SUMMARY Innovative therapeutic strategy leveraging commensal microbiota, specifically by oral administration of Bifidobacterium, to enhance anti-tumor immunity, potentially improving cancer treatment when combined with checkpoint inhibitors Unmet Need: Only 20-40% of patients respond to immunotherapy while a majority… Read More
SUMMARY Novel RNA editing method to generate a multitude of neoantigens in tumor cells making the cells more recognizable by T cells and enhancing the efficacy of immune checkpoint inhibitors The problem: Current approaches to further enhance the immunogenicity of tumors fail to… Read More
SUMMARY Radiotherapy and immunotherapy are used to treat many cancer types, yet only 50% and 20% of patients respond, respectively. Resistance to therapy presents a large problem. N6-methyladenosine (m6A) modification is commonly found in on RNA in eukaryotic cells. By binding to m6A sites, YTHDF2 (YTH N6-Methyladenosine RNA Binding Protein… Read More
SUMMARY Residual bubble clouds decrease the therapeutic efficacy of ablative ultrasound therapy. Ultrasound pulses can be used to destroy residual bubbles, however constructive interference limits simultaneous imaging and monitoring. The inventors developed a method to use plane wave B-mode imaging for the simultaneous generation of bubble deleting pulses and real… Read More
SUMMARY Optimized small-molecule inhibitors of RAD51 that selectively suppress D-loop formation and homologous recombination The Unmet Need: Selective agents that suppress homologous recombination repair without off-target toxicity. RAD51 is a central protein in homologous recombination, a DNA repair pathway that helps cells repair double-strand breaks accurately. Many tumors overexpress RAD51… Read More
SUMMARY Regulatory T cells (Tregs) modulate immune function by preventing autoreactive T cell responses, including those that would normally target cancer cells. Treg activity can significantly limit the efficacy of immunotherapies designed to stimulate CD8+ T cells, and therefore a strategy for reducing Treg activity as an aspect of immunotherapy… Read More
SUMMARY Stereotactic ablative body radiotherapy (SART) is the precise delivery of concentrated radiation beams to a tumor from different angles. Due to the cross interaction between beams, SART is rarely able to be applied in the simultaneous treatment of multiple metastatic lesions, despite the potential benefit to patients who have… Read More
SUMMARY Vaccine efficacy is limited due to the inability to deliver in-tact antigens to antigen presenting (APC) dendritic cells (DCs) while simultaneously activating the cells in a non-toxic fashion. Adjuvants have been used in an attempt to overcome the issues of vaccine efficacy, however they are poorly soluble which results… Read More
SUMMARY The development of cancer immunotherapies is limited by a lack of targetable tumor antigens. Most currently targeted antigens have basal expression in healthy tissue, which results in potentially life threatening off-target effects. Moreover, targeting a single antigen alone can lead to the development of therapeutic resistance. A COSMC loss-of-function… Read More
SUMMARY Adjuvant radiation therapy post-surgery remains largely ineffective, with just 5% of patients showing a survival benefit. Small molecule JAK inhibitors have shown efficacy in the clinic at treating these patients, yet problematically this approach is plagued by off-target toxicities and eventual development of treatment resistance. The inventors used an… Read More
SUMMARY Current immunotherapy approaches often focus on targeting a single immune checkpoint or suppressive pathway, which can be insufficient given the redundancy and adaptability of tumor-mediated immune evasion. Tumors can compensate for the blockade of one pathway by upregulating alternative suppressive mechanisms, leading to limited efficacy and the persistence of… Read More
SUMMARY kV radiation dose for imaging tumors is useful for direct monitoring and real-time organ tracking without relying on high-risk surgical implants. However, the utility of this approach is limited by concerns of radiation overdose associated with exposing patients to an additional radiation source other than the MV treatment dose. Read More