Ex-vivo Production of Regulatory B-Cells for Use in Auto-immune Diseases
Regulatory B-cells (Breg) play an important role in reducing autoimmunity and reduced levels of these cells are implicated in etiology of several auto-inflammatory diseases. Despite their impact in many diseases, their physiological inducers are unknown. Given that Bregs are a very rare B-cell, identifying factors that promote their development would allow in vivo modulation of Breg levels and ex-vivo production of large amounts of antigen-specific Bregs to use in immunotherapy for auto-inflammatory diseases.
Researchers at NEI ' sMolecular Immunology Section developed a method for theex-vivo production of Breg. The ...
Source: NIH OTT Licensing Opportunities - October 22, 2020 Category: Research Authors: ott-admin Source Type: research
T-Cell Therapy Against Patient-Specific Cancer Mutations
Human cancers contain genetic mutations that are unique to each patient. Some of the mutated peptides are immunogenic, can be recognized by T cells, and therefore, may serve as therapeutic targets.Scientists at the National Cancer Institute ' sSurgery Branch developed a method to identify T cells that specifically recognize immunogenic mutations expressed only by cancer cells. The scientists identified cancer-specific mutations from a patient with widely metastatic cholangiocarcinoma by sequencing tumor samples and comparing with normal cells. Using tandem minigene constructs encoding all of the mutations expressed by a pa...
Source: NIH OTT Licensing Opportunities - October 22, 2020 Category: Research Authors: ott-admin Source Type: research
Structure-Based Design of SARS-CoV-2 Spike Immunogens Stabilized in the RBD-All Down Conformation
SARS-CoV-2 has emerged as a global pathogen, sparking urgent vaccine development efforts. The trimeric SARS-CoV-2 spike appears to be a leading vaccine antigen. However, the inability of antibodies such as CR3022, which binds tightly to a cryptic spike epitope, to neutralize SARS-CoV-2 suggests a spike-based means of neutralization escape.Researchers at the Vaccine Research Center (VRC) of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) sought to understand how antibodies with high affinity fail to neutralize the SARS-CoV-2. To that end, the researchers characterized the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein conformat...
Source: NIH OTT Licensing Opportunities - October 2, 2020 Category: Research Authors: ott-admin Source Type: research
Use of Acetalax for Treatment of Triple Negative Breast Cancer
Triple negative (progesterone receptor (PR)-, estrogen receptor (ER)-, human epidermal growth receptor 2 (HER2)-) breast cancer (TNBC) is an aggressive subtype that affects 15-20% of the 1.7 million cases of breast cancer occurring annually. Currently, standard treatments of TNBC include cytotoxic chemotherapies, surgery, and radiation. However, TNBC readily becomes resistant to chemotherapy, and those with TNBC are more likely to have a recurrence or die within five years compared to those with other breast cancer types. Therefore, there is a need for safer and more effective TNBC treatments to improve patient outcomes...
Source: NIH OTT Licensing Opportunities - September 25, 2020 Category: Research Authors: ott-admin Source Type: research
Angiogenesis-Based Cancer Therapeutic
Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor-A (VEGF-A) is an angiogenic agent that drives blood vessel formation in solid tumors and other diseases, such as macular degeneration and diabetic retinopathy. Several therapies that target the ability of VEGF to stimulate angiogenesis have been approved. These therapies regulate VEGF-A activity by binding VEGF-A, thereby blocking VEGF-A from binding to its receptor on target cells. This technology utilizes a different approach to regulating VEGF-A activity by providing a VEGF-A protein antagonist that is produced by engineering native VEGF-A protein. The engineered VEGF-A protein disrupt...
Source: NIH OTT Licensing Opportunities - September 24, 2020 Category: Research Authors: ott-admin Source Type: research
Margaric Acid Decreases PIEZO2 Mediated Pain
Some existing therapies for treatment of pain are administered systematically and have significant side effects, such as addiction and drowsiness. Alternative therapy that does not impair normal touch function could be used to treat pain caused by mechanical injury or chronic inflammation. Administration of margaric acid was shown to ameliorate pain in mouse models of pain. In vitro data shows that margaric acid counteracts PIEZO2 (Piezo-type mechanosensitive ion channel component 2) potentiation evoked by bradykinin (i.e. a peptide that promotes inflammation) by reducing the mechanocurrents up to non-inflammatory levels. ...
Source: NIH OTT Licensing Opportunities - September 3, 2020 Category: Research Authors: ott-admin Source Type: research
Calcium (Ca2+) Flux-Dependent Method to Detect and Isolate Tumor Reactive T Cell Receptors (TCRs)
T cells with T cell receptors (TCRs) for cancer-specific antigens are used for adoptive cell therapy (ACT), wherein a patient ’s T cells are redirected against their own cancer. However, these isolated T cells may require further ex vivo manipulation to enhance their anti-tumor activity. The ex vivo manipulation of these T cells, or the selection of less functionally inert T cells, and genetic insertion of tumor specific TCRs may circumvent these limitations.To address this issue, it is crucial to recognize, select, and isolate tumor reactive T cells from a plethora of other non-reactive ones. When re-infused into the pa...
Source: NIH OTT Licensing Opportunities - September 3, 2020 Category: Research Authors: ott-admin Source Type: research
Extremely Rapid Method to Isolate Neoantigen Reactive T Cell Receptors (TCRs)
Adoptive cell transfer (ACT) uses tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) that recognize unique antigens expressed by cancer cells ( “neoantigens”). Neoantigen specific TIL administration in patients has resulted in long term regression of certain metastatic cancers. However, one of the challenges of ACT and engineered T cell receptor (TCR) therapies more broadly, is the identification and isolation of these mutation specific TILs and TCRs. Only a fraction of TILs in a given patient is known to be tumor reactive, while the majority are not useful for cell therapy. The current procedures for isolating neoantigen reactive ...
Source: NIH OTT Licensing Opportunities - September 3, 2020 Category: Research Authors: ott-admin Source Type: research
Method of Neoantigen-Reactive T Cell Receptor (TCR) Isolation from Peripheral Blood of Cancer Patients
Adoptive cell transfer (ACT) uses tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) that recognize antigens expressed by cancer cells (neoantigens). Neoantigen specific TIL administration in patients has resulted in long-term regression of certain metastatic cancers. However, current procedures for TIL therapy are highly invasive, labor-intensive, and time consuming. The success of these procedures is limited and differs between patients and histologies. Isolation of neoantigen reactive TCRs have historically been challenging due to very low precursor frequencies of these T-cells as well as lack of technical advances that can determin...
Source: NIH OTT Licensing Opportunities - September 3, 2020 Category: Research Authors: ott-admin Source Type: research
Novel Methods for Reducing Inflammation and Treating Diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's Disease
Microglia activation leads to inflammation mediated dopaminergic degeneration in the brain of patients with Parkinson and Alzheimer ' s Disease. Thus Identification of drugs that reduce microglia activation could prevent or reverse neuronal degeneration in these diseases and other degenerative CNS disorders.This invention describes small-peptide and non-peptide molecules that inhibit microglia activation and prevent neuronal degeneration with a bi-modal dose response curve. The non-peptide compounds have also been shown to prevent dopamine neuronal degeneration in animal models. This invention provides compositions and met...
Source: NIH OTT Licensing Opportunities - September 3, 2020 Category: Research Authors: ott-admin Source Type: research
Denoising of Dynamic Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopic Imaging Using Low Rank Approximations in the Kinetic Domain
Accurate measurement of low metabolite concentrations produced by medically important enzymes is commonly obscured by noise during magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Measuring the turnover rate of low-level metabolites can directly quantify the activity of enzymes of interest, including possible drug targets in cancer and other diseases. Noise can cause the in vivo signal to fall below the limit of detection. A variety of denoising methods have been proposed to enhance spectroscopic peaks, but still fall short for the detection of low-intensity signals. Dynamic nuclear polarization (DNP) is one method that has been critical...
Source: NIH OTT Licensing Opportunities - August 24, 2020 Category: Research Authors: ott-admin Source Type: research
Combination of Near Infrared Photoimmunotherapy Targeting Cancer Cells and Host-Immune Activation
Common methods of cancer therapy largely rely on either direct killing of cancer cells or activation of the host immune response to do so, but not both. A recently developed treatment of tumors uses an antibody/photo-absorber, Ab-IR700, with near infrared photoimmunotherapy (NIR-PIT), to selectively kill IR700-bound and NIR-light-exposed cancer cells by activating an immunogenic cell death pathway. NIR-PIT has been shown in human clinical trials to effectively target tumor cells via a host immune response with relatively few side effects. However, the depth of NIR-light penetration in vivo limits its usefulness. To address...
Source: NIH OTT Licensing Opportunities - August 24, 2020 Category: Research Authors: ott-admin Source Type: research
Diagnostic for Cancer of the Adrenal Glands and Adrenal Cortex
The National Cancer Institute seeks parties to co-develop a diagnostic method for adrenocortical cancer (ACC) through analysis of DNA methylation patterns in tissue.Adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC) is a very rare form of adrenal cancer. Diagnosis is often done during surgical removal of the tumor. Since the tumor pathology is not diagnosed prior to surgery, large numbers of patients with benign tumors undergo this surgery unnecessarily. There remains a need for a less invasive diagnostic method to reduce both the healthcare costs and the unnecessary risks of invasive surgery on patients who do not have ACC. Th...
Source: NIH OTT Licensing Opportunities - August 20, 2020 Category: Research Authors: ott-admin Source Type: research
Novel Regulatory B cells for Treatment of Cancer and Autoimmune Disease
The manner by which cancers evade the immune response is not well-understood. What is known is that the manner is an active process that regulates immune responses employing at least two types of suppressive cells, myeloid-derived suppressive cells and regulatory T cells (Tregs), a key subset of CD4+ T cells that controls peripheral tolerance to self- and allo-antigens. Tregs are considered to play a key role in the escape of cancer cells from anti-tumor effector T cells. Cancer cells have been found to directly activate resting B cells to form suppressive regulatory B cells (tBregs) and utilize them to evade immune survei...
Source: NIH OTT Licensing Opportunities - August 20, 2020 Category: Research Authors: ott-admin Source Type: research
Method of treating silicosis and other occupational lung diseases
The inhalation of dust containing crystalline silica particles causes silicosis, an incurable lung disease that progresses even after dust exposure ceases. Over a million US workers are exposed to silica dust annually, and thousands worldwide die each year from silicosis. The pulmonary inflammation caused by silica inhalation is characterized by a cellular infiltrate and the accumulation of chemokines, cytokines, and Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid. Macrophages are the predominant immune cell type present in alveolar spaces. The uptake of silica particles by macrophages triggers the product...
Source: NIH OTT Licensing Opportunities - August 20, 2020 Category: Research Authors: ott-admin Source Type: research
