a country with pretty limited capacity to test, says Michael Mina, an epidemiologist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston.

STAT News: To develop a coronavirus vaccine, synthetic biologists try to outdo nature Even as companies rush to develop and test vaccines against the new coronavirus, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the National Institutes of Health are betting that scientists can do even better than whats now in the pipeline.

If, as seems quite possible, the Covid-19 virus becomes a permanent part of the worlds microbial menagerie rather than being eradicated like the earlier SARS coronavirus, next-gen approaches will be needed to address shortcomings of even the most cutting-edge vaccines: They take years to develop and manufacture, they become obsolete if the virus evolves, and the immune response they produce is often weak.

With Gates and NIH funding, the emerging field of synthetic biology is answering the SOS over Covid-19, aiming to engineer vaccines that overcome these obstacles. Its all of us against the bug, said Neil King of the University of Washington, who has been part of the hunt for a coronavirus vaccine since 2017.

This article was originally published on WBUR.org.

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Test Kits, Antiviral Drugs And Vaccines: The Science You Need To Know About Coronavirus - Iowa Public Radio

Immunology

Covid-19 immunotherapy to be developed by CEL-SCI. – Pharmaceutical Technology

]]> This scanning electron microscope image shows SARS-CoV-2 (yellow)also known as 2019-nCoV, the virus that causes Covid-19. Credit: NIAID-RML.

Visit our Covid-19 microsite for the latest coronavirus news, analysis and updates

Follow the latest updates of the outbreakon ourtimeline.

Biotechnology company CEL-SCI has begun efforts to develop an immunotherapy for the potential treatment of Covid-19 coronavirus infection.

The company will leverage its LEAPS peptide technology, which could enable immunotherapeutic peptides with antiviral, as well as anti-inflammatory effects.

CEL-SCI notes that LEAPS peptides will use conserved regions of coronavirus proteins to induce protective cell-mediated T-cell responses and also decrease viral load.

In addition to acting on the viral infection, these peptides should trigger a protective response.

Previously, the LEAPS peptides were tested against another respiratory virus, called pandemic influenza (H1N1), in studies performed in alliance with the National Institutes for Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).

Findings in mice models showed protection from morbidity and mortality via activation of T-cell responses instead of an inflammatory response.

CEL-SCI cellular immunology senior vice-president of research Daniel Zimmerman said: We believe that a LEAPS Covid-19 coronavirus peptide will reduce or arrest the progression of the virus infection and prevent tissue damage from inflammation resulting from lung infection by the virus.

In short, we believe that we can stimulate the correct immune responses to the virus without producing unwanted inflammatory responses associated with lung tissue damage. That should be particularly important in the older population who is at highest risk of dying from this virus.

The proposed LEAPS peptides will target antigens in Covid-19s NP protein and trigger cytolytic T-cell responses, said the company.

CEL-SCI adds that cytolytic T-cell responses target the cellular factories infected by the virus within the host and eliminate the source of the infection.

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Covid-19 immunotherapy to be developed by CEL-SCI. - Pharmaceutical Technology

Immunology

Coronavirus could live on your phone for nine days here’s how to clean it – New York Post

Before you pick up that smart device and refresh your social media feeds to reveal the latest coronavirus news: beware. The dreaded virus could be festering on your phone for long periods.

According to German researchers, coronavirus can live on an inanimate surface like metal, glass or plastic as in, all of the materials used to make phones for up to nine days.

Published in the Journal of Hospital Infection, the study analyzed data from 22 previous studies on human coronaviruses including Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and endemic human coronavirus (HCoV).

Although the viral load of coronaviruses on inanimate surfaces is not known during an outbreak situation, it seem plausible to reduce the viral load on surfaces by disinfection, especially of frequently touched surfaces in the immediate patient surrounding where the highest viral load can be expected, the authors wrote.

The study suggested using a solution that contains 0.1% sodium hypochlorite (bleach), or 62% to 71% ethanol (a key ingredient in most hand sanitizers) within one minute to clean their devices. Apple recently told customers that they can safely use Clorox disinfecting wipes and 70% isopropyl alcohol on their products screens. But, people shouldnt use aerosol sprays, bleaches or abrasives. Cleaners shouldnt be sprayed directly onto the device, rather applied using a soft, lint-free cloth.

The more scientists learn about novel coronavirus, the more youll want to clean that phone.

Researchers from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention recently found that people affected by COVID-19 have live virus in their stool. That unsavory bit of information means that the virus can and is likely spread through fecal matter as well as droplets from sneezing and coughing.

And given that many folks have become accustomed to bringing their phones to the loo as they do their business, it means they can become breeding grounds for unthinkable germs.

In addition to the bathroom brouhaha, Charles Gerba, a professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of Arizona, tells Mens Health that the phone is particularly vulnerable because our grubby fingers mindlessly touch dirty surfaces and then repeatedly pick up our phones.

You do not have to sneeze on a cell phone to transmit disease-causing organisms, Gerba says. What we found out in studying virus movement on surfaces in office buildings is that you touch a surface with a virus on it and then you place it on your cell phone. (A door handle, for example.)

You then go home or to another location and you touch your phone again and, say, touch a table moving it to another location great way to spread viruses around an office.

Gerba recommends using an alcohol wipe or microfiber cloth. I would do it every time I have been out in public.

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Coronavirus could live on your phone for nine days here's how to clean it - New York Post

Immunology

Gut bacteria can boost effectiveness of cancer immunotherapy, mice study suggests – The Medical News

Could the response to cancer immunotherapy depend on bacteria that originate in the gut and travel to the tumor?

A study by researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center and the University of Chicago suggests exactly that, revealing that gut bacteria can penetrate tumor cells and boost the effectiveness of an experimental immunotherapy that targets the CD47 protein.

Using mouse models of malignancy, the scientists found that the intestinal microbe Bifidobacterium accumulates within tumors, transforming anti-CD47 unresponsive tumors into responsive ones.

The team's study, published today in the Journal of Experimental Medicine, discovered that the response to treatment depends on the type of bacteria living in the animals' guts. They then identified the mechanism, finding that the combination of antibodies against CD47 and gut bacteria works via the body's STING pathway of innate immunity - the body's first line of defense against infection.

Their experiments used mice from different resource facilities, antibiotic-fed mice, and mice raised in a germ-free environment.

In one experiment, they studied mice raised in two different facilities and that had distinct mixtures of bacteria in their intestines. One group was responsive to anti-CD47 and another was not. The second group became responsive, however, after being housed with the responders, indicating that oral transfer or contact transmission of gut bacteria occurred between groups, the researchers say.

The protein CD47 is expressed in high levels on the surface of many cancer cells, where it acts as a "don't eat me" signal to the immune system's macrophages, commonly known as white blood cells. As a result, anti-CD47, also known as CD47 blockade therapy, is currently under investigation in multiple clinical trials. However, the mouse studies that predated those trials had mixed results, with only some mice responding to the anti-CD47 therapy, explains corresponding author Yang-Xin Fu, M.D., Ph.D., professor of pathology, immunology, and radiation at UT Southwestern.

"We felt we needed to improve anti-CD47 therapy and understand the mechanisms," he says, leading them to wonder about the gut microbiome, the bacteria that grow in the intestines and aid with digestion. That bacterial ecosystem, sometimes called the microbiota, is also known to affect the gut's ability to resist pathogens and the host's response to cancer immunotherapy.

But how the microbiota does that has been unclear. This study finds that some of the bacteria from the gut travel to the tumor and get into the cells, or microenvironment, where the bacteria facilitate CD47 blockade's ability to attack the tumor. We found it does that via the immune signaling pathway called stimulator of interferon genes (STING)."

Yang-Xin Fu, M.D., Ph.D., professor of pathology, immunology, and radiation at UT Southwestern

The findings suggest that a probiotic might someday be used to improve anti-CD47 therapy, says Fu, a Cancer Prevention and Research Institute (CPRIT) Scholar and holder of the Mary Nell and Ralph B. Rogers Professorship in Immunology at UT Southwestern.

The researchers also found that tumor-bearing mice that normally respond to anti-CD47 treatment failed to respond if their gut bacteria were killed off by antibiotics. In contrast, anti-CD47 treatment became effective in mice that are usually nonresponsive when these animals were supplemented with Bifidobacteria, a type of bacteria that is often found in the gastrointestinal tract of healthy mice and humans.

They further discovered that the bacteria migrate into tumors, activating the STING immune signaling pathway. This sets off production of immune signaling molecules such as type 1 interferons and activating immune cells that appear to attack and destroy the tumor once the anti-CD47 agent nullifies the CD47's "don't eat me" tag, the researchers report. The researchers found that mice genetically unable to activate type 1 interferon failed to respond to the bacteria-immunotherapy approach. Similarly, mice unable to access the STING pathway showed no benefit from the combined bacteria-immunotherapy approach, confirming that STING signaling is essential.

"It is very possible that more than one type of gut microbiota could enhance tumor immunity in a similar way and we would like to investigate that," he adds.

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Gut bacteria can boost effectiveness of cancer immunotherapy, mice study suggests - The Medical News

Immunology

Allergy and immunology specialist coming to Auburn – Midland Daily News

Photo: Michael David-Lorne Jordan/David-Lorne Photographic

Allergy and immunology specialist coming to Auburn

Memorial Healthcare has announced that Dr. Hassan Nasir, of Memorial Healthcare Allergy & Immunology will be seeing patients on Tuesdays at its Auburn location, 4600 Garfield Road, starting Tuesday, March 17.

Nasir is currently accepting new patients with most insurances and sees patients ages 2 and up. To schedule an appointment, call 989-729-4317.

For more information about Nasir, visit http://www.memorialhealthcare.org/provider/hassan-nasir-do/.

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Allergy and immunology specialist coming to Auburn - Midland Daily News

Immunology

Therapy Could Halt Viral Infections – Technology Networks

Viral infections are currently more topical than ever. Not only are coronavirus and influenza constantly in the news but it is also the season for colds and, as we all know, colds are caused by rhinovirus. A Medical University of Vienna start-up, "G.ST Antivirals GmbH" now has viral infections in its sights particularly the rhinovirus. The scientists there found a way to stop the virus and therefore might have discovered a new therapy for treating colds in the future.The Achilles heel of virusesViruses do not have their own metabolism and are therefore entirely dependent on the host cell to supply the building blocks they need to multiply. Since proliferation of viruses entails an extremely high nutrient intake, viruses have found strategies to force host cells to increase their uptake of nutrients, since an efficient infection cycle is only possible with increased energy turnover.

The researchers at G.ST Antivirals (www.gst-antivirals.com) are exploiting this situation to develop treatments that stop the virus from having access to the host cell's metabolic products. The first virus for which the founding team was able to apply this concept is rhinovirus, the pathogen that causes the common cold. In the course of studies conducted at the Medical University of Vienna, they discovered that the virus is particularly vulnerable to inhibition of sugar utilization.Sugar as a remedy for the common cold"Based on these concepts, our team has identified a substance that is highly effective against rhinoviruses, 2-Deoxyglucose. The compound inhibits glycolysis in the host cell, thus starving the virus inside the cell," explain Guido Gualdoni (MedUni Vienna's Department of Medicine III) and Johannes Stckl (MedUni Vienna's Institute of Immunology). "Since it is cheap to produce and highly effective, the molecule has the ideal pre-requisites for widespread application as a cold remedy."

Since a lot of data is already available regarding the good tolerability of the substance, G.ST Antivirals wants to start clinical testing of the molecule at Vienna General Hospital and/or MedUni Vienna during the course of 2020. The substance could therefore be marketed within what is a very short timeframe for a drug. MedUni Vienna's Technology Transfer Office only filed the patent application for this invention in 2018 (for more information see: http://www.meduniwien.ac.at/technologietransfer).Effective against other viruses as well?"Since all viruses rely on the metabolism of the host cell, we are currently intensifying our efforts to apply this therapeutic strategy to other viruses as well, such as coronaviruses, for example," say the researchers.

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

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Therapy Could Halt Viral Infections - Technology Networks

Immunology

Peanut allergy may begin in the microbiome: Study – NutraIngredients-usa.com

New research is shedding light on the mechanisms behind the existence of peanut allergies, which currently affects 3 to 6% of the US population and is increasing in prevalence, according to a new report published in the journal Science Immunology.

With that in mind, the researchers investigated the underlying cause of peanut allergies by sequencing antibody genes from B-lineage (which produce IgE) plasma cells collected from five body locations in people with peanut allergies.

We characterized IgE+ clones in blood, stomach, duodenum, and esophagus of 19 peanut-allergic patients, using high-throughput DNA sequencing.

The team of researchers, from Stanford University, the University of Cincinnati and Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, reported that B cells in human food allergy have been studied mostly in the blood, but little is known about IgE+ B cells or plasma cells in tissues exposed to dietary antigens.

Previous research has linked IgEs origin to bone marrow, but this research suggests the gut is full of IgE antibodies, which cause severe allergies.

Patients with peanut allergies were assessed by a double-blind placebo-controlled food challenge. The researchers collected samples of B-lineage plasma cells from 19 peanut allergy sufferers who were about to take part in a clinical trial set to test the effectiveness of prescribed doses of peanut proteins for allergy treatment.The researchers studied samples of peripheral blood and endoscopic biopsies of five sites in the GI tract, including proximal esophagus, medial esophagus, distal esophagus, stomach, and duodenum.

The participants were divided into three groups: Peanut allergy, non-food allergy and non-drug allergy (NA).

The team also sequenced the DNA of their tissue, finding shared genetic patterns in the participants. These commonalities suggest people with a peanut allergy might have a similar tendency to produce IgE in response to the nut.

The report notes that at the time of sampling, participants were not receiving immunotherapy for allergies and were avoiding peanut-containing foods.

After sequencing the cells, the researchers found that the cells were being made in the stomach and the duodenum of the small intestine, with high levels of immunoglobulin E antibodies in the guts of those with peanut allergies. Control patients without allergies did not harbor plasma cells that expressed IgE.

The team also reported that their research found evidence of the plasma cells that experienced a class switch recombination (CSR), which involves a cell that stops producing one type of antibody and starts producing another. In this study, IgE. Its not clear why these cells might be more likely to make this switch in the guts of people with peanut allergies.

IgE+ cells in allergic patients are enriched in stomach and duodenum, and have a plasma cell phenotype. Clonally related IgE+ and non-IgEexpressing cell frequencies in tissues suggest local isotype switching, including transitions between IgA and IgE isotypes. Highly similar antibody sequences specific for peanut allergen Ara h 2 are shared between patients, indicating that common immunoglobulin genetic rearrangements may contribute to pathogenesis. These data define the gastrointestinal tract as a reservoir of IgE+ B lineage cells in food allergy, the paper noted.

The findings could lead to life-changing treatment by giving patients with peanut allergies therapies that target the prevention of CSR. The results could also pave the way for similar therapies for other food allergies.

The research team said they dont know when these allergy-causing antibodies first show up in the gut, or if they would disappear as allergies diminish.

Source: Science Immunology

06 Mar 2020 Vol. 5, Issue 45 DOI: 10.1126/sciimmunol.aay4209

Origins and clonal convergence of gastrointestinal IgE+ B cells in human peanut allergy

Authors: R. Hoh et al.

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