Scientists at Stanford University found a way to train the immune system to track and kill metastatic cancer, a team in the U.K. made a synthetic version of a powerful antibiotic capable of wiping out MRSA and other superbugs, and their peers at Tufts University attached tiny sensors to teeth that can track sugar, salt and alcohol intake. There’s a lot to chew on in this week’s science haul.
Human Trial For Cancer Vaccine
“When we use these two agents together, we see the elimination of tumors all over the body,” said Ronald Levy, a professor of oncology at Stanford. Image credit: Shutterstock.
What is it? Stanford just announced that it would test a promising new cancer vaccine in humans. Back in January, scientists at the university announced they were able to activate T-cells — a key component of the immune system — in tumors in mice “genetically engineered to spontaneously develop breast cancer.” Treating the first tumor this way “often prevented the occurrence of future tumors,” the university reported, and the method even eliminated cancer that spread, or metastasized, throughout the body. The university reported that “in this way, 87 of 90 mice were cured of the cancer.” The human trial will focus on patients suffering from non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a type of blood cancer.
Why does it matter? The “rapid and relatively inexpensive cancer therapy” involves “injecting minute amounts of two immune-stimulating agents directly into solid tumors.” It could “work for many different types of cancer, including those that arise spontaneously,” the university reported. “When we use these two agents together, we see the elimination of tumors all over the body,” said Ronald Levy, a professor of oncology at Stanford. “This approach bypasses the need to identify tumor-specific immune targets and doesn’t require wholesale activation of the immune system or customization of a patient’s immune cells,” like CART-T cell therapy requires, for example.
How does it work? The university reported that “cancers often exist in a strange kind of limbo with regard to the immune system,” suppressing the T-cells. The new approach “reactivates” the cells with two agents that turn on a special receptor on the surface of the tumor-specific T-cells. This allows the immune cells to “lead the charge against the cancer cells.”
A Computer Beats Doctors, Again
When the results came in, “the computers accurately assessed echo videos 91.7-97.8 percent of the time, versus 70.2-83.5 percent for their human counterparts,” the university reported. Image credit: Shutterstock.
What is it? Researchers at University of California, San Francisco have developed a neural network that is “more effective that humans in analyzing heart scans.”
Why does it matter? This is not the first time machines have tried their skills at medicine. Last year, scientists used artificial intelligence to detect pneumonia from X-rays, and a company in Finland is using machine learning to help doctors diagnose prostate cancer and track patients during treatment. “Our model can be expanded to classify additional sub-categories of echocardiographic view, as well as diseases, work that has foundational utility for research, for clinical practice, and for training the next generation of echo-cardiographers,” said Rina Arnaout, cardiologist and assistant professor in the UCSF Division of Cardiology.
How does it work? Arnaout and her team trained their software with more than 180,000 “real-world” echocardiograms “to assess the most common echocardiogram views, then tested both the computer and skilled human technicians on new samples.” The university reported that “the randomly selected” images “came from multiple device manufacturers and covered various echo indications, technical qualities and patient variables, including sex and weight.” The team used 80 percent of the data for training and the rest for validation and testing. When the results came in, “the computers accurately assessed echo videos 91.7-97.8 percent of the time, versus 70.2-83.5 percent for their human counterparts,” the university reported.
Top and above: The breakthrough “could lead to the first new class of antibiotic drug in 30 years,” according to the university. Images credit: Shutterstock.
What is it? Researchers at the University of Lincoln in the U.K. have created a synthetic version of teixobactin, a powerful antibiotic capable of wiping out MRSA and other superbugs, and used it to treat a bacterial infection in mice.
Why does it matter? The breakthrough “could lead to the first new class of antibiotic drug in 30 years,” according to the university. Some 2 million people get infected with bacteria resistant to antibiotics and at least 23,000 die every year from the infection in the U.S. alone, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
How does it work? American scientists discovered teixobactin in soil in 2015, but its natural form cannot be used in humans. The new results are “the first proof that simplified versions of [teixobactin’s] real form could be used to treat real bacterial infection as the basis of a new drug,” according to the university. “Translating our success with these simplified synthetic versions from test tubes to real cases is a quantum jump in the development of new antibiotics, and brings us closer to realizing the therapeutic potential of simplified teixobactins,” said Ishwar Singh, a specialist in new drug design and development at the University of Lincoln’s School of Pharmacy. Still, he cautioned that “significant amount of work remains” and that we are “probably around six to ten years off a drug that doctors can prescribe to patients.”
Researchers have developed a wearable system to monitor stomach activity that performs as well as current state of the art methods but can be used outside of a clinical setting, according to the University of California San Diego. The system also comes with an app that allows patients to log their meals, sleep and other activities. Image and caption credits: University of California San Diego.
What is it? Researchers at the University of California San Diego developed a wearable, wireless patch that can noninvasively monitor the wearer’s guts. It could help doctors “determine if the stomach is functioning properly during meals and — most importantly — when patients are experiencing symptoms such as nausea and belly pain,” said David Kunkel, a gastroenterologist at UC San Diego Health and co-author of a paper published in the Scientific Reports journal.
Why does it matter? Wearable devices capable of tracking stress, hydration, pulse, blood pressure and other body characteristics represent a powerful new way to monitor patients away from the hospital or the doctor’s office. Ted Coleman, a professor of bioengineering at the school and a corresponding author of the paper said the “work opens the door to accurately monitoring the dynamic activity of the GI system. Until now, it was quite challenging to accurately measure the electrical patterns of stomach activity in a continuous manner, outside of a clinical setting. From now on, we will be able to observe patterns and analyze them in both healthy and unwell people as they go about their daily lives.”
How does it work? The device holds its electronic guts in a slim 3D-printed plastic box attached by an adhesive to the body above the belly button. Ten or 11 electrodes connected to the box monitor the stomach’s electrical signal. They analyze the information with an algorithm that can separate the signals from the muscles, heartbeat and gastric activity into separate bands. The system can talk to a smartphone app that “allows patients to log their meals, sleep and other activities,” the university reported. “The long-term goal is to design an app that would allow patients and physicians to see the data collected by the device in real time.”
“In theory we can modify the bioresponsive layer in these sensors to target other chemicals – we are really limited only by our creativity,” said Fiorenzo Omenetto, an engineering professor at Tufts. Image credit: SilkLab, Tufts University.
What is it? If the previous item doesn’t convince you that science’s appetite for constant body monitoring is growing, consider the new tooth sensors from Tufts University. The tiny tooth-mounted devices can talk wirelessly to mobile devices and transmit information about glucose, salt and alcohol intake, for example.
Why does it matter? The university reports that “future adaptations of these sensors could enable the detection and recording of a wide range of nutrients, chemicals and physiological states.”
How does it work? The team built the sensors like a tiny sandwich. The two outside layers are made from gold and collect and transmit information via RFID technology from a “bioresponsive” layer in the middle that absorbs nutrients and chemicals. “For example, if the central layer takes on salt, or ethanol, its electrical properties will shift, causing the sensor to absorb and transmit a different spectrum of radiofrequency waves, with varying intensity,” the university reported. “In theory we can modify the bioresponsive layer in these sensors to target other chemicals – we are really limited only by our creativity,” said Fiorenzo Omenetto, an engineering professor at Tufts and corresponding author of the paper published in the journal Advanced Materials.