Antibody News

By Natalia Gurule, PhD

 

Breast Cancer is a Heterogeneous Disease

Breast cancer is the most frequently identified malignancy in women, accounting for 30% of diagnosed cases of cancer in women in the US annually.¹ Although it is so prevalent, 70-80% of patients with early stage, non-metastatic disease experience cures. By contrast, the 5-year survival rate for metastatic breast cancer is 29%.² Molecularly, breast cancer can be separated into 5 subtypes: Luminal A, Luminal B, Luminal B-like, HER2+, and Triple-...

By Victoria Osinski, PhD

What is the NLRP3 Inflammasome?

With its critical role in innate immunity, the nucleotide-binding oligomerization domain-like receptor family, pyrin domain containing 3 (NLRP3) inflammasome is a sensor complex within cells that forms in response to endogenous danger signals, microbial motifs, and other environmental cues. The complex is made up of a sensor (NLRP3), an adaptor called the adaptor protein apoptosis-associated speck-like protein containing a caspase-recruitment domain...

By Jennifer Jones, M.S.

When you think of antibody producing animals in the lab you probably think of rabbits, mice, goats, and rats. But what about llamas? Llamas probably aren’t the first animal, or even the fifth animal, that comes to mind when you think of antibody generation, but they’ve recently garnered a lot of attention for their potential to treat COVID-19 through neutralization of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.¹ Additionally, they’ve shown potential in combatting other...

By Victoria Osinski, PhD

Despite advances in the development of cancer immunotherapies, those specifically targeting tumors still remains limited. Currently, there is great interest in utilizing chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapies: a strategy that utilizes patients’ T cells and genetically engineers them to produce a T cell receptor to mount an attack against cancer cells. While CAR T cells can effectively kill cancer cells in tumors, they often come with off-tumor effects because these CARs’ target antigens are found endogenously in the body....

By Jamshed Arslan, Pharm D, PhD

What do nuts, dairy and red meat have in common? In addition to the fact that they are all edible, one of the answers is L-arginine. This amino acid improves T cell’s response against tumor cells, which typically have low concentration of L-arginine. Increasing L-arginine intra-tumorally, in turn, increases the effect of immunotherapy drugs called immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs). To understand ICIs, consider two examples of...

By Victoria Osinski, PhD

What’s “Natural” About Natural Killer (NK) Cells?

For immunologists, the term cytotoxicity often conjures up images of an army of antigen specific CD8+ T cells deploying to find and kill their target cells. However, natural killer (NK) cells are a distinct subset of cytotoxic immune lymphoid cells with both innate and adaptive immune functions. Innate functions are first-...

Jamshed Arslan, Pharm D, PhD

The dorsal root ganglia (DRG) are a collection of cell bodies of sensory nerves carrying sensory information – including nociception, mechanoreception and proprioception – from peripheral nervous system (PNS) to the central nervous system (CNS). Degeneration of DRG, as observed in the autosomal recessive disease Friedreich ataxia (FRDA), manifests physiologically as impaired speech, difficulty walking, and loss of sensation in arms and legs. To mitigate FRDA, cell replacement therapy (CRT), such as...

By Natalia Gurule, PhD

 

Historically, DNA repair pathways have been viewed from a tumor cell centric vantage point. Currently, the tumor microenvironment (TME) is recognized as having the potential to be a source of components that can participate in how a cancer cell responds to DNA damage. Within the TME, there are metabolites that can promote tumor cell growth and modulate immune cell...

Jamshed Arslan, Pharm D, PhD

SARS-CoV-2 induces both humoral and cellular immunity. A vaccine or natural infection invokes SARS-CoV-2-specific humoral components (antibodies from activated B cells) and cellular response (CD4+, CD8+ T cells) that can protect against subsequent infections. Following SARS-CoV-2 infection, the levels of...

By Victoria Osinski

Pyroptosis is an inflammatory form of programmed cell death characterized by the release of pro-inflammatory cytokines IL-1β and IL-18.^1,10 It is a process distinct from apoptosis and necrosis (Table 1) and has been observed in the setting of multiple diseases including, but...

Jamshed Arslan, Pharm D, PhD

Cholesterol is an essential part of animal cell membranes. Cholesterol-rich lipid rafts maintain the fluidity and protein trafficking of plasma membranes. Cellular ABCA1 protein moves cholesterol and certain fats outside of the cell. Dysregulated lipid rafts and cholesterol metabolism...