Drug Discovery

A new approach delivers a “one-two punch” to help T cells attack solid tumors by targeting immune inflammatory regulators to enhance T-cell potency. New findings from the lab of immunotherapy pioneer, Carl June, MD, suggest that targeting two regulators that control gene functions related to inflammation led to at least 10 times greater T-cell expansion in models—resulting in increased antitumor immune activity and durability.

The collaboration between Yuri and the Centre for Genomic Regulation will initially focus on the potential of bacteria surviving and thriving in space environments. Eventually, the researchers expect to leverage the extreme conditions in space to create new strains of space bacteria, a process that could lead to the creation of materials and products with industrial applications ranging from new energy sources to food production.

Join us for this GEN webinar, where our distinguished guests, Dr. Tommy Duncan and Dr. Jill Makin, will provide an insightful discussion on how doggybone DNA (dbDNA), an enzymatically produced alternative to pDNA, can offer a rapid pathway to GMP, alongside a scalable, and safe solution to support a wide range of genetic medicines.

A first-in-human trial evaluating a targeted leukemia therapy, revumenib, resulted in remission in patients, but also induced the cancer cells to reveal one mechanism by which they can develop resistance. Combined findings from the trial and a subsequent investigative study point to the potential utility of revumenib for targeting certain forms of acute leukemia, and indicate how it may be possible to use drugs to trip up the identified resistance mechanism.

A scientific team found a molecule that kills cells in a rare liver cancer in a unique way. It emerged from a screening to find molecules that selectively kill human liver cancer cells. The researchers report that it took a lot of work to figure out that the molecule is converted by an enzyme in these liver cancer cells, creating a toxic, anticancer drug.

With Sartorius BIA Separations' proprietary AAV platform designed to optimize the separation of viral particles, and Teknova’s custom buffer solutions developed to maximize capsid enrichment, officials at both companies report that they conducted a design of experiment and successfully created a screening kit with optimized buffer formulations that drive consistency and increased purity when paired with the BIA CIMmultus^® pre-packed chromatographic monolithic columns.

Zachary Sun, PhD, co-founder and CSO of Tierra Biosciences, spoke last year at SynBioBeta about cell-free protein synthesis. He and Mike Nemzek, CEO of Tierra, speak to GEN about the potential for this technology to replace conventional bioreactor-based manufacturing.

Conventional microfluidics can generate sharp solubility gradients and rapid mixing profiles that allow the resulting nanoparticle sizes to be controlled. However, because of small channel dimensions in these systems, processing throughput has been limited, according to one researcher. The microfluidic vortex focusing method reportedly increases throughput by many orders of magnitude over conventional flow focusing and delivers tight size control in a continuous flow process.

When culturing cells in bioprocessing, scientists regularly seek ways to improve the output. Among a variety of parameters, supplementation often increases the production of the desired product. To turn up the output, scientists can add energy-related molecules, such as glucose.

The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation announced an investment of up to $2 million to explore a novel method to deliver genetic therapies to the lung. The investment will fund the development of an innovative genetic delivery approach developed by the Boston-based company Nanite. Their SAYER platform uses polymer nanoparticles, comprising small polymeric structures combined with a genetic cargo.