Research News

Pfizer Inc announced that the first participants have been dosed in a pivotal Phase 3 clinical trial to evaluate the efficacy, safety, tolerability and immunogenicity of the company’s quadrivalent modified RNA (modRNA) influenza vaccine candidate in approximately 25,000 healthy U.S. adults.

Tumor cells are notoriously good at evading the human immune system; they put up physical walls, wear disguises and handcuff the immune system with molecular tricks. Now, UC San Francisco researchers have developed a drug that overcomes some of these barriers, marking cancer cells for destruction by the immune system.

A pathogenic fungus undergoes a remarkable transformation once it enters the body, allowing it to infect the brain, according to new research by scientists at University of Utah Health. Studies in mice show that as the fungal intruder travels to different organs, it changes in size and acquires characteristics that help infection to spread, all in a matter of days.

Mount Sinai researchers have made two important discoveries about the mechanism by which bladder cancer cells foil attacks from the immune system. The research, published in Cancer Cell in September, could lead to a new therapeutic option for patients with these types of tumors.

Zika virus has a trick up its sleeve. Once inside the body, the virus likes to make a bee line for dendritic cells, the cells we rely on to launch an effective immune response.

“Dendritic cells are major cells of the innate immune system,” says LJI Professor Sujan Shresta, Ph.D., a member of the LJI Center for Infectious Disease and Vaccine Research. “How is this virus so clever that it’s able to establish infection in cells that would normally fight infections?”

University of Pittsburgh researchers describe for the first time a pathway by which cells repair damaged lysosomes, structures that contribute to longevity by recycling cellular trash. The findings are an important step towards understanding and treating age-related diseases driven by leaky lysosomes.

Targeting FGFR has recently emerged as a promising strategy in the treatment of cholangiocarcinoma (CCA), a very aggressive rare malignancy. At ESMO Congress 2022, two new agents were added to the list of FGFR inhibitors being investigated, showing some clinical benefits or potential in patients not previously treated with this anticancer drug class.

Two early studies investigate the anticancer activity of derazantinib and RLY-4008 in patients with FGFR inhibitor-naive cholangiocarcinoma.

ICMR-National Institute of Malaria Research scientists from India published an opinion in Lancet Regional Health Southeast Asia that India requires Artificial Intelligence (AI) based approaches into the current microscopy method for detection of Malaria.

Infections in pregnant women have been linked to an increased risk of neurodevelopmental conditions, such as autism, in the child later in life. But it does not seem to be the infections themselves that cause autism, researchers from Karolinska Institutet in Sweden show in a study published in The Lancet Psychiatry.