Publications by authors named "G Church"

Surfactant protein-B (SP-B) deficiency is a lethal neonatal respiratory disease with few therapeutic options. Gene therapy using adeno-associated viruses (AAV) to deliver human cDNA (AAV-hSPB) can improve survival in a mouse model of SP-B deficiency. However, the effect of this gene therapy wanes.

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Viral infections leading to inflammation have been implicated in several common diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease (AD) and type 1 diabetes (T1D). Of note, herpes simplex virus 1 (HSV-1) has been reported to be associated with AD. We sought to identify the transcriptomic changes due to HSV-1 infection and anti-viral drug (acyclovir, ACV) treatment of HSV-1 infection in dissociated cells from human cerebral organoids (dcOrgs) versus stem cell-derived pancreatic islets (sc-islets) to gain potential biological insights into the relevance of HSV-1-induced inflammation in AD and T1D.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study investigates how cancer cells influence the fitness of surrounding tumor microenvironment (TME) cells through a mechanism involving a long non-coding RNA called Tu-Stroma, which alters the expression of Flower isoforms, impacting their growth advantage.
  • The expression of Flower Win isoforms in cancer cells enhances their dominance over TME cells that express Flower Lose isoforms, leading to reduced fitness in the TME.
  • Targeting Flower proteins with a humanized monoclonal antibody in mice has shown promising results, significantly reducing cancer growth and metastasis while improving survival rates and protecting organs from potential lesions.
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Cancer metastasis is a major contributor to patient morbidity and mortality, yet the factors that determine the organs where cancers can metastasize are incompletely understood. In this study, we quantify the absolute levels of over 100 nutrients available across multiple tissues in mice and investigate how this relates to the ability of breast cancer cells to grow in different organs. We engineered breast cancer cells with broad metastatic potential to be auxotrophic for specific nutrients and assessed their ability to colonize different organs.

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