Synthetic Cancer-Targeting Innate Immune Stimulators Give Insights into Avidity Effects.

Multispecific and multivalent antibodies are seen as promising cancer therapeutics, and numerous antibody fragments and derivatives have been developed to exploit avidity effects that result in increased selectivity. Most of these multispecific and multivalent antibody strategies make use of recombinant expression of antigen-binding modules. In contrast, chemical synthesis and chemoselective ligations can be used to generate a variety of molecules with different numbers and combinations of binding moieties in a modular and homogeneous fashion.

Raised interferon-β, type 3 interferon and interferon-stimulated genes - evidence of innate immune activation in neutrophilic asthma.

Background: Interferons play an important role in innate immunity. Previous studies report deficiency in virus induction of interferon (IFN)-α, IFN-β and IFN-λ in bronchial epithelial and bronchial lavage cells in atopic asthmatics. It is now recognized that asthma is a heterogeneous disease comprising different inflammatory phenotypes, some of which may involve innate immune activation in the absence of overt infection.

Reduced sputum expression of interferon-stimulated genes in severe COPD.

Background: Exacerbations of COPD are frequent and commonly triggered by respiratory tract infections. The purpose of our study was to investigate innate immunity in stable COPD patients.

Methods: Induced sputum was collected from 51 stable consecutive COPD patients recruited from the COPD Clinic of CHU Liege and 35 healthy subjects.

Quality of life of patients with hepatitis C.

Introduction: Self-report on the quality of life (QOL) is increasingly studied in the evaluation of various diseases, especially in chronic ones. However, there are few data in the literature focusing the QOL of patients living with chronic hepatitis C. The objective of this study was to evaluate the QOL in patients with hepatitis C assessed by the World Health Organization Quality of Life Assessment (WHOQOL)-bref scale.