Although there has been significant progress in the treatment of rare forms of blood cancer in recent years and new drugs have been approved in Germany, the prognosis for many affected individuals remains unfavourable. Research teams at Leipzig University’s Faculty of Medicine are working in several preclinical and translational projects to gain a better understanding of these diseases. The researchers are investigating how bone marrow cancer develops. In addition, they have found a new molecular functional mechanism and have shown that patients with even low amounts of leukaemia cells have a high risk of relapse. The results have been published in journals.

A team of researchers located at Helmholtz Munich reports on a novel function of vitamin K, which is generally known for its importance in blood clotting. The researchers discovered that the fully reduced form of vitamin K acts as an antioxidant efficiently inhibiting ferroptotic cell death. Ferroptosis is a natural form of cell death in which cellular iron plays an important role and which is characterized by the oxidative destruction of cellular membranes. In addition, the team identified FSP1 as the warfarin-insensitive enzyme reducing vitamin K, the identity of which had been postulated but remained unknown for more than half a century.

Worldwide, 880,000 people die each year as a result of infection with the hepatitis B virus (HBV). Antiviral drugs that can suppress replication of the virus are available. However, these must be taken for decades, as there is yet no curative therapy for chronic HBV infection available. Biomarkers—biological molecules in blood serum that can be used to monitor the course of chronic infection and the response of patients to new therapies—are needed to guide the development of these therapies and to assess their efficacy. Potential biomarkers have now been evaluated in a widely acclaimed review and a roadmap for their further development has been established.

Networks adapt over time and in this way form a kind of memory. This is the key finding of a new study by researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization in Göttingen and the Technical University of Munich. They show that the structure of blood vascular network is dynamic and can adapt to external factors. In particular, the scientists found that rarely used connections are weakening more and more until they disappear eventually.

Throughout one’s life, the blood is constantly being replenished from blood stem cells. However, these cells lose their functionality in old age. Researchers at the Leibniz Institute on Aging – Fritz Lipmann Institute (FLI) have now found a gene mechanism that is responsible for the aging of hematopoietic stem cells. The gene Igf2bp2 is important in youth for the full function of these cells, as it activates their growth and metabolism. When the gene is missing, however, the aging-associated loss of function of the stem cells is surprisingly diminished. The eventual aging of hematopoietic stem cells is apparently already preprogrammed by their gene-driven growth in youth.

A team of scientists led by Professor Karsten Hiller from the Braunschweig Centre for Systems Biology BRICS has discovered an endogenous, anti-inflammatory substance: mesaconic acid. This molecule could be a drug candidate that can be further developed to treat shock resulting from blood poisoning and autoimmune diseases such as psoriasis and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) – without the known side effects of anti-inflammatory drugs currently in use.

Non-small cell lung carcinoma is a particularly aggressive type of lung cancer. Tumor cells and tumor DNA (ctDNA) in the blood of patients with the disease can be analyzed by means of liquid biopsy throughout the course of the disease. This information is important in order to be able to target the constantly changing tumor. A study from the University of Bayreuth is the first to show that liquid biopsy significantly improves treatment outcomes in many cases and can be cost-effective in the German care system. The scientists present their research results in the Journal of Cancer Research and Clinical Oncology.

Stem cells in the bone marrow keep replenishing us with blood cells until the day we die. They do this by dividing into a daughter cell that becomes a blood cell, and a second cell that remains a stem cell. But every time a cell divides, mistakes can occur that change the cell’s genome and increase the risk of it becoming a cancer cell.

Scientists have created a new roadmap that traces each step in the development of blood stem cells in the human embryo, providing scientists with a blueprint for producing fully functional blood stem cells in the lab. The research could help expand treatment options for blood cancers like leukemia and inherited blood disorders such as sickle cell disease.

A new study suggests that people with cancer and non-O blood types, such as types A, B, and AB, face an increased risk of developing venous thromboembolism (VTE), or blood clots in the veins, three months after their initial diagnosis. Scientists have long strived to understand the risk factors for VTE, the leading cause of preventable hospital deaths in the United States. Existing assessments use factors like tumor or cancer type to detect those at high risk of VTE. Yet, many patients without these diagnoses still develop life-threatening blood clots but go unidentified.

An international study demonstrates that the body’s immune system attacks itself in a rare type of blood cancer. Consequently, treatment should be targeted at the immune system as well, not only the cancer cells.

Although clinical labs have known for almost a century that a oddly shaped nucleus resembling pince-nez glasses in blood cells could indicate leukemia, the cause of this anomaly remained unknown. Scientists have now discovered that loss of nuclear Lamin B1 induces defects in the nuclear morphology and in human hematopoietic [blood-forming] stem cells associated with malignancy. The scientists went on to detail that lamin B1 deficiency alters genome organization. This in turn causes expansion of blood-forming stem cells, a bias towards their becoming myeloids, genome instability due to defective DNA damage repair and other problems that set the stage for cancer.

Although clinical labs have known for almost a century that a oddly shaped nucleus resembling pince-nez glasses in blood cells could indicate leukemia, the cause of this anomaly remained unknown. Scientists have now discovered that loss of nuclear Lamin B1 induces defects in the nuclear morphology and in human hematopoietic [blood-forming] stem cells associated with malignancy. The scientists went on to detail that lamin B1 deficiency alters genome organization. This in turn causes expansion of blood-forming stem cells, a bias towards their becoming myeloids, genome instability due to defective DNA damage repair and other problems that set the stage for cancer.

Ten-second videos of white blood cell motion in the skin’s microvasculature greatly improved the prediction of which stem cell and bone marrow transplant patients would have a relapse of their blood cancer.

Thanks to antiretroviral therapy, HIV infection is no longer the life sentence it once was. But despite the effectiveness of drugs to manage and treat the virus, it can never be fully eliminated from the human body, lingering in some cells deep in different human tissues where it goes unnoticed by the immune system. Now, new research by University of Alberta immunologist Shokrollah Elahi reveals a possible answer to the mystery of why infected people can’t get rid of HIV altogether. Elahi and his team found that in HIV patients, killer T cells — a type of white blood cells responsible for identifying and destroying cells infected with viruses — have very little to none of a protein called CD73. Because CD73 is responsible for migration and cell movement into the tissue, the lack of the protein compromises the ability of killer T cells to find and eliminate HIV-infected cells, explained Elahi.

Researchers have been able to re-engineer red blood cells and use them as a promising new vehicle for vaccine delivery.

Scientists determined that 9/11 first responders to the World Trade Center have increased levels of mutations that escalate their risk for blood cancers or cardiovascular disease, according to a new study.

Over 90 percent of patients with transfusion-dependent thalassemia, an inherited blood disorder, no longer needed monthly blood transfusions years after receiving gene therapy, according to an international Phase 3 clinical trial that for the first time included children younger than 12 years of age. Twenty-two patients were evaluated (ranging in age 4-34 years), including pediatric patients.

T-cell responses directed against the receptor-binding domain of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein were associated with protection from SARS-CoV-2 infection in vaccinated individuals with or without cancer, with lower T-cell responses observed in patients with blood cancers, according to a new study.

Acute myeloid leukemia, which affects blood and bone marrow cells, is a particularly dangerous form of cancer. More than half of patients under the age of 60 die. This proportion rises to 85% for patients over 60. A team has now identified a previously unknown mechanism that could lead to the development of new therapies. The selective activation of AMPK, a key enzyme in the energy balance of tumor cells, would indeed lead to their death by triggering the cells stress response. Moreover, the scientists have successfully exploited this energy gap in an animal model of the disease: a combination of two drugs — one of which is already on the market — has indeed shown promise. However, their effectiveness has yet to be confirmed on leukaemia stem cells, which have the ability to escape many treatments to restart tumor growth.

A team of researchers has discovered blood biomarkers that can potentially predict patient response in the treatment of melanoma.

Researchers have discovered that metabolic changes affect how blood cells are formed during embryonic development. They found a previously unknown metabolic switch with a key role in how different types of blood cells develop. This means blood cell formation can be directed towards producing natural killer cells in the laboratory to ultimately be used in a new anti-cancer treatment.

Researchers discover a ’switch‘ specific to transcription factors that induce the genes essential for blood vessel development in postnatal periods. Mouse models further showed that the modifiers responsible for the switch are critical for postnatal angiogenesis.

When tumors spread, cancer cells migrate to other parts of the body through the blood or lymphatic vessels. Scientists have now found a new protein that prevents cancer cells from doing so by making them stick more tightly to their surroundings. Their findings could in the future help doctors determine the aggressiveness of a tumor and fine-tune the therapy.

A protein that masterminds the way DNA is wrapped within chromosomes has a major role in the healthy functioning of blood stem cells, which produce all blood cells in the body, according to a new study.