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Research report covers the Japan Regenerative Medicine Products Market Forecasts and Growth, 2019-2025 – Eurowire

October 18th, 2020 6:57 am

This report also researches and evaluates the impact of Covid-19 outbreak on the Japan Regenerative Medicine Products industry, involving potential opportunity and challenges, drivers and risks. We present the impact assessment of Covid-19 effects on Japan Regenerative Medicine Products and market growth forecast based on different scenario (optimistic, pessimistic, very optimistic, most likely etc.).

Global Japan Regenerative Medicine Products Market Overview:

The research report, titled [Global Japan Regenerative Medicine Products Market 2020 by Company, Regions, Type and Application, Forecast to 2025], presents a detailed analysis of the drivers and restraints impacting the overall market. Analysts have studied the key trends defining the trajectory of the market. The research report also includes an assessment of the achievements made by the players in the global Japan Regenerative Medicine Products market so far. It also notes the key trends in the market that are likely to be lucrative. The research report aims to provide an unbiased and a comprehensive outlook of the global Japan Regenerative Medicine Products market to the readers.

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Global Japan Regenerative Medicine Products Market: Segmentation

For clearer understanding of the global Japan Regenerative Medicine Products market, analysts have segmented the market. The segmentation has been done on the basis of application, technology, and users. Each segment has been further explained with the help of graphs figures. This breakdown of the market gives the readers an objective view of the global Japan Regenerative Medicine Products market, which is essential to make sound investments.

Segment by Type, the Regenerative Medicine Products market is segmented intoCell TherapyTissue EngineeringBiomaterialOthers

Segment by Application, the Regenerative Medicine Products market is segmented intoDermatologyCardiovascularCNSOrthopedicOthers

Regional and Country-level AnalysisThe Regenerative Medicine Products market is analysed and market size information is provided by regions (countries).The key regions covered in the Regenerative Medicine Products market report are North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, Middle East and Africa. It also covers key regions (countries), viz, U.S., Canada, Germany, France, U.K., Italy, Russia, China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia, Taiwan, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines, Vietnam, Mexico, Brazil, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, U.A.E, etc.The report includes country-wise and region-wise market size for the period 2015-2026. It also includes market size and forecast by Type, and by Application segment in terms of sales and revenue for the period 2015-2026.

To understand the changing political scenario, analysts have regionally segmented the market. This gives an overview of the political and socio-economic status of the regions that is expected to impact the market dynamic.

Global Japan Regenerative Medicine Products Market: Research Methodology

To begin with, the analysis has been put together using primary and secondary research methodologies. The information has been authenticated by market expert through valuable commentary. Research analysts have also conducted exhaustive interviews with market-relevant questions to collate this research report.

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Global Japan Regenerative Medicine Products Market: Competitive Rivalry

The research report also studied the key players operating in the global Japan Regenerative Medicine Products market. It has evaluated and elucidated the research and development statuses of these companies, their financial outlooks, and their expansion plans for the forecast period. In addition, the research report also includes the list of strategic initiatives that clearly explain the achievements of the companies in the recent past.

Competitive Landscape and Regenerative Medicine Products Market Share AnalysisRegenerative Medicine Products market competitive landscape provides details and data information by players. The report offers comprehensive analysis and accurate statistics on revenue by the player for the period 2015-2020. It also offers detailed analysis supported by reliable statistics on revenue (global and regional level) by players for the period 2015-2020. Details included are company description, major business, company total revenue and the sales, revenue generated in Regenerative Medicine Products business, the date to enter into the Regenerative Medicine Products market, Regenerative Medicine Products product introduction, recent developments, etc.The major vendors covered:AcelityDePuy SynthesMedtronicZimmerBiometStrykerMiMedx GroupOrganogenesisUniQureCellular Dynamics InternationalOsiris TherapeuticsVcanbioGamida CellGolden MeditechCytori TherapeuticsCelgeneVericel CorporationGuanhao BiotechMesoblastStemcell TechnologesBellicum Pharmaceuticals

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Strategic Points Covered in TOC:

Chapter 1: Introduction, market driving force product scope, market risk, market overview, and market opportunities of the global Japan Regenerative Medicine Products market

Chapter 2: Evaluating the leading manufacturers of the global Japan Regenerative Medicine Products market which consists of its revenue, sales, and price of the products

Chapter 3: Displaying the competitive nature among key manufacturers, with market share, revenue, and sales

Chapter 4: Presenting global Japan Regenerative Medicine Products market by regions, market share and with revenue and sales for the projected period

Chapter 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9: To evaluate the market by segments, by countries and by manufacturers with revenue share and sales by key countries in these various regions

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Geistlich Derma-Gide Added to the General Services Administration’s Federal Supply Schedule – BioSpace

October 18th, 2020 6:57 am

Oct. 16, 2020 13:00 UTC

PRINCETON, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- The Geistlich Medical business unit of Geistlich Pharma AG, a family owned, Swiss based global leader in regenerative solutions is proud to announce that the General Services Administration (GSA) has added Geistlich Derma-Gide Advanced Wound Matrix to the Federal Supply Schedule (FSS). Geistlich Pharma focuses on a wide variety of clinical indications.

The GSA award will pave the way for physicians and staff of Veterans Administration facilities to utilize Geistlich Derma-Gide for the management of hard to heal wounds. The product is FDA cleared for a wide variety of indications, including diabetic foot ulcers, venous leg ulcers, surgical wounds, and first/second degree burns (among others).

Advanced wound care for those in need

Geistlich Medical has partnered with Recon-Supply, a Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business owned by Marine Corps veteran Stephen Clark and his wife Katy Clark. It was important to Geistlich Medical to partner with a SDVOSB in order to support and honor those that have served in the US Military, says Geistlich CEO Paul Note. We found a great organization in Recon-Supply and look forward to serving the Veterans Administration facilities as they treat those in need of advanced wound care. All nine of the Geistlich Derma-Gide sizes are a part of the FSS so that physicians and their staff have full access to the portfolio of products available to the broader healthcare market.

Novel second-generation xenograft

Geistlich Derma-Gide Advanced Wound Matrix is a novel second generation xenograft product that features an advanced 4D design: Dual-sourced, highly refined, bi-layered, and structurally optimized. It has demonstrated a 90% closure rate in its first 10 patient observational study recently published in International Wound Journal1. A larger prospective, randomized clinical trial is currently underway, with interim results to be published in late 2020.

1 Armstrong, DG, Orgill, DP, Galiano, RD, et al. An observational pilot study using a purified reconstituted bilayer matrix to treat nonhealing diabetic foot ulcers. Int Wound J. 2020; 17: 966 973.

About Geistlich Pharma

Geistlich Pharma has existed since 1851 and is family-owned. It specializes in the regeneration of bone, cartilage and tissue. More than 700 employees worldwide work for Geistlich in the area of regenerative medicine. With its twelve affiliates and 60 distribution partners, Geistlichs medical devices and medicinal products reach around 90 markets worldwide.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201016005406/en/

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Regenerative Medicine Market to Witness a Pronounce Growth During 2020 to 2025 – TechnoWeekly

October 18th, 2020 6:57 am

Market Study Report, LLC recently added a report on Regenerative Medicine market that delivers a holistic view on industry valuations, market size, profit estimations, SWOT analysis and regional landscape of the market. In addition, the report points out key challenges and growth opportunities, while examining the current competitive standings of key players in during the forecasted timeline.

The research report on Regenerative Medicine market report provides a detailed analysis of this business landscape. The document analyses various market dynamics such as the opportunities and factors which drive the market growth. The market is poised to generate notable revenue and display a remunerative growth rate during the analysis timeframe, cites the report.

Request a sample Report of Regenerative Medicine Market at:https://www.marketstudyreport.com/request-a-sample/2440816?utm_source=technoweekly.com&utm_medium=SK

Additionally, the report assesses the existing market competition trends and elaborates on various risk factors which may hamper the growth of the Regenerative Medicine market during the analysis timeframe.

The document also highlights the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the growth of Regenerative Medicine market.

Additional takeaways of the Regenerative Medicine market report:

Details of the regional analysis of the Regenerative Medicine market:

Ask for Discount on Regenerative Medicine Market Report at:https://www.marketstudyreport.com/check-for-discount/2440816?utm_source=technoweekly.com&utm_medium=SK

Table of Contents:

The key questions answered in the report:

For More Details On this Report: https://www.marketstudyreport.com/reports/global-regenerative-medicine-market-2020-by-company-regions-type-and-application-forecast-to-2025

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Pluristem Announces Clearance to Move Forward with Enrollment for Cohort II in an Investigator-Led Phase I/II Chronic Graft vs Host Disease…

October 18th, 2020 6:57 am

HAIFA, Israel, Oct. 13, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Pluristem Therapeutics Inc. (Nasdaq:PSTI) (TASE:PSTI), a leading regenerative medicine company developing a platform of novel biological products, today announced that it has received clearance from the safety committee of an investigator initiated Phase I/II study to move forward with patient enrollment for cohort II. The study will evaluate PLX-PAD cells in the treatment of steroid-refractory chronic graft vs. host disease (GvHD) and is led by Principal Investigator Prof. Ron Ram, Director of the Hematology Blood and Marrow Stem Cell Transplantation Unit at Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, Ichilov Hospital, Israel. Prof. Ram and his research staff are responsible for the design and implementation of the study at Sourasky Medical Center.

GvHD is a severe complication in patients who have undergone an allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) and is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in these patients in which the donated stem cells identify the recipient's body as foreign and attack it. The chronic form of GvHD (cGvHD) usually appears later than 100 days post-transplant.

Cohort I included 6 patients treated with 2 injections of 150 million cells, a week apart. At the 3-month follow up, interim safety results concluded that PLX-PAD cells were safe and that no treatment related side effects were reported. Efficacy results demonstrated that 4 out of the 6 patients reported improvement in symptoms that translated into a reduction in the severity of cGvHD with notable reduction in the required steroid doses for part of the patients. Based on these results, the study was approved to commence enrollment of 14 patients in cohort II to be treated with 4 injections of 150 million cells.

Prof. Ram of Ichilov Hospital commented, From our experience in having treated 6 patients in the study to date, we have so far found no negative side effects from the use of the PLX-PAD cells in the treatment of steroid-refractory cGvHD. Patients with significant GvHD skin disorders previously unresponsive to multiple types of therapy showed remarkable response. Responses were also observed for severe mouth ulcers which prevented patients from eating solid foods. This resulted in a major improvement of quality of life and tapering of steroid doses."

Pluristem is committed to contributing to the wellbeing and quality of life of our patients. cGvHD is an indication where we see a significant need to enhance the current course of treatment for this life-threatening condition among patients undergoing bone marrow transplants. The preliminary results from cohort I of this Phase I/II study, and prior preclinical data, both indicate that PLX-PAD cells may potentially treat cGvHD patients and mitigate symptoms. We are very pleased to cooperate with Prof. Ram and Sourasky Medical Center, and we place a high importance in examining PLX-PAD for this indication, stated Pluristem CEO and President, Yaky Yanay.

About cGvHDChronic graft-versus-host disease (cGvHD) remains a common and potentially life-threatening complication of allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HCT). The 2-year cumulative incidence of chronic GvHD requiring systemic treatment is 30% to 40% by National Institutes of Health criteria1. The hematopoietic stem cell transplants are used to treat bone marrow failure resulting from treatment of some blood or bone marrow cancers as well as other hematologic failures, such as aplastic anemia, which are not related to cancer. The donated cells identify the recipients body as foreign and attack it as a result. While acute GvHD usually appears in the first 100 days after a transplant, and in specific body systems, chronic GvHD can occur at any time (even several years) after a transplant, and may manifest in many parts of the body such as: skin, mouth, eyes, liver, intestines, lungs and joints. Long term immunosuppression is given to try to prevent or treat cGvHD. Since this treatment suppresses the immune system for a very long time, patients are at high risk of infections, and are prescribed multiple medications to try to address this major risk.

About Pluristem TherapeuticsPluristem Therapeutics Inc. is a leading regenerative medicine company developing novel placenta-based cell therapy product candidates. The Company has reported robust clinical trial data in multiple indications for its patented PLX cell product candidates and is currently conducting late stage clinical trials in several indications. PLX cell product candidates are believed to release a range of therapeutic proteins in response to inflammation, ischemia, muscle trauma, hematological disorders and radiation damage. The cells are grown using the Company's proprietary three-dimensional expansion technology and can be administered to patients off-the-shelf, without tissue matching. Pluristem has a strong intellectual property position; a Company-owned and operated GMP-certified manufacturing and research facility; strategic relationships with major research institutions; and a seasoned management team.

Safe Harbor StatementThis press release contains express or implied forward-looking statements within the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and other U.S. Federal securities laws. For example, Pluristem is using forward-looking statements when it discusses the patient enrollment for cohort II for its Phase I/II study of its PLX-PAD cells, the implication from the results of the first patient cohort in the study, the belief that GvHD is an indication that has a significant need for enhanced treatments among patients undergoing bone marrow transplants and that the preliminary results from cohort I of the study, and the prior preclinical data, indicate that PLX-PAD cells may potentially treat chronic GvHD patients and mitigate symptoms. These forward-looking statements and their implications are based on the current expectations of the management of Pluristem only, and are subject to a number of factors and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements. The following factors, among others, could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements: changes in technology and market requirements; Pluristem may encounter delays or obstacles in launching and/or successfully completing its clinical trials; Pluristems products may not be approved by regulatory agencies, Pluristems technology may not be validated as it progresses further and its methods may not be accepted by the scientific community; Pluristem may be unable to retain or attract key employees whose knowledge is essential to the development of its products; unforeseen scientific difficulties may develop with Pluristems process; Pluristems products may wind up being more expensive than it anticipates; results in the laboratory may not translate to equally good results in real clinical settings; results of preclinical studies may not correlate with the results of human clinical trials; Pluristems patents may not be sufficient; Pluristems products may harm recipients; changes in legislation may adversely impact Pluristem; inability to timely develop and introduce new technologies, products and applications; loss of market share and pressure on pricing resulting from competition, which could cause the actual results or performance of Pluristem to differ materially from those contemplated in such forward-looking statements. Except as otherwise required by law, Pluristem undertakes no obligation to publicly release any revisions to these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events. For a more detailed description of the risks and uncertainties affecting Pluristem, reference is made to Pluristem's reports filed from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Contact:

Dana RubinDirector of Investor Relations972-74-7107194danar@pluristem.com

_________________________________

1 Flowers ME, Martin PJ. How we treat chronic graft-versus-host disease. Blood. 2015 Jan 22;125(4):606-15. doi: 10.1182/blood-2014-08-551994. Epub 2014 Nov 14. PMID: 25398933; PMCID: PMC4304105., https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25398933/

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FDA officials, experts discuss impact of COVID-19 on cell and gene therapies – Regulatory Focus

October 18th, 2020 6:57 am

While the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is still receiving investigational new drug applications (INDs) for cell and gene therapies, officials are concerned about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on clinical trials.Its clear that COVID-19 has adversely affected all aspects of development of cell and gene therapies, said Peter Marks, director of FDAs Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER), said at the Alliance for Regenerative Medicines Meeting on the Mesa. For some of the studies that are ongoing there are some real challenges to overcome in terms of endpoints that may have been missed.The pandemic also has disrupted global harmonization efforts around gene therapies, Marks said.We were on the cusp, in fact, working with global regulators trying to get towards more harmonization of gene therapy programs in different countries, he said. Were trying to keep it moving but its a challenge to do.Marks noted that before COVID-19 he spent about 75% of his time on cell and gene therapies, but the pandemic has forced him to shift priorities. Some things have less policy demands at this point in time. At this point in time its very much reversed and its probably 80% of my time on COVID-related activities.Marks also noted that CBERs Office of Tissues and Advanced Therapies (OTAT) has been struggling to keep up with its workload even before the pandemic. With the influx of applications for cell and gene therapies over the last five years, Marks said the office, Should have doubled in size and its only modestly larger, 15-20% larger in size.Marks said he is not satisfied with the level of dialogue the agency has been able to have with gene therapy developers. Especially early on, we should be able to have this dialogue that really facilitates setting things up well so that our knowledge of the entire fieldwe help leverage that for every sponsor.Weve been so strapped in terms of personnel that its hard to do that, Marks said, noting that COVID-19 has exacerbated things even further. Because the number of gene therapy applications hasnt fallen off dramatically, some of the trials may not be moving as quickly, but the applications keep coming in. Marks said that OTAT has also had to shift priorities during the pandemic and that he hopes the next user fee cycle will bring in the resources necessary to staff up further.Speaking on a separate panel with members of industry, OTAT Director Wilson Bryan echoed Marks sentiment.We were stretched thin before the pandemic, and with the flood of work that came in, it really had an impact, he said. Sometimes folks dont like to admit this, but we all know weve had delayed meetings, weve had to delay review of some applications because of giving priority to the pandemic.However, Bryan said the office is getting its balance and is working to catch up on some of its delayed activities.Bryan expressed some worry about the financial well-being of some of the smaller companies his office works with. Were hearing a lot about their struggles to stay afloat and continue and finish off their development programs and whether or not those development programs are going to be sufficient to meet regulatory standards, he said.One of the challenges, said Timothy Schroeder, CEO of CTI Clinical Trial & Consulting, will be dealing with gaps in data from clinical trials. The question is going to be how do sponsors, how do regulatory authorities and how do companies such as ourselves fill those gaps?On the regulator side, Bryan said his office is working with companies on an individual basis to sort out those issues, which differ from one indication to the next.Bryan added that one positive to come of the pandemic is greater interest in remote outcome assessments in clinical trials. If we have an energy now to develop outcome measures and validate outcome measures that allow us to reliably capture information from patients in remote locations, that will ultimately facilitate development, he said.The pandemic also has significantly disrupted FDAs ability to conduct surveillance and preapproval inspections. While the agency has resumed some domestic inspections and mission-critical foreign inspections, it also is leveraging other sources of information, including inspection reports from other regulators, and requesting documents from applicants and facilities in lieu of on-site inspections where possible. (RELATED: FDA issues pandemic inspections FAQ guidance, Regulatory Focus 19 August 2020).Were considering virtual inspections, particularly for companies where the site has a track record, but if its a site that is brand new with no track record or if its a site with that has a bad track record, were hesitant to do that, Bryan said.Bryan also raised the prospect of FDA inspectors tagging along remotely for an inspection being conducted by other regulators. Is it possible that we could have an inspection by European inspectors and have US regulators going along for a virtual inspection at the same time? We think about those things, I dont know that weve done them yet, Bryan said, adding that he is not sure whether FDA inspectors would be comfortable with the information they would get.Curran Simpson, chief operations and technology officer at REGENXBIO, said he sees promise in virtual audits and believes the level of documentation a site provides can be indicative of its compliance.How often have I walked into a manufacturing facility thats well-run but has terrible documentation? Almost never. I think virtual audits, if you do a risk-based approach and the audit partner has the ability to send documentation in an efficient way and you have experienced people doing this, I think youre going to get the same flavor of an audit very quickly from the level of the documentation, he said.Of course, youll want to accompany that to the extent possible with imaging of the facility, Curran said, To see if those practices are being followed, the overall cleanliness of the facility and the management of material movement If you dont get a good impression from the documentation that youre working through, its probably a bigger issue that you want to escalate.Amy DuRoss, co-founder and CEO of Vineti, an enterprise software company specializing in advanced therapies, expressed some doubts about the current potential for fully remote audits.Certainly our piece of the chain because were enterprise software is readily auditable remotely, but I would say that the overall system and in manufacturing, Im not sure weve evolved as a species yet to adapt our remote techniques to get a full picture I dont think were there yet, she said.

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Protein that Keeps Immune System from Freaking Out Could Form Basis for New Therapeutics – UC San Diego Health

October 18th, 2020 6:56 am

The immune response to infections is a delicate balance. We need just enough action to clear away the offending bacteria or viruses, but not so much that our own bodies suffer collateral damage.

Macrophages are immune cells at the front line, detecting pathogens and kicking off an inflammatory response when needed. Understanding how macrophages determine when to go all-out and when to keep calm is key to finding new ways to strike the right balance particularly in cases where inflammation goes too far, such as in sepsis, colitis and other autoimmune disorders.

Two macrophages (blue) fighting to engulf the same pathogen (green). GIV/Girdin is shown in red.

In a study published October 14, 2020 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine discovered that a molecule called Girdin, or GIV, acts as a brake on macrophages.

When the team deleted the GIV gene from mouse macrophages, the immune cells rapidly overacted to even small amounts of live bacteria or a bacterial toxin. Mice with colitis and sepsis fared worse when lacking the GIV gene in their macrophages.

The researchers also created peptides that mimic GIV, allowing them to shut down mouse macrophages on command. When treated with the GIV-mimic peptide, the mices inflammatory response was tempered.

When a patient dies of sepsis, he or she does not die due to the invading bacteria themselves, but from an overreaction of their immune system to the bacteria, said senior author Pradipta Ghosh, MD, professor at UC San Diego School of Medicine and Moores Cancer Center. Its similar to what were seeing now with dangerous cytokine storms that can result from infection with the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. Macrophages, and the cytokines they produce, are the bodys own immune-stimulating agents and when produced in excessive amounts, they do more harm than good.

Digging deeper into the mechanism at play, Ghosh and team discovered that the GIV protein normally cozies up to a molecule called Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4). TLR4 is stuck right through the cell membrane, with bits poking inside and outside the cell. Outside of the cell, TLR4 is like an antenna, searching for signs of invading pathogens. Inside the cell, GIV is nestled between the receptors two feet. When in place, GIV keeps the feet apart, and nothing happens. When GIV is removed, the TLR4 feet touch and kick off a cascade of immune-stimulating signals.

Ghoshs GIV-mimicking peptides can take the place of the protein when its missing, keeping the feet apart and calming macrophages down.

We were surprised at just how fluid the immune system is when it encounters a pathogen, said Ghosh, who is also director of the Institute for Network Medicine and executive director of the HUMANOID Center of Research Excellence at UC San Diego School of Medicine. Macrophages dont need to waste time and energy producing more or less GIV protein, they can rapidly dial their response up or down simply by moving it around, and it appears that such regulation happens at the level of gene transcription.

Ghosh and team plan to investigate the factors that determine how the GIV brake remains in place when macrophages are resting or is removed to mount a response to a credible threat. To enable these studies, the Institute for Network Medicine at UC San Diego School of Medicine recently received a new $5 million grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health. Ghosh shares this award with her colleagues Debashis Sahoo, PhD, assistant professor at UC San Diego School of Medicine and Jacobs School of Engineering, and Soumita Das, PhD, associate professor of pathology at UC San Diego School of Medicine.

Co-authors of the study include: Lee Swanson, Gajanan D. Katkar, Julian Tam, Rama F. Pranadinata, Yogitha Chareddy, Jane Coates, Mahitha Shree Anandachar, Vanessa Castillo, Joshua Olson, Victor Nizet, Irina Kufareva, Soumita Das, all at UC San Diego.

Funding for this research came, in part, from the National Institutes for Health (grants AI141630, AI155696, CA100768, CA160911, DK107585, UL1TR001442, DK 0070202), DiaComp and Helmsley Charitable Trust.

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What We Know And Don’t Know About COVID-19 Reinfection Cases – ScienceAlert

October 18th, 2020 6:56 am

As President Trump claims that he is immune to COVID-19 and isolated reports emerge of reinfection, what is the truth about immunity to COVID-19?

To date, there have been six published cases of COVID-19 reinfection, with various other unverified accounts from around the world. Although this is a comparably small fraction of the millions of people known to have been infected, should we be concerned? To unpick this puzzle, we must first consider what we mean by immunity.

When we are infected with any pathogen, our immune system quickly responds to try to contain the threat and minimise any damage. Our first line of defence is from immune cells, known as innate cells. These cells are not usually enough to eliminate a threat, which is where having a more flexible "adaptive" immune response comes into play our lymphocytes.

Lymphocytes come in two main varieties: B lymphocytes, which make antibodies, and T lymphocytes, which include cells that directly kill the germy invaders.

As antibodies are readily measured in blood, they are often used to indicate a good adaptive immune response. However, over time, antibodies levels in our blood wane, but this doesn't necessarily mean protection is lost. We retain some lymphocytes that know how to deal with the threat our memory cells. Memory cells are remarkably long-lived, patrolling our body, ready to spring into action when needed.

Vaccines work by creating memory cells without the risk of a potentially fatal infection. In an ideal world, it would be relatively easy to create immunity, but it's not always that straightforward.

Although our immune system has evolved to deal with a huge variety of pathogens, these germs have also evolved to hide from the immune system. This arms race means that some pathogens such as malaria or HIV are very tricky to deal with.

Infections that have spilled over from animals - zoonotic diseases - are also challenging for our immune system because they can be completely novel. The virus that causes COVID-19 is such a zoonotic disease, originating in bats.

COVID-19 is caused by a betacoronavirus. Several betacoronaviruses are already common in the human population most familiar as a cause of the common cold. Immunity to these cold-causing viruses isn't that robust but immunity to the more serious conditions, Mers and Sars, is more durable.

Data to date on COVID-19 shows that antibodies can be detected three months after infection, although, as with Sars and Mers, antibodies gradually decrease over time.

Of course, antibody levels are not the only indication of immunity and don't tell us about T lymphocytes or our memory cells. The virus causing COVID-19 is structurally similar to Sars, so perhaps we can be more optimistic about a more durable protective response time will tell. So how worried then should we be about reports of reinfection with COVID-19?

The handful of case reports on reinfection with COVID-19 don't necessarily mean that immunity is not occurring. Issues with testing could account for some reports because "virus" can be detected after infection and recovery. The tests look for viral RNA (the virus's genetic material), and viral RNA that cannot cause infection can be shed from the body even after the person has recovered.

Conversely, false-negative results happen when the sample used in testing contains insufficient viral material to be detected for example, because the virus is at a very low level in the body. Such apparent negative results may account for cases in which the interval between the first and second infection is short. It is hugely important, therefore, to use additional measures, such as viral sequencing and immune indicators.

Reinfection, even in immunity, can happen, but usually this would be mild or asymptomatic because the immune response protects against the worst effects. Consistent with this is that most verified cases of reinfection reported either no or mild symptoms. However, one of the latest verified cases of reinfection which happened just 48 days after the initial infection actually had a more severe response to reinfection.

What might account for the worse symptoms the second time round? One possibility is the patient did not mount a robust adaptive immune response first time round and that their initial infection was largely contained by the innate immune response (the first line of defence). One way to monitor this would be to assess the antibody response as the type of antibody detected can tell us something about the timing of infection. But unfortunately, antibody results were not analysed in the recent patient's first infection.

Another explanation is that different viral strains caused the infections with a subsequent impact on immunity. Genetic sequencing did show differences in viral strains, but it isn't known if this equated to altered immune recognition. Many viruses share structural features, enabling immune responses to one virus to protect against a similar virus. This has been suggested to account for the lack of symptoms in young children who frequently get colds caused by betacoronaviruses.

However, a recent study, yet to be peer-reviewed, found that protection against cold-causing coronaviruses did not protect against COVID-19. In fact, antibodies recognising similar viruses can be dangerous accounting for the rare phenomenon of antibody-dependent enhancement of disease (ADE). ADE occurs when antibodies enhance viral infection of cells with potentially life-threatening consequences.

It should be emphasised, though, that antibodies are only one indicator of immunity and we have no data on either T lymphocytes or memory cells in these cases. What these cases emphasise is a need to standardised approaches in order to capture the critical information for robust evaluation of the threat of reinfection.

We are still learning about the immune response to COVID-19, and every piece of new data is helping us unpick the puzzle of this challenging virus. Our immune system is a powerful ally in the fight against infection, and only by unlocking it can we ultimately hope to defeat COVID-19.

Sheena Cruickshank, Professor in Biomedical Sciences, University of Manchester.

This article was originally published byThe Conversation. Read the original article.

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Boost your immune system with THESE 5 healthy juice recipes shared by Nutritionist Arooshi Agarwal – PINKVILLA

October 18th, 2020 6:56 am

Having healthy juices is an easy and effective way to enhance your immunity to combat all diseases and infections. Here are 5 juice recipes from Arooshi Agarwal, Nutritionist and founder of Arooshis Nutrylife to amp up your immune system.

Our immune system works constantly without a pause and so it requires the best fuel for its performance in figuring out which cells belong to our body and which doesnt. These internal little wonderful warriors (antibodies) that protect us from diseases, infections, and what not needs ultimate care so that we are kept healthy and strong from inside. The immune system doesnt only need the right conditions to perform but also requires the right nutrition.

The current global crisis has made us realize the importance of immunity in our daily lives. Good immunity wont come easy without taking care of the gut (small intestine) and liver health. More than 70% of our immune system is in our gut which forms a foundation of our overall health. These two are one of the most important organs in our body that ensures the immunity that we need in our daily life to combat all sorts of illnesses. Having different types of juice is one of the most effective ways to boost our immune system. Hence, Arooshi Aggarwal, nutritionist and founder of Arooshis Nutrylife, shares some easy juice recipes.

5 juice recipes shared by nutritionist Arooshi Agarwal.

Green Juice

Green juice is a powerhouse of supplements for a solid immune system. It works best for detoxifying the liver.You need Wheat Grass, bottle gourd, a handful of mint leaves, and lime. Do not add salt or any condiments, try taking it raw. Blend these green veggies. You can adjust the consistency either with water or coconut water. The ideal time to consume this juice is in the morning.This juice is packed with antioxidants, iron, potassium magnesium which have a nerve and muscle relaxing effect. This juice helps in reducing the inflammation, cools down the body heat and antioxidants help in building up the antibodies.

White Juice

For this juice, you will need bottle gourd, green apple, celery and ginger. Ginger has always been the go-to food for colds. This is because it kills rhinovirus, the infectious agent responsible for the common cold. Celery is filled with sodium, a natural electrolyte that helps to treat dehydration. Green apples are also rich in vitamin C that boosts our immunity. Blend these together with water and drink.

Orange juice

For orange juice, you will be needing carrots, pumpkin, and apricots. This juice is rich in Vitamin A which is also fat-soluble vitamin and helps us fight against eye infections and provides a better vision.

Red juice

For this refreshing juice, you will need beetroot, tomato, ginger, garlic, and turmeric. These are wonder veggies to improve immunity. These veggies keep gut flora (good bacteria) healthy and improve gut health. Not only this juice refreshes the mood but also helps to treat influenza, runny nose, and body aches. This juice is so healthy that it calms down the symptoms of Rheumatoid Arthritis as turmeric, garlic, and ginger have strong inflammatory effects.

Yellow juice

For this, you will need pineapple, carrot mint leaves and lemon. This juice is loaded with immunity builders. It helps in treating cold, cough, and sore throat. Pineapple can reduce the bronchial inflammation which provides better respiration and relieves from the excess mucus formation. This juice is high on Vitamin C, vitamin A, iron, potassium, and antioxidants which also benefit the skin and hair health.

Remember

These five juices will be a blessing to your immune system and vital organs. Also remember, hydration, exercise, and a healthy diet play a very important role to keep your immune system up. While juicing may benefit your physical health, it is equally important to take care of your mental health. A healthy mind resides in a healthy body and vice versa!

Also Read:Significance of self screening in early detection of Breast Cancer explained by Dr Chandrani Mallik

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Protein That Pumps the Brakes on Macrophages in Immune Overreaction – Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News

October 18th, 2020 6:56 am

At the front line of our immune system macrophages are standing by, detecting pathogens and kicking off an inflammatory response when needed. Understanding how these immune cells know when to go all-out and when to keep calm is critical to finding new ways to strike the right chord in cases where the immune system overreacts, such as in sepsis and other autoimmune disorders.

Researchers at the University of California (UC) San Diego School of Medicine report they have discovered a protein that acts as a brake on macrophages. Their findings, TLR4 signaling and macrophage inflammatory responses are dampened by GIV/Girdin, were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Sensing of pathogens by Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) induces an inflammatory response; controlled responses confer immunity but uncontrolled responses cause harm. Here we define how a multimodular scaffold, GIV, or Girdin, titrates such inflammatory response in macrophages, noted the researchers.

When the team deleted the GIV gene from mouse macrophages, the immune cells overreacted to small amounts of live bacteria. Mice with colitis and sepsis fared worse when lacking the GIV gene in their macrophages. They also created peptides that mimic GIV, which allowed them to put the brakes on mouse macrophages on command. When treated with the GIV-mimic peptide, the mices inflammatory response was tempered.

When a patient dies of sepsis, he or she does not die due to the invading bacteria themselves, but from an overreaction of their immune system to the bacteria, explained Pradipta Ghosh, MD, professor at UC San Diego School of Medicine and Moores Cancer Center. Its similar to what were seeing now with dangerous cytokine storms that can result from infection with the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. Macrophages, and the cytokines they produce, are the bodys own immune-stimulating agents and when produced in excessive amounts, they do more harm than good.

Further observation revealed that the GIV protein works together with TLR4. Outside of the cell, TLR4 is like an antenna, searching for signs of invading pathogens. Inside the cell, GIV waits between the receptors two feet. When in place, GIV keeps the feet apart, and nothing happens. When GIV is removed, the TLR4 feet touch and sends off immune-stimulating signals.

We were surprised at just how fluid the immune system is when it encounters a pathogen, said Ghosh, who is also director of the Institute for Network Medicine and executive director of the HUMANOID Center of Research Excellence at UC San Diego School of Medicine. Macrophages dont need to waste time and energy producing more or less GIV protein, they can rapidly dial their response up or down simply by moving it around, and it appears that such regulation happens at the level of gene transcription.

The researchers are looking forward to investigating the factors that determine how the GIV brake remains in place when macrophages are resting or is removed to mount a response to a credible threat. The Institute for Network Medicine at UC San Diego School of Medicine recently received a $5 million grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health. Ghosh shares this award with her colleagues Debashis Sahoo, PhD, assistant professor at UC San Diego School of Medicine and Jacobs School of Engineering, and Soumita Das, PhD, associate professor of pathology at UC San Diego School of Medicine.

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Why is coronavirus killing more men than women? – theday.com

October 18th, 2020 6:56 am

Early in the coronavirus outbreak, hospital data from China revealed a startling disparity: COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, was killing far more men than women.

That difference persisted in other Asian countries, such as South Korea, as well as in European countries, such as Italy. Then, it appeared in the United States.

By mid-October, the coronavirus had killed almost 17,000 more American men than women, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. For every 10 women claimed by the disease in the United States, 12 men have died, found an analysis by Global Health 50/50, a U.K.-based initiative to advance gender equality in health care.

That disparity was one of many alarming aspects of the new virus. It bewildered those unfamiliar with the role of gender in disease.

But the specialized group of researchers who study that relationship was not surprised. It prepared an array of hypotheses. One possible culprit was male behavior. Perhaps men were more likely to be exposed to the virus due to social factors; a disproportionately male workforce, for instance, could place more men in contact with infected people. Or men's lungs might be more vulnerable because they were more likely to smoke in the earliest countries to report the differences.

What has become more evident, 10 months into this outbreak, is that men show comparatively weaker immune responses to coronavirus infections, which may account for those added deaths.

"If you look at the data across the world, there are as many men as women that are infected. It's just the severity of disease that is stronger in most populations in men," Franck Mauvais-Jarvis, a Tulane University physician who studies gender differences in such diseases as diabetes. In such cases, biology can help explain why.

- The male immune response. Women generally have stronger immune systems, thanks to sex hormones, as well as chromosomes packed with immune-related genes. About 60 genes on the X chromosome are involved in immune function, Johns Hopkins University microbiologist Sabra Klein told The Washington Post in April. People with two X chromosomes can benefit from the double helping of some of those genes.

Akiko Iwasaki, who studies immune defenses against viruses at Yale University, wanted to see how sex differences might play out in coronavirus infections. She and her colleagues cast a proverbial net into the immune system to fish out schools of microscopic fighters.

"We did a holistic look at everything we can measure immunologically," Iwasaki said, listing a litany of the molecules and cells that form the body's bulwark against pathogens: "cytokines, chemokines, T cells, B cells, neutrophils. Everything that we had access to."

In male patients, the T-cell response was weaker, the scientists found. Not only do T cells detect infected cells and kill them, they also help direct the antibody response. "It's like a master regulator of immune response. And when you have a drop in T cells, or in their ability to become activated, you basically lose the conductor of an orchestra," Iwasaki said.

The power of the immune system wanes as people age, regardless of sex. But what is a gentle decline for women is an abrupt dive off a cliff for men: Iwasaki's work indicates the T-cell response of men in their 30s and 40s is equivalent to that of a woman in her 90s.

And T cells aren't the only immune feature disproportionately impaired in men. Another paper, published in September in PLOS Biology, examined anonymous human genetic material collected along with viruses in nasal swabs.

That study found throttled defense signals in men. When a cell detects a virus, it performs the molecular equivalent of yanking the fire alarm, said one of the study's author, Nicole Lieberman, a research scientist at the University of Washington. That alarm is manifest in genetic messengers, called RNA, which react almost immediately.

The reaction should cause cells to churn out the first lines of defense, such as interferons, immune system molecules that, as the name suggests, interfere with the virus's ability to reproduce. Other molecules summon specialized immune cells to destroy the pathogens. "You want the fire alarm to go off for long enough that you can get the fire department there," Lieberman said.

Lieberman and her co-authors, however, found that in men and some older populations, the fire alarm shuts off early - maybe even before the firefighters have arrived. "That, I think, is the functional consequence, potentially, of what we're seeing here," she said.

- Harmful autoantibodies. Not only is the immune system in men weaker, but in some severe cases of the coronavirus, it may hobble itself. A study of nearly 1,000 patients with life-threatening COVID-19, published in Science in September, found evidence of molecular self-sabotage. Immune system fighters were acting against the body's defenses, like rebellious castle guards splintering their own gates. This flaw was much more prevalent in men than women.

Specifically, the researchers detected what are called autoantibodies, molecules that bind and neutralize parts of the immune system. Those neutralizers disabled a subset of defender molecules known as type-1a interferon. Simply put, having autoantibodies led to more viral replication.

Ninety-five of 101 people with autoantibodies against interferon were male. "Somehow males are probably more prone to develop such autoantibodies, but we do not know why," said study author Petter Brodin, a pediatrician at Sweden's Karolinska Institute who studies the immune system.

Interferon molecules come in several types, so it's possible these patients could be treated with another flavor of interferon, Brodin said. But that may be difficult, he acknowledged, because interferons are most helpful early in the course of an infection, before the disease progresses to life-threatening stages.

The lack of killer T cells, coupled with neutralizing antibodies, is "like a double whammy," Iwasaki said, "that would then ultimately increase the viral load in these men."

What's unusual about this result is that most autoantibody immune disorders appear in women, as is the case with the chronic disease lupus.

Iwasaki's research is examining whether female immune systems may play a role in people with long-lasting COVID-19, nicknamed long-haulers.

"There are thousands of people suffering from chronic symptoms," which may be debilitating, Iwasaki said. Many long-haulers are young and the majority of them, though not all, are women.

- Men behaving differently.

Beyond these biological differences, it would be simplistic to ignore how gender's other aspects, such as behavior and social norms, may also influence the pandemic.

Broadly speaking, men may be less likely to be worried about COVID-19 than women, fitting the pattern that women generally treat health risks more seriously. Women took a more cautious approach to the disease, a recent poll found, expressing more concern they could return to workplaces safely. Women are also more likely to follow expert advice such as mask-wearing and social distancing, according to another study that included surveys and observations of pedestrians' behavior in New York, Connecticut and New Jersey.

Sarah Hawkes, a professor of global public health at University College London who, with her husband, co-directs Global Health 50/50, said that the image of men as risk-takers extends back hundreds of years to John Graunt, one of the first people to participate in the field now known as epidemiology.

After he reviewed England's death records, Graunt postulated in 1662 that "men, being more intemperate then women, die as much by reason of their Vices" - that is, male behavior was to blame. Hawkes argues that "350 years later," Graunt's point still stands. "It is undoubtedly a mixture of both biology and behavior" responsible for the health differences in men and women, she said.

The share of coronavirus deaths in women also rises with their share of the full-time workforce, according to a report by University of Oxford economist Renee Adams that used Global Health 50/50 data.

"The more you have women participating in the workforce, the smaller your sex difference becomes," Hawkes said. That lines up with gender inequalities - men are more likely to work in environments where they are exposed to air pollution and other harms, Hawkes said. When women start to enter those traditionally masculine spaces, she said, it "turns out, women can get as sick as men."

The gender disparities discovered in the response to COVID-19 have sparked a surge of interest in such differences more broadly. "Almost nobody, apart from the people working in the field, were interested in that difference between men and women in disease until February or March," when the first results showed that more men were dying, Mauvais-Jarvis said.

Even agencies at the forefront of public health, such as the CDC, were initially slow to reveal sex-disaggregated coronavirus data, Hawkes said. The U.K. public health surveillance system was similarly late. Hawkes took those delays as a sign of just how unimportant people considered this data, since it is so readily available: When people die, their death certificates state whether they were male, female or, in some places, nonbinary.

The CDC data finally made that information accessible in mid-April. The male-skewed patterns revealed in those deaths conform to what was seen in earlier outbreaks of Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), both within the family of coronaviruses. And it is in line with other viral responses. "We know that women develop much better antibody response to flu vaccines," Iwasaki said.

Some of those experts are hoping to capitalize on this moment to shine a spotlight on other gender differences in health. The coronavirus, after all, isn't the only problem to afflict men and women unequally - so, too, do cancer, asthma, heart disease and other common illnesses, as Mauvais-Jarvis noted in a recent paper in the Lancet.

"The kinds of differences that we're seeing and outcomes in COVID-19 are not unexpected. They're not exceptional," Hawkes said. If there's surprise, it only demonstrates the widespread underestimation of the differences in men and women that persist even among physicians, she said.

Mauvais-Jarvis referred to this faulty approach as "bikini medicine" - in which clinicians view female patients as interchangeable with male ones, except for the organs covered by swimwear.

The coronavirus has helped accelerate the trend away from that outdated view. The "one positive that's come out of the pandemic," Hawkes said, is the sudden realization that gendered social factors and biology "may have a relationship with your life expectancy, your experience with illness, your risk of illness. It has made that conversation a little bit more real."

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Genetic modification is ready to serve humanity The Miscellany News – Miscellany News

October 18th, 2020 6:54 am

On Oct. 7, 2020, Dr. Emmanuelle Charpentier and Dr. Jennifer A. Doudna were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their work in the field of gene editing. On top of breaking barriers as the first two women jointly awarded the chemistry prize, Charpentier and Doudnas recognition is a huge step forward for the controversial field of genetic engineering.

Humans have been practicing a form of genetic engineering ever since we started cultivating plants and livestock. Grafting two plants together dates back centuries in both the East and the West, and selective breeding was a staple technique used by even the earliest farmers. These techniques arent using advanced technology to target and change certain genes, but nevertheless the point of these exercises was to eliminate or diminish unwanted characteristics and promote the characteristics that the farmer found most useful. Wild cabbage was bred to create broccoli, brussel sprouts and domesticated cabbage. Cattle were bred to increase their edible volume. This was all uncontroversial, but it was all gene editing.

Today the techniques have changed, but the underlying mission has stayed the same: improve quality of life. Public opinion has shifted, however. Currently, more than half of adults in the U.S. believe that using genetically modified organisms (GMOs) as a food source is worse for your health than using non-modified foods. Of those, 88 percent believe that GMO foods will lead to health problems for the general populace. There is no such thing as non-modified food, but there is a stigma against food modified in a lab.

Part of this bias may be due to the way direct modification was introduced in the 1950s. In order to increase variation in plants so that selective breeding could be done more efficiently, scientists bombarded plants with radiation. This process, known as mutation breeding, was part of an effort to discover a peaceful use for the nuclear knowledge that was proliferating in the aftermath of World War II. Radiation was poorly understood by the general public in the mid-20th century. The possibilities of mutation due to radiation caused imagination to run rampant over reality: 1954s Them! stars giant insects caused by nuclear testing in the area.

The 1957 film Beginning of the End has grasshoppers eat mutated plants and then grow to enormous sizes. Even some of the most famous pop culture characters that exist today were formulated along these lines. In 1961 the Fantastic Four were given their powers by cosmic radiation. Spider-Man has had eight movies over the last 20 years, and he was famously bitten by a radioactive spider. These examples dont insinuate that people really believed that radiation could produce superheroes and skyscraper-sized insects, but they do reflect a general fear of the unknown that the gene modification of radiation could produce.

Radiation is no longer the bugaboo of the modern day, but fear of radiation has been displaced by fear of targeted gene editing, like the Crispr-Cas9 technique pioneered by Charpentier and Doudna. Some of this fear may be well founded: Theres no definite way to know that a gene edited plant or animal wont act similar to an invasive species. Presumably freed from some ailment or deficit that was limiting its growth, it is possible that a plant may grow at a pace that is higher than wanted by its creators. Nature is a delicate balance, and intervening must be done in a reasonable way that weighs the potential costs and benefits.

Mosquito reduction or elimination may not seem to be a worthwhile risk for something with unknown side effects, but that initial intuition would be wrong. Malaria, a disease transmitted mainly through mosquito bites, kills around 400,000 people per year. Zika and West Nile virus, while less deadly, are also transmitted into the human populace via mosquito. No other creature kills humans at the rate of mosquitoes. Despite the environmental damage that may be wreaked by the adjustment of the other flora and fauna to a lack of mosquitoes, gene editing to reduce mosquito population is a clear path to saving hundreds of thousands of lives every year.

With this sort of benefit in mind, the United States Environmental Protection Agency and Florida state government recently came to an agreement that will release over 750 million genetically modified mosquitoes into Florida. This is no small action and could potentially disrupt the entire food web of Florida, and possibly beyond.

The plan in Florida is to introduce a strain of Aedes Aegypti mosquitoes, a spreader of the Zika virus, that are genetically engineered so that their female offspring die off. Mosquitoes bite to extract human blood, and in this exchange mosquitoes can transfer any diseases they are carrying. Mosquitoes only bite so that they can extract iron and proteins in human blood and transfer it to the fertilized eggs that will be the next generation of that mosquitos bloodline. As such, the only mosquitoes that bite, and thus have the chance to transfer diseases, are adult females. The firm Oxitec produced a modified mosquito whose female offspring cant grow out of the larval stage. No adult females means no blood sucking, which means no disease transmission and no new mosquito larvae being produced.

A similar plan was executed in Brazil, where the Aedes Aegypti mosquito population was cut by 89 to 96 percent. With such a large reduction in mosquito population, the benefits move beyond that of just public health. Thousands of tracts of land would become more usable and see an increase in value if mosquitoes died out. Even day-to-day activities like gardening or talking walks could become much more pleasant in the absence of mosquitoes.

2020 has already shown the effects of disease and failures of public health. COVID-19 has killed over a million people; over the last 10 years, malaria has killed over four million. We have to live with COVID-19 for the foreseeable future, but gene editing has given us a tool to end malaria. Genetically modified mosquitoes should not end in Florida or with Aedes Aegypti: they should be of all species, placed all over the globe. For months the world has lived under a new biological terror. Its time we release a new biological salvation.

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Dyslexia shows the inborn nature of visual imagining and cognition – Genetic Literacy Project

October 18th, 2020 6:54 am

Reading is a learned skill; no one is born reading. But learning to read relies on inborn human capacities for language and speech. And dyslexia is ageneticcondition that compromises thesebrain networks.

Yet laypeople are convinced that dyslexia results from troubleswith vision. And these errors matter. A parent who holds these views might fail to recognize her childs difficulties with rhymes and pig Latin (both require phonemic awareness) as warning signs. So why are we so wrong about dyslexia? Why do we mistake dyslexia for word blindness?

At first blush, these misconceptions seem rather innocent; laypeople, by definition, arent reading experts, so perhaps they just dont know better. But aspiringteachers, with ample educational training, make similar mistakes. Moreover, the pattern of mistakes suggests a deeper problem.

While these biases are unconscious, they demonstrably veer off reasoning in numerous areas, from our irrational fascination with the brain to ourfear of artificial intelligence; our troubles with dyslexia, then, are but one of its many victims. To counter these errors, information alone wont sufficea real change requires that we take a hard look within.

Reading, then, rests on decoding in more ways than one. For children to successfully decode printed words, we must all improve our decoding of the human mind.

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Scientists Found a New Way to Control the Brain With LightNo Surgery Required – Singularity Hub

October 18th, 2020 6:53 am

If I had to place money on a neurotech that will win the Nobel Prize, its optogenetics.

The technology uses light of different frequencies to control the brain. Its a brilliant mind-meld of basic neurobiology and engineering that hijacks the mechanism behind how neurons naturally activateor are silencedin the brain.

Thanks to optogenetics, in just ten years weve been able to artificially incept memories in mice, decipher brain signals that lead to pain, untangle the neural code for addiction, reverse depression, restore rudimentary sight in blinded mice, and overwrite terrible memories with happy ones. Optogenetics is akin to a universal programming language for the brain.

But its got two serious downfalls: it requires gene therapy, and it needs brain surgery to implant optical fibers into the brain.

This week, the original mind behind optogenetics is back with an update that cuts the cord. Dr. Karl Deisseroths team at Stanford University, in collaboration with the University of Minnesota, unveiled an upgraded version of optogenetics that controls behavior without the need for surgery. Rather, the system shines light through the skulls of mice, and it penetrates deep into the brain. With light pulses, the team was able to change how likely a mouse was to have seizures, or reprogram its brain so it preferred social company.

To be clear: were far off from scientists controlling your brain with flashlights. The key to optogenetics is genetic engineeringwithout it, neurons (including yours) dont naturally respond to light.

However, looking ahead, the study is a sure-footed step towards transforming a powerful research technology into a clinical therapy that could potentially help people with neurological problems, such as depression or epilepsy. We are still far from that visionbut the study suggests its science fiction potentially within reach.

To understand optogenetics, we need to dig a little deeper into how brains work.

Essentially, neurons operate on electricity with an additional dash of chemistry. A brain cell is like a living storage container with doorscalled ion channelsthat separate its internal environment from the outside. When a neuron receives input and that input is sufficiently strong, the cells open their doors. This process generates an electrical current, which then gallops down a neurons output brancha biological highway of sorts. At the terminal, the electrical data transforms into dozens of chemical ships, which float across a gap between neurons to deliver the message to its neighbors. This is how neurons in a network communicate, and how that network in turn produces memories, emotions, and behaviors.

Optogenetics hijacks this process.

Using viruses, scientists can add a gene for opsins, a special family of proteins from algae, into living neurons. Opsins are specialized doors that open under certain frequencies of light pulses, something mammalian brain cells cant do. Adding opsins into mouse neurons (or ours) essentially gives them the superpower to respond to light. In classic optogenetics, scientists implant optical fibers near opsin-dotted neurons to deliver the light stimulation. Computer-programmed light pulses can then target these newly light-sensitive neurons in a particular region of the brain and control their activity like puppets on a string.

It gets cooler. Using genetic engineering, scientists can also fine-tune which populations of neurons get that extra powerfor example, only those that encode a recent memory, or those involved in depression or epilepsy. This makes it possible to play with those neural circuits using light, while the rest of the brain hums along.

This selectivity is partially why optogenetics is so powerful. But its not all ponies and rainbows. As you can imagine, mice dont particularly enjoy being tethered by optical fibers sprouting from their brains. Humans dont either, hence the hiccup in adopting the tool for clinical use. Since its introduction, a main goal for next-generation optogenetics has been to cut the cord.

In the new study, the Deisseroth team started with a main goal: lets ditch the need for surgical implants altogether. Immediately, this presents a tough problem. It means that bioengineered neurons, inside a brain, need to have a sensitive and powerful enough opsin door that responds to lighteven when light pulses are diffused by the skull and brain tissue. Its like a game of telephone where one person yells a message from ten blocks away, through multiple walls and city noise, yet you still have to be able to decipher it and pass it on.

Luckily, the team already had a candidate, one so good its a ChRmine (bad joke cringe). Developed last year, ChRmine stands out in its shockingly fast reaction times to light and its ability to generate a large electrical current in neuronsabout a 100-fold improvement over any of its predecessors. Because its so sensitive, it means that even a spark of light, at its preferred wavelength, can cause it to open its doors and in turn control neural activity. Whats more, ChRmine rapidly shuts down after it opens, meaning that it doesnt overstimulate neurons but rather follows their natural activation trajectory.

As a first test, the team used viruses to add ChRmine to an area deep inside the brainthe ventral tegmental area (VTA), which is critical to how we process reward and addiction, and is also implicated in depression. As of now, the only way to reach the area in a clinical setting is with an implanted electrode. With ChRmine, however, the team found that a light source, placed right outside the mices scalp, was able to reliably spark neural activity in the region.

Randomly activating neurons with light, while impressive, may not be all that useful. The next test is whether its possible to control a mouses behavior using light from outside the brain. Here, the team added ChRmine to dopamine neurons in a mouse, which in this case provides a feeling of pleasure. Compared to their peers, the light-enhanced mice were far more eager to press a lever to deliver light to their scalpsmeaning that the light is stimulating the neurons enough for the mice to feel pleasure and work for it.

As a more complicated test, the team then used light to control a population of brain cells, called serotonergic cells, in the base of the brain, called the brainstem. These cells are known to influence social behaviorthat is, how much an individual enjoys social interaction. It gets slightly disturbing: mice with ChRmine-enhanced cells, specifically in the brainstem, preferred spending time in their test chambers social zone versus their siblings who didnt have ChRmine. In other words, without any open-brain surgery and just a few light beams, the team was able to change a socially ambivalent mouse into a friendship-craving social butterfly.

If youre thinking creepy, youre not alone. The study suggests that with an injection of a virus carrying the ChRmine geneeither through the eye socket or through veinsits potentially possible to control something as integral to a personality as sociability with nothing but light.

To stress my point: this is only possible in mice for now. Our brains are far larger, which means light scattering through the skull and penetrating sufficiently deep becomes far more complicated. And again, our brain cells dont normally respond to light. Youd have to volunteer for what amounts to gene therapywhich comes with its own slew of problemsbefore this could potentially work. So keep those tin-foil hats off; scientists cant yet change an introvert (like me) into an extrovert with lasers.

But for unraveling the inner workings of the brain, its an amazing leap into the future. So far, efforts at cutting the optical cord for optogenetics have come with the knee-capped ability to go deep into the brain, limiting control to only surface brain regions such as the cortex. Other methods overheat sensitive brain tissue and culminate in damage. Yet others act as 1990s DOS systems, with significant delay between a command (activate!) and the neurons response.

This brain-control OS, though not yet perfect, resolves those problems. Unlike Neuralink and other neural implants, the study suggests its possible to control the brain without surgery or implants. All you need is light.

Image Credit: othebo from Pixabay

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Scientists Found a New Way to Control the Brain With LightNo Surgery Required - Singularity Hub

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AGC Biologics Shifts Leadership Structure at United States and Copenhagen Sites to Support the Continued Development and Growth of the Regions -…

October 18th, 2020 6:53 am

SEATTLE, Oct. 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- AGC Biologics, a leading global biopharmaceutical contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO), has announced a leadership update at the United States and Copenhagen facilities. The changes are being made to strengthen the strategic development and executive oversight of the rapid growing facilities in the US and Copenhagen, and are effective at the date of release, October 15, 2020.

Jeffrey D. Mowery will join the Global Executive Team in the role of Senior Vice President of US Operations, based at company headquarters in Seattle, Washington. Andrea C. Porchia will become the General Manager and Site Head for the Copenhagen Operation.

In his new position, Mr. Mowery will oversee the new Boulder, Colorado facility rollout and ensure that progress is maintained at the expanding Seattle site. Mr. Mowery draws on more than two decades of industry expertise in small molecule, biologic and cell and gene therapy production and technology transfer expertise to deliver quality in his work at AGC Biologics.

"In his most recent role as General Manager of the Copenhagen, Denmark facility, J.D. Mowery achieved a period of strong growth, even with today's challenges from the COVID pandemic. We believe the US sites, and ultimately our customers, will benefit from his leadership skills, results oriented approach and broad operational expertise in the same way that Copenhagen has," said Kasper Moller, CTO of AGC Biologics. He continued, "as part of this transition, Andrea C. Porchia has been promoted to General Manager of the Copenhagen site where her broad and deep biologics experience, and ability to effectively navigate all aspects of biomanufacturing and development will be an indispensable asset for the Copenhagen Site and to our valued customers."

Through more than seven years at AGC Biologics, Ms. Porchia has taken on increasing responsibilities, both at the Copenhagen site and globally as Project Director, Business Development Representative, Global Head of Project Management and now General Manager. She leverages more than two decades of research and process expertise to enhance business operations with a critical focus on project management and customer service.

To learn more about the AGC Biologics global network of facilities, please visit: http://www.agcbio.com/.

About AGC Biologics

AGC Biologics is a leading global biopharmaceutical contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) committed to delivering a high standard of service to solve complex customer challenges. The company is driven by innovation and continuously invests in technologies to complement decades of proven expertise in drug development and manufacturing, including working through FDA, PDMA and EMA approvals. A range of customizable bioprocessing services includes development and manufacturing of mammalian and microbial-based therapeutic proteins, protein expression, plasmid DNA (pDNA) support, antibody drug development and conjugation, viral vector production, genetic engineering of cells, cell line development with a proprietary CHEF1 Expression System, cell banking and storage.

AGC Biologics employs more than 1,400 professionals worldwide who are dedicated to supporting customers at all phases of development through to commercialization, with critical expertise in process development, formulation, and analytical testing. The global service network boasts locations in the United States at Seattle, Washington and Boulder, Colorado; across Europe in Copenhagen, Denmark; Heidelberg, Germany; Milan and Bresso, Italy; and in Asia at Chiba, Japan.

Learn more at http://www.agcbiologics.com, or find us on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/agcbiologics/ and Twitter @agcbiologics.

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AGC Biologics Shifts Leadership Structure at United States and Copenhagen Sites to Support the Continued Development and Growth of the Regions -...

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No evidence that coronavirus genetic sequences were fabricated, contrary to preprint by Li-Meng Yan and colleagues – Health Feedback

October 18th, 2020 6:53 am

CLAIM

Fabricated genetic sequences were used to support the hypothesis that the virus arose naturally

DETAILS

Inadequate support: The preprint by Yan et al. offers no evidence to support their claim that the genetic sequences of other coronavirus strains were fabricated to support the hypothesis that SARS-CoV-2 arose naturally.Incorrect: The fact that multiple coronavirus strains share highly similar or identical genetic or protein sequences is not evidence that those viruses were fabricated. Shared genetic or protein sequences is common among viruses that belong to the same family and indicates their evolutionary relatedness.

KEY TAKE AWAY

There is no evidence supporting the claim by Yan et al. that genetic sequences of several coronaviruses were fabricated to support the hypothesis that SARS-CoV-2 arose naturally. The presence of highly similar or identical gene and protein sequences are common among organisms that are evolutionarily related to each other. Therefore, it is expected that members of the coronavirus family share similar or identical genetic or protein features. Scientific evidence supports the hypothesis that the virus arose naturally in wildlife before it crossed over to humans.

REVIEW Uncertainty surrounding the origin of the novel coronavirus has provided fertile ground for breeding conspiracy theories, some of which Health Feedback previously found to be inaccurate and unsubstantiated (see here and here). The recent claim by virologist Li-Meng Yan that the SARS-CoV-2 virus is manmade is the latest in a long series of conspiracy theories stretching back to the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic.

On 14 September 2020, Yan and her colleagues published a preprint on the online repository Zenodo claiming that the SARS-CoV-2 virus is a product of genetic engineering. A preprint is a research paper that has not been peer-reviewed by other scientists yet. Experts who examined the preprint found it was highly flawed and provided no supporting evidence for their claims, as detailed in this Health Feedback review.

Yan et al. published a second preprint on 8 October 2020 claiming that the virus is an unrestricted bioweapon and alleging that the genetic sequences of ten other coronaviruses are fabricated and do not exist in nature. Contrary to this claim, these ten coronaviruses, including RaTG13which is the closest known relative to SARS-CoV-2 and has about 96% genome sequence identity to SARS-CoV-2[1]and some pangolin coronaviruses, were analyzed by other scientists and found to support the natural origin hypothesis for SARS-CoV-2[2-7]. The second preprint from Yan et al. received more than 130,000 views on Zenodo since it was published, and was promoted by outlets known for publishing misinformation, such as Zero Hedge and National Pulse.

The alleged motivation for fabricating genetic sequences is related to one of the primary claims by Yan et al., specifically that the bat coronaviruses ZC45 and ZXC21 provided the genetic backbone for SARS-CoV-2. In support of this claim, Yan et al. point to the 100% identity in the envelope (E) protein sequence that exists between these three viruses. The E protein is a small protein on the surface of the membrane that encloses the viral genome and is important for producing virus particles that can efficiently infect cells[8].

Firstly, the claim that the bat coronaviruses ZC45 and ZXC21 provided the genetic backbone to artificially create SARS-CoV-2 was presented in the first preprint by Yan et al. This claim was debunked by scientists, who pointed out that the genetic sequences of ZC45 and ZXC21 are very different to that of SARS-CoV-2. In fact, the virus ZC45 is only 89% related to SARS-CoV-2, said Stanley Perlman, a professor at the University of Iowa who studies coronaviruses, in this FactCheck.org article:

Perlman said it would be nearly impossible to make the reverse genetics system needed to manipulate the virus and changing its sequence to arrive at SARS-CoV-2 would be virtually impossible since it would not be known how to manipulate the virus.

Kristian Andersen, a professor at Scripps Research who studies the evolution of viruses including SARS-CoV-2, also pointed out the incongruency of the claim on Twitter: This simply cant be true there are more than 3,500 nucleotide differences between SARS-CoV-2 and these viruses.

Marvin Reitz, a virologist at the University of Maryland, put it more bluntly in his review of the first preprint: [I]t still would require more than 3,000 nucleotide substitutions [for ZC45] to become SARS-CoV-2. This is not even slightly credible; it beggars reason.

A response by scientists at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security also provides a detailed rebuttal of the claims made by Yan et al. in their first preprint. It also highlights the implausible use of ZC45 and ZXC21 as the genetic backbone for SARS-CoV-2.

In short, ZC45 and ZXC21 are very different from SARS-CoV-2 in terms of genome identity. Altering a backbone from either of the two to transform it into the genome of SARS-CoV-2 would require a feat of genetic engineering that is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to accomplish with current technology.

Based on their spurious initial assumption that ZC45 and ZXC21 provided the genetic backbone for SARS-CoV-2, Yan et al. claim that the genetic sequences of RaTG13 and the other coronaviruses were fabricated to obscure the link between SARS-CoV-2 and ZC45/ZXC21, and that RaTG13 and the other coronaviruses do not exist. To support this claim, they point to the observation that all these viruses also have an E protein sequence that is 100% identical to that of ZC45 and ZXC21.

The argument by Yan et al. that the genetic sequences of some coronaviruses were fabricated to support the hypothesis that SARS-CoV-2 arose naturally does not hold up to scrutiny. In a Business Insider interview, Emma Hodcroft, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Basel and co-developer of the Nextstrain project that studies the evolution of pathogens, including SARS-CoV-2, pointed out that most of the samples that Yans group says are fake predate the start of the pandemic. Hodcroft also explained:

This accusation implies there were years of coordination and fake sequence generation, Hodcroft said, adding: This is an incredible claim, and would require a significant evidence burden to back it up, which is missing from the paper.

Virologists have also analyzed the genome sequence of RaTG13 and found it to be authentic and supported by good-quality data.

Although some coronaviruses share certain identical genetic sequences with SARS-CoV-2, this is not evidence that the other coronaviruses were fabricated. Instead, similar or identical genetic and protein sequences of coronaviruses are evidence of their evolutionary relatedness, which is expected since these viruses all belong to the coronavirus family. Specifically, the E protein sequence of SARS-CoV-2, RaTG13, and the other coronaviruses analyzed in the preprint by Yan et al. are indeed identical to that of ZC45 and ZXC21, but this in itself does not indicate that the RaTG13 and the other coronaviruses were fabricated to mimic the E protein sequence of ZC45 and ZXC21.

Lastly, one feature of concern in both preprints by Yan and her co-authors is the listing of their affiliations as the Rule of Law Society and the Rule of Law Foundation. These two organizations have no prior experience in conducting biological research and are linked to Stephen Bannon and Wengui Guo, both of whom have published COVID-19 misinformation in the past.

Overall, the claims in the second preprint by Yan and her colleagues are as ill-founded as the claims made in their first preprint. Evidence supporting claims that the virus was engineered is lacking. In contrast, scientific analyses support the hypothesis that SARS-CoV-2 arose naturally in wildlife before crossing over to humans during a zoonotic infection (transmission of pathogens from animals/insects to humans). There are numerous examples of emerging zoonotic pathogens causing disease outbreaks throughout human history and across the world[9].

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No evidence that coronavirus genetic sequences were fabricated, contrary to preprint by Li-Meng Yan and colleagues - Health Feedback

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Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2020 Winners from a Patent Perspective – Lexology

October 18th, 2020 6:53 am

Further to my recent article about the 2020 Nobel Prize announcements, the winners of the 2020 Chemistry Nobel Prize were announced as Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna on 7 October 2020 "for the development of a method for genome editing". This, of course, refers to the revolutionary genetic scissors technology, CRISPR/Cas9. For this article, Ive teamed up with my colleague Jamie Atkins, whose specialisms include prosecution of CRISPR-related patent applications at the EPO, to get into the details of the winning technology.

In this article, we explore:

Diversity in the Chemistry Nobel Prize;

The winning technology;

What is CRISPR and how does it work?;

How can CRISPR be used?;

CRISPR Patents; and

The future could CRISPR be used to combat COVID -19?

Diversity in the Chemistry Nobel Prize

Before looking at the patent side of things, it is worth noting that this is the first Nobel Prize awarded to two women. Charpentier commented shortly after the prize announcement that:

My wish is that this will provide a positive message to the young girls who would like to follow the path of science, and to show them that women in science can also have an impact through the research that they are performing This is not just for women, but we see a clear lack of interest in following a scientific path, which is very worrying.

While there is still a significant gender gap in the Laureates of the Chemistry Nobel Prize, it is encouraging that there are now an additional two female winners to add to the previous five: Marie Curie (1911), Irne Joliot-Curie (1935), Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin (1964), Ada Yonath (2009) and Frances H. Arnold (2018). We hope this figure continues to increase each year, along with wider recognition of other under-represented groups, for example in terms of BAME and LGBTQ+ representation.

The winning technology

At face value, CRISPR/Cas9 (CRISPR) seems to be more biological than chemical, but this only serves to highlight the breadth of chemistry as a field. As described in Nobels will, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry is to be awarded to the person who shall have made the most important chemical discovery or improvement, and this requirement is surely met by CRISPR.

What is CRISPR and how does it work?

The CRISPR/Cas9 editing tool developed by the Nobel Prize winners is based on the discovery of a naturally occurring system used by bacteria to defend against viral infection. When a virus is detected, the bacteria produce short RNA sequences that guide a DNA cutting enzyme (Cas9) to viral DNA matching the RNA sequence. Cas9 cuts the viral DNA, thereby disabling the virus. Doudna and Charpentier made several important discoveries leading to a better understanding of this bacterial system, developed a simplified version of the system and crucially showed that it could be programmed to target almost any DNA sequence of interest, as reported in the seminal Jinek et al. 2012 paper:

''Our study reveals a family of endonucleases that use dual-RNAs for site-specific DNA cleavage and highlights the potential to exploit the system for RNAprogrammable genome editing.

The basic components of the CRISPR/Cas9 system are the DNA cutting enzyme (Cas9) and the guide RNA based on the target DNA sequence, which directs the nuclease to the desired cutting location. Once the DNA in a cell is cut, the cell tries to fix the break using its own repair mechanisms. Due to the error-prone nature of such mechanisms, this fix can actually disable a gene. Alternatively, by supplying a template sequence together with the CRISPR machinery, the cells DNA repair mechanisms can be exploited to replace a section of DNA with the template sequence of choice.

Building on this foundational work of the Nobel Laureates, many complementary genome editing tools based on the CRISPR principle have been developed. For example, in a technique known as base editing, a deactivated Cas9 is fused to a cytidine deaminase enzyme, which allows targeted conversion of the cytidine base (C) to thymine (T) without cleaving the DNA (Komor et al, 2016). Another example is prime editing, in which deactivated Cas9 is fused to reverse transcriptase. This is coupled with a guide RNA that specifies the target site and encodes a desired replacement sequence, allowing new genetic information to be written into a specified DNA target site (Anzalone et al, 2019).

How can CRISPR be used?

There are innumerable exciting possibilities that stem from the ability to edit the genome of any living cell in a targeted manner using these basic principles. For example, CRISPR is already revolutionising genetic research by providing a quicker and easier way for researchers to knock out specific genes in order to investigate the function of those genes and their role in cellular pathways. There also important applications in agriculture, where it is being used to speed up the generation of improved crop varieties and could play an important role in food security.

Another key application is in the filed of diagnostics (more on that below), but perhaps one of the most exciting and lucrative CRISPR applications is in the field of medicine. Doudna is a co-founder of Intellia and Charpentier is a co-founder of CRISPR Therapeutics, both of which are developing CRISPR-based therapies, some of which are already in early stage clinical trials, e.g. for the treatment of sickle cell anaemia. Many current trials involve editing the genome of cells extracted from the body (e.g. hematopoietic stem cells) before reinserting the modified cells back into the patient. An alternative approach also being explored is delivering the CRISPR machinery directly into the body, for example to disable faulty disease-causing genes. This year saw the first delivery of CRISPR machinery to a patient in an attempt to treat an inherited form of blindness called Leber congenital amaurosis 10 (LCA10).

CRISPR patents

Any new technology with such a great potential for commercial application is an ideal candidate for patent protection. The European Patent Office (EPO) has published 32 European patent applications naming Doudna as an inventor and 7 European patent applications naming Charpentier as an inventor. Patent applications are published 18 months after their effective filing date, so there may be many more unpublished patent applications that have already been filed naming these Laureates as inventors.

CRISPR patents have also been at the centre of attention in both Europe and the US over recent years. In Europe, weve seen the high-profile CRISPR priority appeal, in which one of the Broad Institutes fundamental CRISPR patents (EP2771468, claiming an earliest priority date of 12 December 2012) was revoked for lack of novelty over some of the seminal CRISPR papers. These papers became prior art because the patent was found not to be entitled to its claimed priority dates (see our articles here, here and here from earlier this year for the details). Doudna and Charpentiers patents have also come under attack in Europe; their 2013 patent EP2800811 was opposed by seven parties, and maintained in amended form in May 2020.

In the US, high profile interference proceedings between University of California and others and the Broad Institute and others (Broad) before the US Patent Trial and Appeal Board culminated in a decision in favour of Broad, which was upheld in 2018 by the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Further such proceedings are currently in progress.

Stay tuned for a more in-depth discussion of the ongoing challenges relating to CRISPR patents.

The future could CRISPR be used to combat COVID -19?

Shortly after the Nobel Prize was announced, Charpentier was asked whether CRISPR could be used to make a vaccine for COVID-19. She indicated this was unlikely in a direct way, but that it could be useful indirectly by allowing researchers to understand the virus in ways that help them develop a vaccine (e.g. understanding what is important for the virus to replicate). The full Q&A with Charpentier is available here.

It has in fact already been deployed in a fast and accurate diagnostic test for Covid-19. This test, referred to as SARS-CoV-2 DNA Endonuclease-Targeted CRISPR Trans Reporter (DETECTR), harnesses the targeting function of the guide RNAs of the CRISPR system to bind to coronavirus sequences, and the cutting function of Cas12 (a nuclease related to Cas9) to cleave a reporter molecule, to confirm detection of the virus. Fittingly, Doudnas own lab recently announced its own CRISPR-based diagnostic test that can detect SARS-CoV-2 in just 5 minutes. This high processing speed is achieved by avoiding the need to amplify the viral genome (as required by earlier assay formats). Instead, the new test uses combinations of CRISPR RNA which target different parts of the virus RNA and activate multiple Cas nucleases (Cas13a) per piece of viral RNA, boosting the fluorescent signal generated when a reporter molecule is cut. Moreover, the researchers showed that the fluorescence could be measured with a mobile phone camera, demonstrating the simplicity and portability of the assay.

As mentioned above, clinical trials involving CRISPR-based approaches are already underway, and we look forward to seeing more success stories in the coming years. While these are no doubt exciting times, it is clear that extreme caution must be exercised to fully understand and mitigate the risk of CRISPR acting off-target. There are also ethical debates to be had about how far to take gene editing. Should scientists be permitted to introduce heritable changes into the genome even if this can be done safely and efficiently?

One thing is for sure, the work conducted by Doudna and Charpentier has revolutionised the field of genetic engineering, and for that work these inspirational inventors should be celebrated.

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Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2020 Winners from a Patent Perspective - Lexology

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We’ve learned much in this crisis including what we don’t know, by John McGauley – The Keene Sentinel

October 18th, 2020 6:53 am

In the ninth month of the COVID scourge which covered the land, the people lamented their fate and looked to the heavens for relief and succor.

That is, I imagine, how the Bible might recount the pandemic weve been in since February, if the Good Book were being written today.

Around here, at least, weve been spared the worst from this thing. But if you recall when it all started, and for several months hence, the hospital geared up for scores of deathly ill patients and local doctors and nurses were told to expect reporting for emergency duty. A mobile refrigerated morgue was brought in. They even retrofitted parts of Keene State College to handle the overflow. Main Street downtown was bereft of traffic; for a couple of months, it was always 6 a.m. Sunday morning down there. Planes, trains and buses stopped; there were no pedestrians. There was a mad rush for PPE (we all learned what that acronym meant), and ventilators.

No one knows for sure where this pandemic is headed, and those up here in the northern climes are wondering if it will get worse as the winter winds drive us all inside until April and May. What will our Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays look like this year?

Assessing the past nine months, Ive had a number of observations, and you may have had similar thoughts.

For starters, I think that society came unglued. And, I think I know why. We collided with something that all of our sophisticated science and technology couldnt handle, and we freaked out. Our new Apple phones, PET scans, 5G networks, genetic engineering all the kings horses and all the kings men were helpless in the face of one of the worlds oldest adversaries: pestilence, which is one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse in the Book of Revelation, to use another biblical reference. While astronauts aboard the International Space Station circle the earth, ensconced in the most amazing science, they look down upon an earth stymied and suffering from a primordial disease.

Secondly, we learned that government has severe limitations. Like our belief in technology, we have come to think in the past century that the state and feds can come up with solutions and come to our rescue. Thats just not true, and never was. You can blame whoever you want, but governments response was and is severely flawed. Its not a failure of the Republicans or Democrats or career bureaucrats at the NIH or CDC its just the fact that government cannot solve our problems when the you-know-what hits the fan. Never could. If youve ever been through the aftermath of a severe hurricane or a strong earthquake, you know that there comes a time when youre just on your own. When a crisis hits, you learn immediately that the emperor lives very far away.

Thirdly, most people behaved, but enough didnt that it showed the sour side of humanity. Panic buying without cause, denying others of necessities. A refusal to wear masks in public. We can sometimes be a stupid bunch.

Fourth, our economy is very fragile, despite being the richest country in the world. That showed itself right away. Our weakest link proved to be our distribution network for goods and services. One of the correct responses by the federal government was the rapid carpet-bombing of cash to companies and individuals. Well have to pay that big bill later, but it saved us from a collapsed system.

Fifth, we have, in fact, dodged the bullet. Despite the number of hospitalizations and deaths, COVID-19 could have been worse, with a much higher mortality rate. If we didnt already possess a sophisticated medical system, the death rate might have been off the charts.

Sixth, instant communication and 24/7 media coverage is half good, half terrible. It disseminates at the speed of light erroneous theories, rumors, dubious statistics, malevolent gossip, wild statements from wrong-headed people parading as scientists, shoddy studies and surveys, and inflammatory rhetoric from politicians and bureaucrats. Cant change that; information and misinformation spread at the same rate, and people believe weird things. Well see that when a vaccine is finally developed, and millions refuse to take it.

Lastly, if there is a silver lining to all this, its that well be prepared for the next disaster, or disease, that comes our way. That is, if we remember what we did right and what we did wrong this time. Unfortunately, humans have a propensity to reinvent the wheel over and over.

John McGauley, an author and local radio talk-show host, writes from Keene. He can be contacted at mcgauleyink@gmail.com

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We've learned much in this crisis including what we don't know, by John McGauley - The Keene Sentinel

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Viewpoint: Greenpeace-funded study backfires, undermining case to treat gene-edited crops as GMOs – Genetic Literacy Project

October 18th, 2020 6:53 am

The anti-GMO movement dominated the public discourse about crop biotechnology for decades. Led by committed activists who knew how to manipulate the media, they effectively steamrolled a scientific community that wasnt ready for the PR war that Greenpeace and other NGOs launched against frankenfoods in the mid-1990s. Thirty years later, were beginning to see that dynamic shift as plant breeding technology improves and experts successfully defend it against activist attacks.

In August, John Fagan, organic food champion, biologist and Raja of World Peace in the Maharishi organization, led a Greenpeace-funded study claiming that gene-edited crops developed with new breeding techniques (NBTs) like CRISPR can be detected.

This may seem unimpressive to most people, but the result is a big deal to anti-GMO activists like Fagan. Gene-edited crops may be essentially identical to conventionally bred plants; the only difference is that gene editing dramatically speeds up the breeding process, saving time, money and getting enhanced seeds into farmers fields much more quickly than was previously possibleall without inserting foreign DNA into the crops genome. This is the primary distinction between gene editing and transgenesis (GMO in the vernacular).

These facts aside, European law treats gene-edited and GMO crops the same. Commercial cultivation of both is effectively banned in the EU (farmers have access to only one transgenic corn variety), though political pressure is building to reform Europes strict regulations. Anti-biotech groups have been on a campaign to block these reforms since July 2018, just after the European Court of Justice first ruled on crop gene editing. Fagans paper was the latest contribution to this effort. If gene-edited and conventional crops can be distinguished, the argument goes, then the former should be regulated as GMOs.

But theres a problema big one in fact: Fagans study actually demonstrated that its not possible to detect most gene-edited plants, therefore destroying the EUs justification for regulating them as GMOs. Its the perfect example of what we fondly call an own goal. And it illustrates how anti-science groups flog disinformation with the help of gullible journalists who stenograph their questionable claims for wide distribution.

Given the onslaught of disinformation we face in a post-COVID world, Fagans paper offers us the perfect opportunity to review the activist playbook and immunize ourselves against bad science and its harmful consequences.

As gene editing becomes an increasingly effective tool for improving agricultural production and reducing its environmental impacts, many countries (the US, Canada, Brazil, Argentina among dozens more) have split from the European Union (EU) on NBTs, exempting them from the expensive and exhausting regulations that govern GMO crops.

This is not only scientifically sound, its pragmatic. There is no way to detect gene edits in most cases. These changes look just like natural mutations found in wild plants, or the genetic changes induced by old-fashioned and EU-approved practices like bathing seeds in mutagens or irradiating them, or changes that occur in plants produced via tissue culture. The tests at our disposal cannotI repeat, cannotdistinguish mutations caused by any of these techniques.

This creates a problem for Food Purity Rajas and other opponents of biotechnology. If these gene-edited crops gain public acceptance and dont count as GMO, the organic industry will be at a competitive disadvantage. How could they justify a premium price for Non-GMO Project-certified corn flakes in those circumstances? Naturally, they have to challenge the efficacy and safety of gene editing to prevent such an outcome. Fear is their go-to currency in this effort, as John Fagan explained almost six years ago in a mailing list for anti-GMO campaigners, run by Claire Robinson of the activist website GM Watch. Its part of a long-term plan to make people fear all engineered food.

Fagan recently gave credit for Americas rejection of GMOs to transcendental meditation (TM), which caused a sharp increase in coherence in U.S. collective consciousness, when a large permanent group of TM practitioners was assembled in Iowa, USA. I havent seen the evidence for that, though Id be happy to take a look at the research if anyone can locate it. What is more likely, and supported by data, is that a long-term misinformation campaign made up of bad science and shock marketing scared parents everywhere into buying organic fruit snacks to avoid scary GMOs.

Down to the last detail, this tried and true activism strategy was deployed to influence the current discourse around gene editing. Besides his enthusiasm for TM, John Fagan also has training in molecular biology and operates a non-profit lab with the necessary testing capacity (incidentally, he also started a company that certifies products for the Non-GMO Project). Greenpeace, meanwhile, has an effective, stunt-based PR machine that can churn out multimedia presentations and widely read press releases, which sympathetic NGOs can dutifully amplify. But things didnt turn out as intended this time.

Its impossible to know which came first: the idea for a campaign to attack gene-edited crops, which needed supporting science, or a study in need of the PR muscle Greenpeace could leverage. Someday an intrepid investigative journalist might be able to work this out. But in any case, the outcome on September 7, 2020 was the release of a paper in the peer-reviewed journal Foods, which claimed to reveal a test that could uniquely and specifically detect the first commercial gene-edited crop, a variety of herbicide-resistant canola developed by the seed company Cibus. With a press release, media blitz, and slickly produced website, Greenpeace and other funders launched the #NowhereToHide campaign to promote Fagans paper and encourage EU regulators to treat this herbicide-tolerant canola as a GMO.

Similar to the guy who claimed he invented email, Fagans team implied they developed a new test to identify this crop. Thats not the case; the qPCR (polymerase chain reaction) method used in the study is well established for canola. Fagans novelty claim is therefore quite erroneous, as one scientist noted on Twitter. Nobody disputes that you can find point mutations, changes to a single DNA base pair, with qPCR. The key is that its impossible to determine if a variation is naturally occurring or purposefully induced. Many experts have pointed this out in response to the paper. The test would likewise detect herbicide-resistant plants that have been known to scientists and regulators since in 2002, from wild populations with that same mutation. Etienne Bucher, a plant geneticist based in Switzerland, tried to help Greenpeace grasp this:

But heres the kicker: this canola is not gene edited. It is a somaclonal mutation that was found in the screenings for an herbicide-tolerant variety, one of those changes that occurs in tissue culture. So what Fagans team has, in fact, definitively proved: they cannot detect edited canola this way. Additionally, it appears this rapeseed could be classified as non-GMO in Europe, since it was developed with one of the grandfathered techniques not subject to the onerous EU GMO approval process.

Own. Goal. Reminds me of the time anti-vaxxers commissioned research that confirmed vaccines do not cause autism.

Let the goal-post moving commence!

After the scientific community made quick work of Fagans study, Greenpeace and activists like Claire Robinson at GMWatch began furiously backpedaling. Maharishi TM trainer and geneticist Michael Antoniou told the anti-GMO website that the method they have developed reliably detects a single DNA base unit change, regardless of how it came about. But he went on to assert that EU regulators should still rely on this test to detect the canola variety. This makes absolutely no sense, as the German Central Committee for Biosafety experts observed [automated Google translation]:

The publication by Chhalliyil et al does not add any new knowledge to the current state of science and technology. Rather, it proves that it is not possible to distinguish genome-edited plants from plants with spontaneously occurring mutations. Without prior knowledge of the manufacturing process [my emphasis], no statement can be made as to whether or not it is a GMO within the meaning of the ECJ [European Court of Justice] ruling.

GM Watch agreed, though it fell back on a legal argument to excuse the studys weakness:

What the test cannot do is detect the technique by which a mutation was brought about but under EU law it doesnt need to. The way that the law deals with proof of origin for all GMOs products of gene editing included is to require the developer to declare that their product is a GMO and provide a test method and reference material.

In other words, if Cibus tells regulators its canola is gene edited, then regulators can determine if the canola is gene edited.

The media blitz around Fagans study was designed to promote organic food, but ironically enough, all this talk about identifying the source of mutations dredged up a potentially serious problem for the organic industry. In 2014, the USDAs National Organic Standards Board investigated what kinds of genetic modifications led to many of the key organic crops, only to realize how difficult it would be to classify breeding and laboratory mutations:

Exploring this issue has brought to the attention of the subcommittee that engineered genetic manipulation of plant breeding materials has already occurred in many of the crop varieties that are currently being used in organic farming. A partial list:

Many of these techniques that were used in initial crosses that have now passed down through many generations may not be traceable any longer

The board realized that many of the crops in organic production right now were the result of laboratory processes (genetic engineering, one could say) that are undetectable with molecular testing. Why is this significant? Well, a cynical scientist could use Fagans test to detect mutations in organic tangerines just as well as Cibus canola, demonstrating the inanity of labeling the tangerine non-GMO and the canola genetically engineered.

Bungled though it was, this parallel science PR stunt helpfully illustrated how disinformation can sow confusion and lead to nonsensical policy. For example, Greenpeace celebrated when an Austrian health minister declared that Fagans test should be used to enforce the EUs GMO rules. Well-known anti-crop biotech German politicians also eagerly embraced the results of the study. If people with so much influence over food safety rules in their countries can be fooled, you can see why junk science poses the risk it does.

Still, Greenpeace clearly lost this round. The activist-media juggernaut went down in flames before it could do too much damageand GM Watch spent most of September explaining away Fagans study in the face of intense expert scrutiny. Expect the anti-science crusaders to fall back on these same tactics in the future, because its all they know how to do. But look forward to the fact that there are now scientists, battle hardened by years in the social media trenches, ready to blow air horns the next time an NGO launches a scheme like this.

Mary Mangan holds a PhD in cell, molecular, and developmental biology from the University of Rochester. She co-founded OpenHelix, a company that provides awareness and training on open source genomics software tools. Follow her on Twitter @mem_somerville

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Viewpoint: Greenpeace-funded study backfires, undermining case to treat gene-edited crops as GMOs - Genetic Literacy Project

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Was the MERS virus a model for the creation of COVID-19? – WION

October 18th, 2020 6:53 am

First reported in 2012 in Saudi Arabia, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) is a respiratory illness caused by a coronavirus with symptoms similar to the COVID-19 coronavirus, namely, fever, cough and shortness of breath with a range from none, to mild, to severe.

As of January 2020, about 2,500 cases of MERS have been reported worldwide. Human-to-human transmission typically requires close contact with an infected person, the spread being uncommon outside of hospitals.

In contrast to COVID-19, the death rate from MERS is about 35%.

MERS is believed to have originated in bats, was transmitted to camels as an intermediate host, then infecting humans, who had contact with the infected animals.

Although the COVID-19 virus has structural similarities to bat coronaviruses, its precise origin has yet to be identified.

The most distinguishing and unique structural feature of the COVID-19 virus is the furin polybasic cleavage site, a sequence of amino acids that interacts with human cell enzymes, which cut or cleave parts of the viral structure, thus contributing to the life cycle of the virus.

In the case of COVID-19, that sequence of amino acids is usually identified as proline-arginine-arginine-alanine or, in scientific notation, PRRA, which precedes an arginine-serine cleavage point, R-S.

It is unknown from where the PRRA sequence originated because it does not exist in any of the bat coronaviruses identified as close relatives of the COVID-19 virus.

A model for such a structure, however, does exist in the MERS coronavirus, which has a proline-arginine-serine-valine or PRSV sequence preceding the R-S cleavage point and having the following alignment:

COVID-19 PRRAR-S

MERS PRSVR-S

Both sequences begin with proline (P), both are polybasic having more than one arginine (R) and both have a non-polar amino acid in the fourth position, alanine (A) and valine (V), respectively, prior to the cleavage point, R-S.

It is important to note that COVID-19 and MERS are from two completely different families of coronaviruses, so one could not have evolved from the other.

According to the scientific article Structures and dynamics of the novel S1/S2 protease cleavage site loop of the SARS-CoV-2 spike glycoprotein," the presence of proline (P) is highly unusual.

Unlike other amino acids, proline produces structural rigidity in proteins and is found in only 5 out of 132 identified furin cleavage site sequences.

Likewise, alanine (A) located just prior to the R-S cleavage point exists in only 5 out of 132 furin cleavage site sequences.

In an early June scientific article, A novel bat coronavirus closely related to SARS-CoV-2 contains natural insertions at the S1/S2 cleavage site of the spike protein, the authors claimed to have identified a bat coronavirus, called RmYN02, that appears to have a precursor of the COVID-19 furin polybasic cleavage site.

RmYN02 has a proline-alanine-alanine (PAA) insertion roughly in a similar position to the COVID-19 virus, but PAA is chemically neutral, lacks any basic amino acids and has no R-S point to be cleaved.

RmYN02's PAA sequence, therefore, cannot be considered a precursor of the COVID-19 furin polybasic cleavage site.

So, the question remains, if no yet identified close relative of COVID-19 has a similar furin polybasic cleavage site, from where did such a unique structural feature with amino acids in unusual positions arise?

Furin polybasic cleavage sites are known to increase viral infectivity and pathogenicity. Genetic engineering techniques for inserting such cleavage sites have existed for at least fifteen years.

At present, no natural evolutionary pathway has been identified to explain the presence of COVID-19s furin polybasic cleavage site.

Those who may have manufactured the COVID-19 virus, could have been trying to mimic the cleavage site found in MERS.

Furthermore, the high rate of human-to-human transmission found for COVID-19, may have resulted from "pre-adapting" the virus for human infection by serial infection or passaging of the virus using animal models genetically-engineered to express the human coronavirus receptor.

There is now a preponderance of evidence that the COVID-19 virus was the product of laboratory experimentation rather than a natural infectious "jump" from bats to humans.

China still has a lot of explaining to do.

(Lawrence Sellin, Ph.D. is a retired U.S. Army Reserve colonel, who previously worked at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases and conducted basic and clinical research in the pharmaceutical industry. His email address is lawrence.sellin@gmail.com)

(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed above are the personal views of the author and do not reflect the views of ZMCL.)

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Was the MERS virus a model for the creation of COVID-19? - WION

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CAR T-cell Therapies for the Treatment of Patients with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia – OncoZine

October 18th, 2020 6:53 am

Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (AML), also called acute myeloblastic leukemia, acute myelogenous leukemia, acute myeloid leukemia, or acute nonlymphocytic leukemia, is an aggressive, fast-growing, heterogenous group of blood cancers that arise as a result of clonal expansion of myeloid hematopoietic precursors in the bone marrow. Not only are circulating leukemia (blast) cells seen in the peripheral blood, but granulocytopenia, anemia, and thrombocytopenia are also common as proliferating leukemia cells interfere with normal hematopoiesis.

Approximately 40-45% of younger and 10-20% of older adults diagnosed with AML are cured with current standard chemotherapy. However, the outlook for patients with relapsed and/or refractory disease is gloomy. Relapse following conventional chemotherapy remains is a major cause of death.

The process of manufacturing chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapies. [1] T-cells (represented by objects labeled as t) are removed from the patients blood. [2] Then in a lab setting the gene that encodes for the specific antigen receptors is incorporated into the T-cells. [3] Thus producing the CAR receptors (labeled as c) on the surface of the cells. [4] The newly modified T-cells are then further harvested and grown in the lab. [5]. After a certain time period, the engineered T-cells are infused back into the patient. This file is licensed by Reyasingh56 under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.Today, the only curative treatment option for patients with AML is allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation or allo-HSCT, which through its graft-vs.-leukemia effects has the ability to eliminate residual leukemia cells. But it is an ption for only a minority. And despite a long history of success, relapse following allo-HSCT is still a major challenge and is associated with poor prognosis.

In recent years, rresearchers learned a lot about the genomic and epigenomic landscapes of AML. This understanding has paved the way for rational drug development as new drugable targets, resulting in treatments including the antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) gemtuzumab ozogamycin (Mylotarg; Pfizer/Wyeth-Ayerst Laboratories).

CAR T-cell TherapiesChimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cells therapies, using a patients own genetically modified T-cells to find and kill cancer, are one of the most exciting recent developments in cancer research and treatment.

Traditional CAR T-cell therapies are an autologous, highly personalised, approach in which T-cells are collected from the patient by leukopheresis and engineered in the laboratory to express a receptor directed at a cancer antigen such as CD19. The cells are then infused back into the patient after administration of a lymphodepletion regimen, most commonly a combination of fludarabine and cyclophosphamide. Durable remissions have been observed in pediatric patients with B-ALL and adults with NHL.

CD19-targeted CAR T-cell therapies, have, over the last decade, yielded remarkable clinical success in certain types of B-cell malignancies, and researchers have made substantial efforts aimed at translating this success to myeloid malignancies.

While complete ablation of CD19-expressing B cells, both cancerous and healthy, is clinically tolerated, the primary challenge limiting the use of CAR T-cells in myeloid malignancies is the absence of a dispensable antigen, as myeloid antigens are often co-expressed on normal hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells (HSPCs), depletion of which would lead to intolerable myeloablation.

A different approachBecause autologous CAR T-cell therapies are patient-specific, each treatment can only be used for that one patient. Furthermore, because CAR T-cells are derived from a single disease-specific antibody, they are, by design, only recognized by one specific antigen. As a consequence, only a small subset of patients with any given cancer may be suited for the treatment.

This specificity means that following leukopheresis, a lot of work needs to be done to create this hyper personalised treatment option, resulting in 3 5 weeks of manufacturing time.

The manufacturing process of CAR T-cell therapies, from a single academic center to a large-scale multi-site manufacturing center further creates challenges. Scaling out production means developing processes consistent across many collection, manufacturing, and treatment sites. This complexity results in a the realitively high cost of currently available CAR T-cell therapies.

To solve some of the concerns with currently available CAR T-cell therapies, researchers are investigating the option to develop allogenic, off-the-shelf Universal CAR T-cell (UCARTs) treatments that can be mass manufactured and be used for multiple patients.

Allogeneic CAR T-cell therapy are generally created from T-cells from healthy donors, not patients. Similar to the autologous approach, donor-derived cells are shipped to a manufacturing facility to be genetically engineered to express the antibody or CAR, however, in contrast to autologous CAR T-cells, allogeneic CAR T-cells are also engineered with an additional technology used to limit the potential for a graft versus host reaction when administered to patients different from the donor.

One unique benefit ofn this approach is that because these therapies hey are premade and available for infusion, there is no requirement to leukopheresis or a need to wait for the CAR T-cells to be manufactured. This strategy also will benefit patients who are cytopenic (which is not an uncommon scenario for leukemia patients) and from whom autologous T-cell collection is not possible.

PioneersAmong the pioneers of developing allogeneic CAR-T therapies are companies including Celyad Oncology, Cellectis, Allogene Therapeutics, and researchers at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in colaboration with Kite/Gilead.

Researchers at UCLA were, for example, able to turn pluripotent stem cells into T-cells through structures called artificial thymic organoids. These organoids mimic the thymus, the organ where T-cells are made from blood stem cells in the body.

Celyad OncologyBelgium-based Celyad Oncology is advancing a number of both autologous and allogeneic CAR T-cell therapies, including proprietary, non-gene edited allogeneic CAR T-cell candidates underpinned by the companys shRNA technology platform. The shRNA platform coupled with Celyads all-in-one vector approach provides flexibility, versatility, and efficiency to the design of novel, off-the-shelf CAR T-cell candidates through a single step engineering process.

In July 2020, the company announced the start of Phase I trials with CYAD-211, Celyads first-in-class short hairpin RNA (shRNA)-based allogeneic CAR T candidate and second non-gene edited off-the-shelf program. CYAD-211 targets B-cell maturation antigen (BCMA) for the treatment of relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma and is engineered to co-express a BCMA-targeting chimeric antigen receptor and a single shRNA, which interferes with the expression of the CD3 component of the T-cell receptor (TCR) complex.

During the 2020 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Virtual Scientific Program in May 2020, the company presented updates from its allogeneic programs, including additional data from the alloSHRINK study, an open-label, dose-escalation Phase I trial assessing the safety and clinical activity of three consecutive administrations of CYAD-101, an investigational, non-gene edited, allogeneic CAR T-cell candidate engineered to co-express a chimeric antigen receptor based on NKG2D (a receptor expressed on natural killer (NK) cells that binds to eight stress-induced ligands and the novel inhibitory peptide TIM TCR Inhibitory Molecule), for the treatment of metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC).

The expression of TIM reduces signalling of the TCR complex, which is responsible for graft-versus host disease.every two weeks administered concurrently with FOLFOX (combination of 5-fluorouracil, leucovorin and oxaliplatin) in patients with refractory metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC).

The safety and clinical activity data from the alloSHRINK trial in patients with mCRC demonstrated CYAD-101s differentiated profile as an allogeneic CAR T-cell candidate. Furthermore, the absence of clinical evidence of graft-versus-host-disease (GvHD) for CYAD-101 confirms the potential of non-gene edited approaches for the development of allogeneic CAR-T candidates.

Interim data from the alloSHRINK trial showed encouraging anti-tumor activity, with two patients achieving a confirmed partial response (cPR) according to RECIST 1.1 criteria, including one patient with a KRAS-mutation, the most common oncogenic alteration found in all human cancers. In addition, nine patients achieved stable disease (SD), with seven patients demonstrating disease stabilization lasting more than or equal to three months of duration.

Based on these results, clinical trials were broadened to include evaluating CYAD-101 following FOLFIRI (combination of 5-fluorouracil, leucovorin and irinotecan) preconditioning chemotherapy in refractory mCRC patients, at the recommended dose of one billion cells per infusion as an expansion cohort of the alloSHRINK trial. Enrollment in the expansion cohort of the trial is expected to begin during the fourth quarter of 2020.

CellectisCellectis is developping a universal CAR T-cell (UCART) platform in an attempy to create off-the-shelf CAR T-cell therapies. The companys pipeline includes UCART123, a CAR T-cell therapy designed to targets CD123+ leukemic cells in acute myeloid leukemia (AML). The investigational agent is being studied in two open-label Phase I trials: AML123 studying the therapys safety and efficacy in an estimated 156 AML patients, and ABC123 studying the therapys safety and activity in an estimated 72 patients with blastic plasmacytoid dendritic cell neoplasm (BPDCN).

UCART22Another investigational agent in clinical trials is UCART22 which is designed to treat both CD22+ B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (B-ALL) and CD22+ B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL). Cellectis reported that UCART22 is included in an open-label, dose-escalating Phase I trial to study its safety and activity in relapsed or refractory CD22+ B-ALL patients.

UCART22 harbors a surface expression of an anti-CD22 CAR (CD22 scFv-41BB-CD3z) and the RQR8 ligand, a safety feature rendering the T-cells sensitive to the antibody rituximab. Further, to reduce the potential for alloreactivity, the cell surface expression of the T-cell receptor is abrogated through the inactivation of the TCR constant (TRAC) gene using Cellectis TALEN gene-editing technology.[1]

Preclinical data supporting the development of UCART22 was presented by Marina Konopleva, M.D., Ph.D. and her vteam during the 2017 annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology (ASH) meeting. [1]

Cellectis is also developing UCARTCS1 which is developed to treat CS1-expressing hematologic malignancies, such as multiple myeloma (MM). UCARTCLL1 is in preclinical development for treating CLL1-expressing hematologic malignancies, such as AML.

Cellectis and Allogene Therapeutics, another biotech company involved in the developmen t of CAR T-cell therapies, are developing ALLO-501, another CAR T-cell therapy which targets CD19 and is being developed for the the treatment of patients with relapsed or refractory NHL. Allogene Therapeutics is also developing ALLO-715, an investigational CAR T-cell therapy targeting the B-cell maturation antigen (BCMA) for treating relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma and ALLO-819, which targets CD135 (also called FLT3), for treating relapsed or refractory AML.

Allogene, in collaboration with both Cellectis, Pfizer (which has a 25% stake in Allogene) and Servier have numerous active open-label, single-arm Phase I trials for an off-the-shelf allogeneic CAR-T therapy UCART19* in patients with relapsed or refractory CD19+ B-ALL. Participating patients receive lymphodepletion with fludarabine and cyclophosphamide with alemtuzumab, followed by UCART19 infusion. Adults patients with R/R B-ALL are eligible.

The PALL aims to evaluate the safety and feasibility of UCART19 to induce molecular remission in pediatric patients with relapsed or refractory CD19-positive B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (B-ALL) in 18 pediatric patients.

The CALM trial is a dose-escalating study evaluating the therapys safety and tolerability in 40 adult patients; and a long-term safety and efficacy follow-up study in 200 patients with advanced lymphoid malignancies.

Allogene reported preliminary proof-of-concept results during the annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology (ASH) in December 2018.

Data from the first 21 patients from both the PALL (n=7) and CALM (n=14) Phase I studies were pooled. The median age of the participating patients was 22 years (range, 0.8-62 years) and the median number of prior therapies was 4 (range, 1-6). Sixty-two percent of the patients (13/21) had a prior allogeneic stem cell transplant.

Of the 17 patients who received treatment with UCART19 and who received lymphodepletion with fludarabine, cyclophosphamide and alemtuzumab, an anti-CD52 monoclonal antibody, 14 patients (82%) achieved CR/CRi, and 59% of them (10/17) achieved MRD-negative remission.

In stark contrast, the four patients who only received UCART19 and fludarabine and cyclophosphamide without alemtuzumab did not see a response and minimal UCART19 expansion.

Based on these results, researchers noted that apparent importance of an anti-CD52 antibody for the efficacy of allogeneic CAR-T therapies. In addition, safety data also looked promising. The trial results did not include grade 3 or 4 neurotoxicity and only 2 cases of grade 1 graft-versus-host disease (10%), 3 cases of grade 3 or 4 cytokine release syndrome which were considered manageable (14%), 5 cases of grade 3 or 4 viral infections (24%), and 6 cases of grade 4 prolonged cytopenia (29%).

Precision BiosciencesPrecision Biosciences is developing PBCAR0191, an off-the-shelf investigational allogeneic CAR T-cell candidate targeting CD19. The drug candidate is being investigated in a Phase I/IIa multicenter, nonrandomized, open-label, parallel assignment, dose-escalation, and dose-expansion study for the treatment of patients with relapsed or refractory (R/R) non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) or R/R B-cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia (B-ALL).

The NHL cohort includes patients with mantle cell lymphoma (MCL), an aggressive subtype of NHL, for which Precision has received both Orphan Drug and Fast Track Designations from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

A clinical trial with PBCAR0191 Precision Biosciences is exploring some novel lymphodepletion strategies in addition to fludarabine and cyclophosphamide. Patients with R/R ALL, R/R CLL, R/R Richter transformation, and R/R NHL are eligible. Patients with MRD+ B-ALL are eligible as well. This trial is enrolling patients.

In late September 2020, Precision BioSciences, a clinical stage biotechnology amd Servier, announced the companies have added two additional hematological cancer targets beyond CD19 and two solid tumor targets to its CAR T-cell development and commercial license agreement.

PBCAR20APBCAR20A is an investigational allogeneic anti-CD20 CAR T-cell therapy being developed by Precision Biosciences for the treartment of patients with relapsed/refractory (R/R) non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) and patients with R/R chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) or R/R small lymphocytic lymphoma (SLL). The NHL cohort will include patients with mantle cell lymphoma (MCL), an aggressive subtype of NHL, for which Precision BioSciences has received orphan drug designation from the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

PBCAR20A is being evaluated in a Phase I/IIa multicenter, nonrandomized, open-label, dose-escalation and dose-expansion clinical trial in adult NHL and CLL/SLL patients. The trial will be conducted at multiple U.S. sites.

PBCAR269APrecision Biosciences is, in collaboration with Springworks Therapeutics, also developing PBCAR269A, an allogeneic BCMA-targeted CAR T-cell therapy candidate being evaluated for the safety and preliminary clinical activity in a Phase I/IIa multicenter, nonrandomized, open-label, parallel assignment, single-dose, dose-escalation, and dose-expansion study of adults with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma. In this trial, the starting dose of PBCAR269A is 6 x 105 CAR T cells/kg body weight with subsequent cohorts receiving escalating doses to a maximum dose of 6 x 106 CAR T cells/kg body weight.

PBCAR269A is Precision Biosciencess third CAR T-cell candidate to advance to the clinic and is part of a pipeline of cell-phenotype optimized allogeneic CAR T-cell therapies derived from healthy donors and then modified via a simultaneous TCR knock-out and CAR T-cell knock-in step with the =companys proprietary ARCUS genome editing technology.

The FDA recently granted Fast Track Designation to PBCAR269A for the treatment of relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma for which the FDA previously granted Orphan Drug Designation.

TCR2 TherapeuticsTCR2 Therapeutics is developing a proprietary TRuC (TCR Fusion Construct) T-cells designed to harness the natural T cell receptor complex to recognize and kill cancer cells using the full power of T-cell signaling pathways independent of the human leukocyte antigen (HLA).

While succesful in hematological malignancies, CAR T-cells therapies have generally struggled to show efficacy against solid tumors. Researchers at TCR2 Therapeutics believe this is is caused by the fact that CAR T-cell therapies only utilize a single TCR subunit, and, as a result, do not benefit from all of the activation and regulatory elements of the natural TCR complex. By engineering TCR T-cells, which are designed to utilize the complete TCR, they have demonstrated clinical activity in solid tumors. However, this approach has also shown major limitations. TCR T-cells require tumors to express HLA to bind tumor antigens. HLA is often downregulated in cancers, preventing T-cell detection. In addition, each specific TCR-T cell therapy can only be used in patients with one of several specific HLA subtypes, limiting universal applicability of this approach and increasing the time and cost of patient enrollment in clinical trials.

In an attempt to solve this problem, researchers at TCR2 Therapeutics have developped a proprieatarry TRuC-T Cells which are designed to incorporate the best features of CAR-T and TCR-T cell therapies and overcome the limitations. The TRuC platform is a novel T cell therapy platform, which uses the complete TCR complex without the need for HLA matching.

By conjugating the tumor antigen binder to the TCR complex, the TRuC construct recognizes highly expressed surface antigens on tumor cells without the need for HLA and engage the complete TCR machinery to drive the totality of T-cell functions required for potent, modulated and durable tumor killing.

In preclinical studies, TCR2 Therapeutics TRuC T-cells technology has demonstrated superior anti-tumor activity in vivo compared to CAR T-cells therapies, while, at the same time, releasing lower levels of cytokines. These data are encouraging for the treatment of solid tumors where CAR T-cells have not shown significant clinical activity due to very short persistence and for hematologic tumors where a high incidence of severe cytokine release syndrome remains a major concern.

TCR2 Therapeutics product candidates include TC-210 and TC-110.

TC-210 is designed to targets mesothelin-positive solid tumors. While its expression in normal tissues is low, mesothelin is highly expressed in many solid tumors. Mesothelin overexpression has also been correlated with poorer prognosis in certain cancer types and plays a role in tumorigenesis. TC-210 is being developed for the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer, ovarian cancer, malignant pleural/peritoneal mesothelioma and cholangiocarcinoma.

The companys TRuC-T cell targeting CD19-positive B-cell hematological malignancies, TC-110, is being developed to improve upon and address the unmet needs of current CD19-directed CAR T-cell therapies. The clinical development TC-110 focus on the treatment of adult acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) and follicular lymphoma (FL). Preclinical data demonstrates that TC-110 is superior to CD19-CAR-T cells (carrying either 4-1BB or CD28 co-stimulatory domains) both in anti-tumor activity as well as the level of cytokine release which may translate into lower rates of adverse events. The development of TC-110 starts with autologous T-cells collection by leukopheresis. These T-cells undergo genetic engineering to create TRuC-T cells targeting CD19.

This strategy combines the best features of CAR T-cells and the native T-cell receptor. It is open for R/R NHL and R/R B-ALL.

AUTO1Auto1 is an autologous CD19 CAR T-cell investigational therapyis being developped by Autolus Therapeutics. The investigational drug uses a single-chain variable fragment (scFv) called CAT with a lower affinity for CD19 and a faster off-rate compared to the FMC63 scFv used in other approved CD19 CAR T-cell therapies. The investigational therapy is designed to overcome the limitations in safety while maintaining similar levels of efficacy compared to current CD19 CAR T-cell therapies.

Designed to have a fast target binding off-rate to minimize excessive activation of the programmed T-cells, AUTO1 may reduce toxicity and be less prone to T-cell exhaustion, which could enhance persistence and improve the T-cells abilities to engage in serial killing of target cancer cells.

In 2018, Autolus signed a license agreement UCL Business plc (UCLB), the technology-transfer company of UCL, to develop and commercialize AUTO1 for the treatment of B cell malignancies. AUTO1 is currently being evaluated in two Phase I studies, one in pediatric ALL and one in adult ALL.

CARPALL trialInitial results from the ongoing Phase I CARPALL trial of AUTO1 were presented during European Hematology Association 1st European CAR T Cell Meeting held in Paris, France, February 14-16, 2019.

Enrolled patients had a median age of 9 years with a median of 4 lines of prior treatment. Seventeen patients were enrolled, and 14 patients received an infusion of CAR T cells. Ten of 14 patients had relapsed post allogeneic stem cell transplant. Eight patients were treated in second relapse, 5 in > second relapse and 3 had relapsed after prior blinatumomab or inotuzumab therapy. Two patients had ongoing CNS disease at enrollment.

This data confirmed that AUTO1 did not induces severe cytokine release syndrome (CRS) (Grade 3-5). Nine patients experienced Grade 1 CRS, and 4 patients experienced Grade 2 CRS. No patients required tociluzumab or steroids. As previously reported, one patient experienced Grade 4 neurotoxicity; there were no other reports of severe neurotoxicity (Grade 3-5). The mean cumulative exposure to AUTO1 CAR T-cells in the first 28 days as assessed by AUC was 1,721,355 copies/g DNA. Eleven patients experienced cytopenia that was not resolved by day 28 or recurring after day 28: 3 patients Grades 1-3 and 8 patients Grade 4. Two patients developed significant infections, and 1 patient died from sepsis while in molecular complete response (CR).

With a single dose of CAR T cells at 1 million cells/kg dose, 12/14 (86%) achieved molecular CR. Five patients relapsed with CD19 negative disease. Event free survival (EFS) based on morphological relapse was 67% (CI 34-86%) and 46% (CI 16-72%) and overall survival (OS) was 84% (CI 50-96%) and 63% (CI 27-85%) at 6 and 12 months, respectively.

CAR T cell expansion was observed in all responding patients (N=12), with CAR T cells comprising up to 84% of circulating T cells at the point of maximal expansion. The median persistence of CAR T-cells was 215 days.

The median duration of remission in responding patients was 7.3 months with a median follow-up of 14 months. Five of 14 patients (37%) remain in CR with ongoing persistence of CAR T-cells and associated B cell aplasia.

Fate TherapeuticsFT819 is an off-the-shelf CAR T-cell therapy targeting CD19 being developed by Fate Therapeutics. The T-cells are derived from a clonal engineered master induced pluripotent stem cell line (iPSCs) with a novel 1XX CAR targeting CD19 inserted into the T-cell receptor alpha constant (TRAC) locus and edited for elimination of T-cell receptor (TCR) expression.

Patients participating in the companys clinbical trial will receive lymphodepletion with fludarabine and cyclophosphamide. Some patients will also receive IL-2. Patients with R/R ALL, R/R CLL, R/R Richter transformation, and R/R NHL are eligible. Patients with MRD+ B-ALL are eligible as well.

At the Annual Meeting of the American Societ of Hematology held in December 2019, researchers from Fate Therapeutics presented new in vivo preclinical data demonstrating that FT819 exhibits durable tumor control and extended survival. In a stringent xenograft model of disseminated lymphoblastic leukemia, FT819 demonstrated enhanced tumor clearance and control of leukemia as compared to primary CAR19 T-cells. At Day 35 following administration, a bone marrow assessment showed that FT819 persisted and continued to demonstrate tumor clearance, whereas primary CAR T cells, while persisting, were not able to control tumor growth. [2]

CAR-NK CD19Allogeneic cord blood-derived Natural Killer (NK) cells are another off-the-shelf product that does not require the collection of cells from each patient.

Unlike T-cells, NK-cells do not cause GVHD and can be given safely in the allogeneic setting. At MD Anderson Cancer Center, Katy Rezvani, M.D., Ph.D, Professor, Stem Cell Transplantation and Cellular Therapy, and her team broadly focuses their research on the role of natural killer (NK) cells in mediating protection against hematologic malignancies and solid tumors and strategies to enhance killing function against various cancer.

As part of their research, the team has developed a novel cord blood-derived NK-CAR product that expresses a CAR against CD19; ectopically produces IL-15 to support NK-cell proliferation and persistence in vivo; and expresses a suicide gene, inducible caspase 9, to address any potential safety concerns.

In this phase I and II trial researchers administered HLA-mismatched anti-CD19 CAR-NK cells derived from cord blood to 11 patients with relapsed or refractory CD19-positive cancers (non-Hodgkins lymphoma or chronic lymphocytic leukemia [CLL]). NK cells were transduced with a retroviral vector expressing genes that encode anti-CD19 CAR, interleukin-15, and inducible caspase 9 as a safety switch. The cells were expanded ex vivo and administered in a single infusion at one of three doses (1105, 1106, or 1107 CAR-NK cells per kilogram of body weight) after lymphodepleting chemotherapy. The preliminarry resilts of the trials confirmed that administration of CAR-NK cells was not associated with the development of cytokine release syndrome, neurotoxicity, or graft-versus-host disease, and there was no increase in the levels of inflammatory cytokines, including interleukin-6, over baseline.

The study results also demonstrated that of the 11 patients who were treated, 8 patients (73%) had a response. Of these patients, 7 (4 with lymphoma and 3 with CLL) had a complete remission ICR), and 1 had remission of the Richters transformation component but had persistent CLL. Noteworthy was that responses were rapid and seen within 30 days after infusion at all dose levels. The infused CAR-NK cells expanded and persisted at low levels for at least 12 months. The researchers also noted that a majority of the 11 participating patients with relapsed or refractory CD19-positive cancers had a response to treatment with CAR-NK cells without the development of major toxic effects.[3]

Note* Servier will hold ex-US commercial rights. Servier is the sponsor of the UCART19 trials.

Clinical trialsalloSHRINK Standard cHemotherapy Regimen and Immunotherapy With Allogeneic NKG2D-based CYAD-101 Chimeric Antigen Receptor T-cells NCT03692429Study Evaluating Safety and Efficacy of UCART123 in Patients With Relapsed/ Refractory Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AMELI-01) NCT03190278Study to Evaluate the Safety and Clinical Activity of UCART123 in Patients With BPDCN (ABC123) NCT03203369Study of UCART19 in Pediatric Patients With Relapsed/Refractory B Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (PALL) NCT02808442Dose Escalation Study of UCART19 in Adult Patients With Relapsed / Refractory B-cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia (CALM) NCT02746952Dose-escalation Study of Safety of PBCAR0191 in Patients With r/r NHL and r/r B-cell ALL NCT03666000.Dose-escalation Study of Safety of PBCAR20A in Subjects With r/r NHL or r/r CLL/SLL NCT04030195A Dose-escalation Study to Evaluate the Safety and Clinical Activity of PBCAR269A in Study Participants With Relapsed/Refractory Multiple Myeloma NCT04171843TC-110 T Cells in Adults With Relapsed or Refractory Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma or Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia NCT04323657Phase 1/2 Trial of TC-210 T Cells in Patients With Advanced Mesothelin-Expressing Cancer NCT03907852CARPALL: Immunotherapy With CD19 CAR T-cells for CD19+ Haematological Malignancies NCT02443831Umbilical & Cord Blood (CB) Derived CAR-Engineered NK Cells for B Lymphoid Malignancies NCT03056339

Reference[1] Petti F. Broadening the Applicability of CAR-T Immunotherapy to Treat the Untreatable. OncoZine. October 24, 2019 [Article][2] Wells J, Cai T, Schiffer-Manniou C, Filipe S, Gouble A, Galetto R, Jain N, Jabbour EJ, Smith J, Konopleva M. Pre-Clinical Activity of Allogeneic Anti-CD22 CAR-T Cells for the Treatment of B-Cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia Blood (2017) 130 (Supplement 1): 808. https://doi.org/10.1182/blood.V130.Suppl_1.808.808%5B3%5D Chang C, Van Der Stegen S, Mili M, Clarke R, Lai YS, Witty A, Lindenbergh P, Yang BH, et al. FT819: Translation of Off-the-Shelf TCR-Less Trac-1XX CAR-T Cells in Support of First-of-Kind Phase I Clinical Trial. Blood (2019) 134 (Supplement_1): 4434.https://doi.org/10.1182/blood-2019-130584%5B4%5D Liu E, Marin D, Banerjee P, Macapinlac HA, Thompson P, Basar R, Nassif Kerbauy L, Overman B, Thall P, Kaplan M, Nandivada V, Kaur I, Nunez Cortes A, Cao K, Daher M, Hosing C, Cohen EN, Kebriaei P, Mehta R, Neelapu S, Nieto Y, Wang M, Wierda W, Keating M, Champlin R, Shpall EJ, Rezvani K. Use of CAR-Transduced Natural Killer Cells in CD19-Positive Lymphoid Tumors. N Engl J Med. 2020 Feb 6;382(6):545-553. doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa1910607. PMID: 32023374; PMCID: PMC7101242.

Featured image: T-cells attacking a cancer cell. Photo courtesy: Fotolia/Adobe 2016 2020. Used with permission.

Read more:
CAR T-cell Therapies for the Treatment of Patients with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia - OncoZine

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