Publications by authors named "Belinda Berdien"

(1) Background: The intravesical instillation of interleukin-2 (IL-2) has been shown to be very well tolerated and promising in patients with bladder malignancies. This study aims to confirm the use of a new IL-2 containing immunotherapy candidate as safe for intravesical application. IL-2, produced in mammalian cells, is glycosylated, because of its unique solubility and stability optimized for intravesical use.

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Article Synopsis
  • CCR5Δ32, a natural variant of the HIV-coreceptor molecule CCR5, provides resistance against HIV and has led to successful cures through stem cell transplants from donors with this variant.
  • A new TAL-effector nuclease called CCR5-Uco-TALEN has been developed for efficient and safe gene editing in T cells, achieving over 90% knockout of CCR5 with minimal off-target effects.
  • The CCR5-edited T cells demonstrated strong protection against HIV infection, showing promising long-term suppression of viral replication, thus highlighting the potential of CCR5 editing as a gene-therapy approach for HIV.
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TAL-effector nucleases (TALENs) are attractive tools for sequence-specific genome modifications, but their delivery still remains problematic. It is well known that the presence of multiple sequence repeats in TALEN genes hampers the use of lentiviral vectors. We report that lentiviral vectors readily package full-length vector mRNAs encoding TALENs, but recombination during reverse transcription prevents successful delivery.

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Adoptive transfer of T lymphocytes equipped with tumor-antigen specific T-cell receptors (TCRs) represents a promising strategy in cancer immunotherapy, but the approach remains technically demanding. Using influenza virus (Flu)-specific T-cell responses as a model system we compared different methods for the generation of T-cell clones and isolation of antigen-specific TCRs. Altogether, we generated 12 CD8(+) T-cell clones reacting to the Flu matrix protein (Flu-M) and 6 CD4(+) T-cell clones reacting to the Flu nucleoprotein (Flu-NP) from 4 healthy donors.

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