A new approach could cut the time it takes to alter patients‘ immune cells for infusion back into the body to find and attack cancer. The cell manufacturing process for this type of immunotherapy that was pioneered at Penn — CAR T cell therapy — typically takes nine to 14 days. In a pre-clinical study, scientists have abbreviated this process and generated functional CAR T cells with enhanced anti-tumor potency in just 24 hours.

A new study creates a detailed ‚atlas‘ of the various cell types and their gene activities within the highly specialized fallopian tube, paving the way for new research into infertility and other diseases affecting this organ, including some cancers.

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 developed an implantable biotechnology that produces and releases CAR-T cells for attacking cancerous tumors. In a proof-of-concept study involving lymphoma in mice, the researchers found that treatment with the implants was faster and more effective than conventional CAR-T cell cancer treatment.

Scientists have developed a genetic screening platform to identify genes that can enhance immune cells to make them more persistent and increase their ability to eradicate tumor cells.

New research has begun to unravel the mystery of why a particular form of leukaemia in infants has defied efforts to improve outcomes, despite significant improvements in treating older children. Scientists have now found subtle differences in the cell type that causes B acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (B-ALL) that may help to explain why some cases are more severe than others.

Metastatic cells form in a primary tumor and then break away from it, migrate to other organs, attach to them and form new tumors. This spread reduces patients‘ chances of recovery. Scientists have discovered some of the mechanisms by which these cells arise. This is due to cells that have narrowly escaped cell death (apoptosis) following a chemotherapeutic treatment. Those cells reprogram themselves to acquire metastatic skills. Thanks to this study, these cells – called PAME by the researchers – now appear as new therapeutic targets.

A researcher has made a discovery that alters our understanding of how the body’s DNA repair process works and may lead to new chemotherapy treatments for cancer and other disorders. Researchers discovered that base excision repair has a built-in mechanism to increase its effectiveness — it just needs to be captured at a very precise point in the cell life cycle.

Squeezing through tight spaces makes cancer cells more aggressive and helps them evade cell death, shows a new study.

A single protein can reverse the developmental clock on adult brain cells called astrocytes, morphing them into stem-like cells that produce neurons and other cell types, UT Southwestern researchers report in a new study. The findings might someday lead to a way to regenerate brain tissue after disease or injury.

Many people have to take statins to lower their cholesterol levels. But statins may be able to do even more: Researchers report that these drugs inhibit a gene that promotes cancer cell metastasis.

A recent study shows that certain immune cells can restore their normal functions when introduced back into the body, even after being multiplied in the laboratory to large numbers — the results pave the way to new cell therapies.

Ultrasound scans — best known for monitoring pregnancies or imaging organs — can also be used to stimulate cells and direct cell function. A team of researchers has developed an easier, more effective way to harness the technology for biomedical applications.

A new study found in a living embryo that the back ends of moving cell groups push the group forward, with implications for how organs form and cancer spreads.

A new study shows how two subsets of one type of immune cell — the CD8 T cell — develop to provide either short-term or long-term immune protection. The study focuses on one factor that guides that developmental bifurcation — interleukin-2, or IL-2.

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.

Using data from over 100,000 malignant and non-malignant cells from 15 human brain metastases, researchers have revealed two functional archetypes of metastatic cells across 7 different types of brain tumors, each containing both immune and non-immune cell types. Their findings provide a potential roadmap for metastatic tumor formation that could be used to design therapies to improve the treatment of metastasized patients.

Researchers have developed a new protocol for monitoring acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), the most common cancer in children, to inform more effective treatment strategies and detect disease recurrence. The personalized mediator probe PCR (MP PCR) uses multiple genomic cancer cell markers in a single assay and is simpler than current techniques. It improves monitoring clonal tumor evolution to detect a relapse sooner and avoid false negative results.

A research team has investigated in detail how messenger substances signal inflammation during the removal of damaged cells in the body. Using high-resolution microscopy methods, the researchers were able to show that two proteins interact dynamically with each other and thus determine whether a dying cell triggers an inflammatory reaction in the body.

Garden soil houses a variety of bacteria and their natural byproducts — including one that may help halt tumor growth. Lankacidins are molecules that can be isolated from Strepomyces rochei, a common bacterium in soil. In addition to antimicrobial properties, a type of lankacidins, called lankacidin C, can inhibit tumor activity in various cancer cell lines, including leukemia, melanoma, ovarian and breast cancers. Lankacidin C offers a potential foundation on which to design anticancer drugs, but its structure is complicated and difficult to manipulate, according to an international research group. The same group recently identified where antitumor activity is housed on the molecule and has now used that information to simplify lankacidin as a potential starting point to engineer treatments.

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.

Scientists have just launched GENIGMA, a videogame that enlists players to solve puzzles while generating real-world scientific data that can detect alterations in genomic sequences and ultimately advance breast cancer research. The game was created to boost worldwide research efforts that depend on cancer cell lines, a critical resource used by scientists to study cancer and test new drugs to treat the disease. One of the limitations of cancer cell lines are a lack of high-resolution genome reference maps, which are necessary to help researchers interpret their scientific results.

Scientists have developed a new tool to harness immune cells from tumors to fight cancer rapidly and effectively.

A new study has illuminated an important process that occurs during cell division and is a likely source of DNA damage under some circumstances, including cancer.

Recent discoveries by stem cell scientists may help make cancer treatment more efficient and shorten the time it takes for people to recover from radiation and chemotherapy.