Category Archives: Immunology

Immunology

Quench Bio Closes $50M Series A Financing to Advance First-in-Class Medicines Targeting Gasdermin to Treat Severe Inflammatory Diseases – BioSpace

Experienced team focused on inhibiting inflammatory cell death underlying a range of severe inflammatory diseases

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Jan. 27, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Quench Bio, a company leveraging new insights into gasdermin biology and innate immunology to develop medicines for severe inflammatory diseases, today announced the completion of a $50 million Series A financing led by RA Capital Management ("RA Capital"), with participation from new Investor Abbvie Ventures. Atlas Venture ("Atlas") and Arix Bioscience plc ("Arix", LSE: ARIX) who co-founded and seeded the company, also participated in the Series A. Quench Bio has incubated at Atlas since inception.

Led by a team of drug developers and scientists with deep experience in inflammation and small molecule drug discovery, Quench Bio's lead therapeutic approach centers on inhibiting Gasdermin D, which has been recently discovered as a key target at the core of multiple inflammatory cell death pathways, including pyroptosis and NETosis. When pyroptosis or NETosis pathways are activated, gasdermin is processed and forms lytic pores on the cell membrane, allowing release of inflammatory cytokines, alarmins, DNA and NETs. Pyroptosis and NETosis are associated with numerous inflammatory diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, multiple sclerosis and nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), among others.

"Targeting gasdermin provides a unique therapeutic opportunity, as there are currently no marketed therapies inhibiting inflammatory cell death," said Samantha Truex, CEO of Quench Bio. "Unlike approaches that target individual inflammasomes or cytokines, by targeting gasdermin, we aim to simultaneously inhibit multiple inflammatory cell death pathways that drive severe inflammatory diseases."

"We are excited about Quench Bio's first-in-class approach to potentially enable effective treatments for important autoimmune diseases with significant unmet medical need and we look forward to supporting this exceptional team as they pioneer modulation of gasdermin biology, an important and promising novel target in inflammation," said Josh Resnick, M.D., Managing Director and co-head of Ventures at RA Capital, who will join the Quench Bio board as a new director alongside Adam Houghton, Head of AbbVie Ventures. Other board members include Samantha Truex as CEO, Bruce Booth of Atlas Venture, Jonathan Tobin of Arix Bioscience, Herbert Waldmann, Director at the Max Planck Institute and Jo Viney, President, CSO and Co-Founder of Pandion Therapeutics.

"Gasdermin inhibitors have the potential for impact across a broad range of indications, including severe inflammatory diseases with few current treatment options," said Bruce Booth, DPhil, Quench Bio board chairman and partner at Atlas Venture. "Having assembled a world-class team of leaders in drug discovery, inflammation and gasdermin biology, as well as a renowned board and advisory team, Quench Bio is well-positioned to harness this potential to discover new medicines for these patients."

Quench Bio was founded in 2018 by Atlas, Arix, Mark Tebbe, Ph.D., Chief Technology Officer, and Mike Nolan, Ph.D., Head of Biology, together with Arturo Zychlinsky and Herbert Waldmann, both Directors at The Max Planck Institute who collaborated with the Lead Discovery Center on inhibitors of NETosis and gasdermin.

About Quench Bio Quench Bio is a biotechnology company leveraging new insights into gasdermin biology and innate immunity to develop medicines for severe inflammatory diseases. Quench's lead compounds target and inhibit the pore-forming protein Gasdermin D, a central player in both pyroptosis and NETosis pathways that mediates the release of inflammatory cytokines, alarmins, DNA and NETs. Quench Bio launched in January 2020 with $50 million from leading life science investors including Atlas Venture, Arix Bioscience, RA Capital and AbbVie Ventures. To learn more, visit please visit http://www.quenchbio.com.

About Atlas VentureAtlas Venture is a leading biotech venture capital firm. With the goal of doing well by doing good, the company has been building breakthrough biotech startups for over 25 years. Atlas works side by side with exceptional scientists and entrepreneurs to translate high impact science into medicines for patients. Our seed-led venture creation strategy rigorously selects and focuses investment on the most compelling opportunities to build scalable businesses and realize value. For more information, please visit http://www.atlasventure.com.

About Arix Bioscience plcArix Bioscience plc is a global venture capital company focused on investing in and building breakthrough biotech companies around cutting edge advances in life sciences. Arix collaborates with exceptional entrepreneurs and provides the capital, expertise and global networks to help accelerate their ideas into important new treatments for patients. As a listed company, Arix is able to bring this exciting growth phase of our industry to a broader range of investors. For more information, please visit http://www.arixbioscience.com.

About RA CapitalRA Capital is a multi-stage investment manager dedicated to evidence-based investing in public and private healthcare and life science companies that are developing drugs, medical devices, and diagnostics. The flexibility of its strategy allows RA Capital to provide seed funding to startups and to lead private, IPO, and follow-on financings for its portfolio companies, both facilitating the crossover process and allowing management teams to drive value creation from inception through commercialization. For more information, please visit http://www.racap.com.

About AbbVie VenturesAbbVie Ventures is the corporate venture capital group of AbbVie. We are a strategic investor, investing exclusively in novel, potentially transformational science aligned with AbbVie's core R&D interests. We measure success primarily by the extent to which our investments foster innovation with potential to transform the lives of patients that AbbVie serves. AbbVie Ventures enables its portfolio companies with both funding as well as access to AbbVie's internal network of experts across all phases of drug development, from drug discovery through commercialization. For more information, please visit http://www.abbvie.com/ventures.

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Company Codes: LSE:ARIX

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Quench Bio Closes $50M Series A Financing to Advance First-in-Class Medicines Targeting Gasdermin to Treat Severe Inflammatory Diseases - BioSpace

Immunology

Should You Buy Allergan Before the AbbVie Acquisition Closes? – The Motley Fool

Allergan's (NYSE:AGN) days as a standalone company are numbered. We don't know exactly when AbbVie's (NYSE:ABBV) pending acquisition of Allergan will close, but it should happen sometime in the first quarter of 2020.

This deal certainly lit a fire beneath Allergan stock, with the drugmaker's shares soaring 45% since the transaction was first announced. But is Allergan still a stock to buy with the AbbVie acquisition likely to close so soon?

Image source: Getty Images.

It's first important to understand the terms of AbbVie's acquisition offer. Allergan shareholders stand to receive 0.866 AbbVie shares plus $120.30 in cash for each Allergan share that they own.

When the deal was announced in June 2019, this translated to a total transaction value of around $63 billion. Based on AbbVie's share price at the time, the acquisition valued Allergan at $188.24 per share.

Today, though, AbbVie's shares are trading more than 10% higher than they were seven months ago. And Allergan's share price is now around $192, a little higher than its valuation when AbbVie's plan to buy the drugmaker was disclosed.

These transaction terms should be at the forefront of investors' minds when considering whether or not to buy Allergan stock. The reality is that AbbVie and Allergan are already joined at the hip even before the deal is finalized.

If you're hoping to make a quick profit, Allergan's share price will depend largely on whether AbbVie's shares go up. Even if Allergan announces wonderful news over the next few weeks, shareholders will still only receive $120.30 in cash for each Allergan share they own. But any significant good news for Allergan should push AbbVie's share price higher, which in turn will benefit Allergan shareholders when the transaction closes.

Long-term investors thinking about buying Allergan stock should focus even more on AbbVie's prospects. This isn't a merger of equals. AbbVie is a much bigger company than Allergan is. AbbVie's shareholders will own 83% of the combined entity.

It's important to remember the main reason why AbbVie is buying Allergan. Sales are declining for AbbVie's top-selling drug, Humira, in the face of competition from biosimilars in Europe. Biosimilars will enter the U.S. market in 2023 -- and that's when the pain will really intensify for AbbVie. The Allergan acquisition is being made to reduce AbbVie's dependence on Humira, but the immunology drug will still contribute close to 40% of the company's total revenue even after the Allergan transaction closes.

Basically, there are only three reasons to buy Allergan right now:

If the first reason is your primary motivation for buying Allergan, my view is that you're making a mistake. There's no guarantee that either AbbVie or Allergan stocks will pop over the next few weeks before the acquisition closes.

However, I think that the second reason listed to buy Allergan right now makes sense. Although Humira's best days are behind it, AbbVie has other drugs that should drive growth, especially including cancer drugs Imbruvica and Venclexta and new immunology drugs Rinvoq and Skyrizi. Allergan's Botox and antipsychotic drug Vraylar should also boost AbbVie's sales.

If you're an income-seeking investor, buying Allergan before the AbbVie acquisition closes seems like a pretty astute move. You'll get a lot of your cash back relatively quickly thanks to the cash portion of AbbVie's acquisition offer. You'll also own shares of one of the more attractive dividend stocks on the market, with AbbVie's dividend currently yielding nearly 5.4%.

All this, of course, assumes that AbbVie's acquisition of Allergan will wrap up as expected. Could something derail the deal? It's possible but very unlikely at this point. If you're considering buying Allergan, your fortunes are almost certainly linked to AbbVie, too.

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Should You Buy Allergan Before the AbbVie Acquisition Closes? - The Motley Fool

Immunology

Research Roundup: Astronauts and osteoporosis, fungi diversity and new cancer drug – The Stanford Daily

Each week, The Dailys Science & Tech section produces a roundup of the most exciting and influential research happening on campus or otherwise related to Stanford. Heres our digest for the week of Jan. 19 Jan. 25.

Martian astronauts likely to develop osteoporosis

Future astronauts headed to Mars will likely develop osteoporosis, or brittle bones, by the time astronauts reach Mars or return to Earth, a study published on Jan. 22 in Public Library of Science One predicts.

If you have a fracture on the surface of Mars, it will take at least a year to get back to Earth, Eneko Axpe, a materials science and engineering postdoctoral fellow, told Stanford Medicine blog SCOPE. It puts the astronauts lives and the mission at risk.

Experimental models suggest that for a round trip of 400 to 600 days between Earth and Mars, astronauts may lose 15 to 22% of their bone mineral density. An estimated two-thirds of returning astronauts would develop osteopenia, a precursor to osteoporosis.

A lot of people focus on the technological challenges of getting to Mars, or the psychological challenges of being in a spacecraft for 1,000 days, but not necessarily the fact that your bones decay, materials science and engineering assistant professor Eric Appel told Stanford Medicine blog SCOPE. Can people even make it, or will they be jello by the time they get there?

Fungi diversity predicted to decrease in the next 50 years

North American pine forests could stand to lose over a quarter of ectomycorrhizal fungi species by 2070 due to the effects of climate change, a study published on Jan. 21 in Journal of Biogeography found.

Ectomycorrhizal fungi have a symbiotic relationship with trees and plants in forested areas. The fungi envelop a host root system to provide a larger surface area for resource absorption.

These are critical organisms for the functioning and the health of forests, associate biology professor Kabir Peay told Stanford News. We have evidence to suggest that these fungi are as susceptible to climate change as other kinds of organisms and their response may be even more important.

The researchers collected 1,500 soil samples from 68 pine forests in North America, then compared geographical fungi against historical climate data. The findings suggested climate strongly predicted the fungi patterns in North America. The team then used the data and applied it to future climate projections to understand how future climate would affect fungi diversity.

According to our models, climate change over the next 50 years could eliminate more than a quarter of ectomycorrhizal species inside 3.5 million square kilometers of North American pine forests, Brian Steidinger, a postdoctoral research fellow in biology, told Stanford News. Thats an area twice the size of Alaska.

One of the things thats kind of shocking and a little bit scary is that we predict there will be some pretty significant decreases in diversity in western North America, well known culturally for fungal diversity and for people who are interested in collecting edible mushrooms, Peay told Stanford News.

Newly developed cancer drug inspired by antiviral treatments

In developing treatments intended to fight viral diseases, collaborating researchers spanning different disciplines inadvertently developed a novel cancer drug class effective in mice, a study published on Jan. 22 in Science Translational Medicine reports.

Weve been working for many years on potent drugs that we had shown were important for viruses, Jeffrey Glenn, medicine, microbiology and immunology professor, told Stanford Medicine News. This is just an important target that hasnt really been appreciated in cancer, and we had the perfect drugs to get this started.

The cancer drug works by disrupting normal cellular functions that viruses and cancer cells utilize to grow and spread. The findings suggest the newly developed drug can shrink tumors and prevent spread in mice models.

I think thats the secret thing, having chemists physically in the lab with biologists, virologists and physician-scientists, Glenn told Stanford Medicine News. Weve leveraged the special enabling environment of Stanford to create a unique group that has never existed before here or in academia. Its allowed things to happen that just wouldnt have happened otherwise.

Contact Derek Chen at derekc8 at stanford.edu.

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Research Roundup: Astronauts and osteoporosis, fungi diversity and new cancer drug - The Stanford Daily

Immunology

Find out How the Growth of Cancer Immunology and Oncolytic Virology Market Research Report 2020-2027 – Briotainment

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Top Companies Profiled in this Report includes Pfizer Inc, Astrazeneca, F. Hoffmann-La Roche LTd, Bayer AG, Amgen Inc, Novartis AG, Bristol Mayers Squibb, Johnson and Johnson, Merck KgaA, Eli Lilly, celgene Corp, Gilead , bluebird bio Inc, Celldex therapeutics, SillaJen Inc, IGNITE Immunotherapy, Westeren oncolytics ltd, PsiOxus Therapeutics, MultiVir, Vyriad, Oncolys BioPharma Inc, Cold genesys Inc, Sorrento Therapeutics Inc, Targovax, Lokon therapeutics, New-link genetics Corporation, Ziopharma oncology, Tessa therapeutics Pte Ltd, Atara biotherapeutics, Cellectis, Oryx, VCN Biosciences, Orca Therapeutics B.V, Daiichi Sankyo Co Ltd, Ascend laboratories LLC,Transgene SA, among others.

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Find out How the Growth of Cancer Immunology and Oncolytic Virology Market Research Report 2020-2027 - Briotainment

Immunology

How airports around the US are bringing awareness to coronavirus – FirstCoastNews.com WTLV-WJXX

Officials at Jacksonville International Airport (JIA) and Orlando International Airport are on stand-by after two cases of coronavirus were confirmed Friday in the United States.

Across the world, the death toll is now 41 in China with hundreds more sickened. Authorities believe the virus came from an infected animal at a Wuhan market in China.

The virus, which has flu-like symptoms according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), has major airports like JFK, LAX and San Francisco screening passengers.

Any close space, theres a better chance for a viral infection to spread, said Dr. Mobeen Rathore, the chief of pediatric infectious disease and immunology for Wolfson Childrens Hospital.

The CDC says airport screenings may expand to more airports. However, JIA and Orlando are not included in that group. Both airports say they are waiting for more information from the CDC and state department of health.

RELATED: Second US case of Wuhan coronavirus confirmed, France reports 1st Europe cases

Rathore said he's concerned about the rapid spread of the new coronavirus.

While much is unknown about the disease, Rathore says officials are working to learn more.

From the birds to humans, but now we know it can spread from human to human, Rathore said.

Symptoms can be similar to a cold, such as a runny nose or sore throat, but severe cases have caused pneumonia or death.

When traveling, Rathore says practicing good hygiene such as washing hands and covering coughs will help whether it's preventing the spread of the new coronavirus or any others.

Its a legitimate concern that yes theres a potential of infection, taking a flight if you will, it will get to the US faster, he said.

RELATED: Shanghai Disneyland closes amid coronavirus concerns

In the meantime, CDC officials are asking the TSA to post health alerts about the virus at 14 airports, the closest one being Atlanta:

CDC officials said, as of Friday, the risk to the U.S. public remains low. For those two U.S. cases, symptoms started appearing several days after they returned home.

The CDC is also recommending travelers avoid going to the Chinese city of Wuhan.

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How airports around the US are bringing awareness to coronavirus - FirstCoastNews.com WTLV-WJXX

Immunology

University of Iowa professor has studied coronavirus – KCRG

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP/ABC News) - There's now a second-confirmed case of coronavirus in the U.S.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the patient is in isolation at a Chicago hospital. They've only identified her as a woman in her sixties who flew from Wuhan to Chicago on Jan. 13.

The woman was not ill while traveling and health authorities don't think she spread the virus during that time. They say she's had limited contact with others since returning to Chicago.

So far, health officials say sixty-three people from 22 states are under investigation for the virus.

A man in his 30s in the Seattle area was confirmed to have coronavirus earlier in the week.

"It's certainly a confirmation of something we worried about," Dr. Stanley Perlman, a professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of Iowa who has done research on SARS and MERS, told ABC News of the human-to-human transmission cases.

Perlman told ABC News while it made sense that the outbreak started in a Chinese fish market, if there was no person-to-person transmission, it should have ended quickly, once the market was closed and fumigated.

Perlman cautioned that experts don't yet have a good read on how severe the virus is.

"It's a concerning development, but we don't know the level of contagiousness or the number of cases," he said to ABC News.

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University of Iowa professor has studied coronavirus - KCRG

Immunology

Ervaxx and Cardiff University Enter Collaboration to Develop Novel T-cell and T-cell Receptor-based Immunotherapeutics Targeting Dark Antigens – Yahoo…

Collaboration also focuses on exciting research published earlier this week in Nature Immunology identifying MR1 as a target for novel anti-cancer immunotherapies

LONDON, Jan. 24, 2020 /PRNewswire/ --Ervaxx, a biotechnology company pioneering the use of Dark Antigens to developT-cell receptor (TCR)-based immunotherapies and off-the-shelf cancer vaccines, has entered a licensing and research collaboration with a leading T-cell immunology group at Cardiff University (Cardiff, UK).

The new collaboration will support a multi-year research program with Prof. Andrew Sewell's T-cell modulation group at Cardiff University focusing on the discovery and characterization of T-cells and TCRs reactive to cancer-specific antigens and ligands, including Ervaxx' proprietary Dark Antigens. Ervaxx will fund the program.

The collaboration will also advance exciting new research published earlier this week by the Cardiff University team in Nature Immunology1, where they identified a T cell clone that recognized and killed multiple different types of human cancer, while remaining inert to non-cancerous cells. The T cell clone targets MR1, an MHC class 1-related protein, via an unidentified cancer-specific ligand. These exciting findings, validated in a preclinical model, open the prospect of immunotherapies with broad utility across patients with diverse cancers. This approach into previously unexplored cell surface epitopes complements and extends Ervaxx's exploration of novel cancer-specific antigens.

Under the agreement, Ervaxx gains an exclusive license to relevant Cardiff University patents claiming T cells and TCRs reactive to cancer-specific antigens. The Company has the right to advance resulting candidate T-cell/TCR-based immunotherapeutics and cancer vaccines through development and commercialization. Cardiff University is eligible to receive milestone payments on any candidates that advance from the discovery collaboration into clinical development and royalty payments on sales of any products that reach the market.

Prof. Andrew Sewell, Head of the T-cell modulation group, Cardiff University, commented:

"Ervaxx's Dark Antigens, which are derived from the 98% of the genome that does not encode known proteins, constitute a promising and yet untapped source of targets for immunotherapies. This collaboration will use our world-class expertise in T-cell biology to identify T cells and TCRs reactive to those targets and pave the way for a new wave of treatments in cancer, and potentially other areas. This includes our most recent discovery, published in Nature Immunology, of a T-cell clone that targets MR1 to recognize and kill cancer cells, irrespective of cancer or human leukocyte antigen (HLA) type, offering opportunities for pan-cancer, pan-population cancer immunotherapies."

Kevin Pojasek, CEO of Ervaxx, said:

"We are excited to announce this collaboration with Prof. Sewell's world-class research group. We have great hope that through the combination of this expertise with our Dark Antigens and application of our EDAPT platform, we will be able to identify further targets to expand our portfolio of TCR-based therapies and cancer vaccines. We are also thrilled to contribute to the development of the group's exciting new MR1 research, which shows early but enormous potential for the treatment of cancers. This partnership, which follows those with the University of Oxford, University of Cambridge and Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, reinforces our ambition to collaborate with leading academic institutions and be at the cutting edge of the T-cell immunology field to drive the development of novel off-the-shelf cancer therapies."

Prof. Andrew Sewell is a member of Ervaxx' Scientific Advisory Board.

About Ervaxx

Ervaxx is pioneering the use of Dark Antigens to deliver targeted immunotherapies for treating and preventing cancer. Ervaxx Dark Antigens derive from vast untapped expanses of genetic 'dark matter' beyond the normal coding regions of the genome, which are generally silenced in normal tissue but can become selectively activated in cancer.

Ervaxx' powerful, proprietary EDAPT platform has been developed to discover and validate Dark Antigens providing an in-depth assessment of candidate antigens on primary tumor cells along with their immunogenic potential. The EDAPT platform has identified proprietary antigens that map to multiple solid tumor types and generate robust, antigen-specific T-cell responses. Ervaxx is advancing a pipeline of T cell receptor (TCR)-based therapies, off-the-shelf cancer vaccines and other immunotherapies leveraging these insights into the role of Dark Antigens in cancer.

Story continues

Ervaxx was co-founded by SV Health Investors and is based on pioneering research at the Francis Crick Institute (London, UK). The company has offices in London, UK and a laboratory in the Bioescalator Building at Oxford University, UK. Ervaxx also has a strategic partnership with a global pharmaceutical company.

For more information visit: http://www.ervaxx.com

Ervaxx, Dark Antigen and EDAPT are trademarks of Ervaxx Limited

About the T-cell Modulation Group, Cardiff University

Cardiff University T-cell modulation group, within the Division of Infection and Immunity, consists of 16 researchers with a diverse skill and knowledge base that covers all areas of T-cell biology including T-cell genetics, molecular biology, protein chemistry, crystallography, and cell biology. The overall goal of the T-cell modulation group is to understand the genetic, biochemical and cellular mechanisms that govern T-cell responses to human disease. Our research outputs are extremely wide ranging and include basic studies which are aimed at understanding how the T-cell immune response is regulated, through to translational studies which are aimed at developing tools, diagnostics and treatments for human diseases such as cancer, HIV, EBV, tuberculosis and many more.

For More Information

Ervaxx LimitedKevin Pojasek, CEOTel: +44-(0)-186-561-8828Email: info@ervaxx.com

Citigate Dewe RogersonMark Swallow, Frazer Hall, Nathaniel DahanTel: +44-(0)-20-7638-9571Email: ervaxx@citigatedewerogerson.com

1Crowther, M.D., Dolton, G., Legut, M. et al. Genome-wide CRISPRCas9 screening reveals ubiquitous T cell cancer targeting via the monomorphic MHC class I-related protein MR1. Nat Immunol (2020) doi:10.1038/s41590-019-0578-8

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Ervaxx and Cardiff University Enter Collaboration to Develop Novel T-cell and T-cell Receptor-based Immunotherapeutics Targeting Dark Antigens - Yahoo...

Immunology

Dr. Dori Borjesson named dean of the WSU College of Veterinary Medicine – WSU News

Dr. Dori Borjesson

PULLMAN, Wash. Dr. Dori Borjesson, chair of the Department of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology at the University of California Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, has been selected as the new dean of the WSU College of Veterinary Medicine.

Borjesson was chosen following a nationwide search to replace Dr. Bryan Slinker, who had announced plans to retire before being tapped to serve as interim provost. She will assume her new responsibilities leading WSUs cutting-edge veterinary, biosciences and global health departments on July 20.

The strength of Washington State Universitys research and its potential to impact communities locally and across the globe impressed me during the interview process, as did its dynamic clinical programs and the Washington-Idaho-Montana-Utah Regional Program in Veterinary Medicine, Borjesson said.

Im looking forward to building on Dr. Slinkers tremendous tenure of leadership, she continued. The enthusiasm for WSU among the community is impressive, and I look forward to building on that momentum.

In addition to her role as a department chair and full professor at UC Davis, Borjesson works as a clinical pathologist and is actively engaged in clinical service and laboratory test development. She served as the inaugural director of the Veterinary Institute for Regenerative Cures from 2015 to 2019 and continues to direct the Clinical Regenerative Medicine Laboratory.

Dr. Borjesson brings an important combination of strengths and experience to make her the right leader for the college, Slinker said. Shes a long-serving, highly regarded, and very effective academic leader, and an excellent clinician/scientist, at an aspirational peer institution. This background, combined with her intellectual rigor, openness, and compassion make her a great fit to lead the college in its next phase of growth and development as one of the nations top veterinary colleges.

Borjesson said shes thrilled to meet with WSU students, staff and faculty, as well as meeting with college and university stakeholders in the near future.

Being from the Pacific Northwest, this feels like a homecoming, said Borjesson, who was raised in Portland, Ore. Increasing engagement and outreach across the state is a top priority for me upon taking up this new role. In addition to engagement and strategic planning, Im also eager to face some of the critical issues facing members of the veterinary profession, including student debt and enhancing the well-being of our faculty, students and staff.

Among her more notable research contributions is using large animal models of disease to study cell therapy for inflammatory diseases.

Borjesson holds two patents in the area of mesenchymal stem cells and immunomodulation and has contributed to more than 100 peer-reviewed publications, and in 2014 received the Zoetis Research Excellence Award. Alongside her own work, she has mentored more than three dozen veterinary residents and graduate students.

She and her colleague Dr. Aijun Wangs work with stem cells was highlighted in an extensive piece in the Los Angeles Times in 2018 about UC Davis Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital.

Borjesson received her undergraduate education from the Colorado College in 1988, her Master in Preventive Veterinary Medicine and Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degrees from UC Davis in 1995. She completed a residency at UC Davis in clinical pathology in 1999, followed by her PhD in comparative pathology at the Center for Comparative Medicine at UC Davis in 2002.

After completing her PhD, Borjesson accepted an assistant professorship at the University of Minnesota, where she worked for four years before returning to UC Davis as an associate professor in 2006. She became a full professor in 2012. She has led the Integrative Pathobiology Graduate Group at UC Davis and is actively engaged in veterinary and graduate student curriculum development, teaching and mentoring.

Established in 1899, the WSU College of Veterinary Medicine is proud of its distinguished past as one of the oldest veterinary colleges in the United States. It is equally proud of its contemporary leadership nationally in offering programs for student wellness, its Teaching Academy, which leads its commitment to advancing the state of the art in both health professions and STEM education, and its research and graduate education programs. The breadth of research to discover foundational knowledge and to conduct research targeted to improve animal and human health both domestically and around the world places it in the top 10% of veterinary colleges in receipt of competitive federal research funding.

Phil Weiler, vicepresident for marketing and communications, 5093351221, phil.weiler@wsu.edu

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Dr. Dori Borjesson named dean of the WSU College of Veterinary Medicine - WSU News

Immunology

How Worried Should You Be About the New Coronavirus? – Slate

Travelers in Beijing taking a warranted precaution with face masks.

Nicolas Asfouri/Getty Images

The new coronavirus has infected over 900 people and killed 26. The recently-sequenced virus has spread from its point of origin, China, to Europe and the U.S., where the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has now confirmed two cases. Almost all of the cases are still concentrated in China, where prevention efforts have shut down Shanghai Disneyland, part of the Great Wall of China, and several McDonalds. The New York Times calls it a rapidly expanding outbreak which has fueled fears of a global pandemic. So how worried should you be? Weve sifted through the news and spoken with to two researchers who have studied similar kinds of viruses to find out.

Is it time to panic?

No. The important thing to remember is that while there are a lot of cases, a lot of them are not severe says Tracey Goldstein, a professor in the department of pathology, immunology and microbiology at the University of California, Davis. Im not worried right now about my personal risk. If youre going to be coming in contact with a lot of people, its prudent to wash your hands. But thats mostly because were in the middle of flu season.

But there are still concerns, right?

I think that our first concern can rightly be the people in China, says Columbia epidemiologist Simon Anthony. Both because of the virus, and because of the vigorous response, which is a hassle even if warrented: China has shut down outbound travel from Wuhan, where the virus originated. Wuhan resident Yasin Gaardo has been posting videos to Twitter, of police blocking a road, and of a supermarket running out of vegetables. Public transportation is locked up90 percent of Wuhan people are staying inside, he told CNN. I can say Im worried but Im not in panic mode right now. Perhaps as you should be.

The alarming part might be the speed at which the virus is spreading. The rapid pace is part of why it keeps making newsits an important global health story, even if most individuals are not personally at riskand the constant news fuels the feeling of panic. Im certainly more concerned now than I was a week ago, said Anthony, noting that the respiratory nature of the virus makes it relatively easy to spread from human to human. Theres also, he said, the fact that it brings back memories from SARS, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome.

What kind of memories from SARS?

SARS also spreads via the air, through coughing, and traveled around the globe causing panic. And though SARS was more severe, both are coronaviruses. A coronavirus is a kind of virus with a spiky crown-like exterior that affects the respiratory tracts and guts in mammals. There are more than 3,000 species of coronavirus, but they are most commonly found in bats, as Goldstein and Anthony describe in a study in which they tested everything from humans to shrews. Just seven species (with the addition of this new virus) are known to affect humans. One of those is actually the cause of the common cold, to which the symptoms of coronavirus in many cases are similar, though complications of this new one can include pneumonia and sepsis. Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), of which there was an outbreak in 2012, is another coronavirus. The new virus does not appear to be as deadly as MERS (34 percent mortality rate), or SARS (10 percent)its death rate is 4 percent.

Why doesnt the new coronavirus have a catchy name like MERS or SARS?

Technically speaking, its name is 2019-nCoV, short for 2019 Novel Coronavirus. Colloquially its going by a few things including Wuhan coronavirus. But as Helen Branswell points out in a piece for Stat News, the World Health Organization frowns on labeling diseases after a place or region. Its stigmatizing. It also doesnt really point out anything helpful about the virus.

Sure, but, why did it originate in Wuhan? Is that random?

Sort of! Theres quite a few things that need to align, says Goldstein, for a virus like this to make the jump to humans. Not only do humans need to come into contact with a bat (or snake), or other animal that the bat/snake has come into contact with, but the machinery of the particular species of virus needs to be able to infect humans. This coronavirus seems to have originated at market with animal meat.

OK, SARS, MERs, now this. Are these kinds of outbreaks becoming more frequent? And should we worry about that?

It does seem like theres been an uptick. There are two reasons for that, explains Goldstein. It might be that were just better at detecting and tracking the spread of viruses. But also, were moving around more; flying and interacting with more species, says Goldstein. The thing that definitely has changed is we are such a global world now.

Originally posted here:
How Worried Should You Be About the New Coronavirus? - Slate

Immunology

Study reveals new "crosstalk" between intestinal microbes and developing thymic cells – News-Medical.net

Newborns face unique immunological challenges immediately after birth. As they depart a relatively sterile fetal environment, they are abruptly exposed to a multitude of foreign antigens, the major burden of which is in the form of the microbiota newly colonizing the gastrointestinal tract.

These rapidly multiplying foreign invaders represent, by far, the biggest threat to the neonatal immune system, which has to recognize and classify these organisms as benign, commensal or pathogenic.

Research shows that effective "crosstalk" or communication between early microbes and mucosal immune cells is essential to the formation of healthy microbial communities and promotion of a well-functioning immune system.

The cells of the immune system that participate in mucosal immunity develop in an organ called the thymus located under the breastbone above the heart. Until now, it has been unclear if intestinal microbes influence the development of these cells in the thymus in early life.

Researchers at the Mucosal and Immunology Biology Research Center (MIBRC) at Massachusetts General Hospital now report that gut microbes regulate the development of specialized immune cells in the thymus that play a critical role in mucosal tolerance.

The findings of their extensive research were published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, USA this week. Nitya Jain, PhD, and colleagues focused their studies on a subset of immune cells that express the transcription factor PLZF.

These cells, collectively called innate and innate-like lymphocytes, typically function at the gut mucosal barrier interface and provide immune protection at mucosal sites.

To study the development of these immune cells in the context of gut microbes, researchers monocolonized germ-free mice with a model human commensal, Bacteroides fragilis, and demonstrated that this single species of bacteria could restore the development of PLZF+ innate and innate-like lymphocytes in the thymus of infant mice.

In further proof-of-concept studies, they showed that a mutant B. fragilis lacking expression of Polysaccharide A (PSA) was unable to do the same, suggesting that specific microbial antigens could regulate this early life developmental process.

A similar deficit in these cells was observed in mutant mice that lacked the expression of Toll like receptor 2, a receptor that recognizes bacteria and bacterial components, including B. fragilis PSA, to initiate host protective immune responses.

To understand how this microbial message was delivered to developing thymic cells, Jain's group used a novel mouse model to track the migration of cells from the colon to the thymus.

The photo-conversion strategy, developed with the help of MGH's Guillermo "Gary" Tearney's group at the Wellman Center for Photomedicine, was highlighted in the Journal of Visualized Experiments in 2018.

Researchers showed that a class of antigen-presenting cells called plasmacytoid dendritic cells (pDCs) are imprinted by intestinal microbes and migrate from the gut to the thymus in early life to regulate the development of thymic lymphocytes.

For the first time, Jain's group has revealed "a novel communication between intestinal microbes and developing cells in the thymus," says Jain. "It shapes the immune 'repertoire' in early life and affects how the host will respond to disease throughout the lifespan."

The unbalanced development of an infant's gut microbiome is thought to play a role in disease development later in life. Disturbing the microbiota in infancy by antibiotics or diet, for example, has been linked to increased risk of allergies, asthma and autoimmune disorders including celiac disease and Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD).

Jain's group demonstrates one mechanistic basis for this observation. They show that thymic PLZF+ cells did not develop efficiently in mice treated with broad-spectrum antibiotics in early life, but mice treated in later life were spared.

Jain says there "appeared to be an early-life time window when developing immune cells in the thymus were particularly susceptible to microbial influence."

Additionally, the study shows that microbe-induced altered development of thymic innate and innate-like cells in early life persists into adulthood and leads to increased susceptibility to experimental colitis.

Importantly, disease severity could be moderated by the transfer of PLZF+ cells from mice that developed with normal microbiota in early life, says Jain.

She adds, "This has significant implications for the design of strategies to treat autoimmune disorders such as IBD. Our studies point to a previously unexplored pathway that may be developed as an adoptive cell therapy for patients."

MIBRC Director Alessio Fasano, MD notes that growing evidence shows that early development of a healthy immune state requires an ideal symbiotic relationship between developing infants and their community of microorganisms.

How we 'choose' our ideal microbiome to teach our immune system to defend us rather than harm us is still a big question mark. Nitya and her group--for the first time--have shed light on the very early mechanisms that are in charge of establishing a healthy relationship between the human host and the microbiome."

Alessio Fasano, MD, Director,MIBRC

Source:

Journal reference:

Ennamorati, M. et al. (2020) Intestinal microbes influence development of thymic lymphocytes in early life. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1915047117.

Excerpt from:
Study reveals new "crosstalk" between intestinal microbes and developing thymic cells - News-Medical.net