Stem cell secretome treatment improves whole-body metabolism, reduces adiposity, and promotes skeletal muscle function in aged mice.

Aging coincides with the progressive loss of muscle mass and strength, increased adiposity, and diminished physical function. Accordingly, interventions aimed at improving muscle, metabolic, and/or physical health are of interest to mitigate the adverse effects of aging. In this study, we tested a stem cell secretome product, which contains extracellular vesicles and growth, cytoskeletal remodeling, and immunomodulatory factors.

Autologous dendritic cells loaded with antigens from self-renewing autologous tumor cells as patient-specific therapeutic cancer vaccines.

A promising personal immunotherapy is autologous dendritic cells (DC) loaded with autologous tumor antigens (ATA) derived from self-renewing autologous cancer cells. DC-ATA are suspended in granulocyte-macrophage colony stimulating factor at the time of each subcutaneous injection. Previously, irradiated autologous tumor cell vaccines have produced encouraging results in 150 cancer patients, but the DC-ATA vaccine demonstrated superiority in single-arm and randomized trials in metastatic melanoma.

Phase 2 study of AV-GBM-1 (a tumor-initiating cell targeted dendritic cell vaccine) in newly diagnosed Glioblastoma patients: safety and efficacy assessment.

Background: Vaccine immunotherapy may improve survival in Glioblastoma (GBM). A multicenter phase II trial was designed to determine: (1) the success rate of manufacturing the Aivita GBM vaccine (AV-GBM-1), (2) Adverse Events (AE) associated with AV-GBM-1 administration, and (3) survival.

Methods: Fresh suspected glioblastoma tissue was collected during surgery, and patients with pathology-confirmed GBM enrolled before starting concurrent Radiation Therapy and Temozolomide (RT/TMZ) with Intent to Treat (ITT) after recovery from RT/TMZ.

A personal COVID-19 dendritic cell vaccine made at point-of-care: Feasibility, safety, and antigen-specific cellular immune responses.

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has caused a world-wide pandemic. Internationally, because of availability, accessibility, and distribution issues, there is a need for additional vaccines. This study aimed to: establish the feasibility of personal dendritic cell vaccines to the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, establish the safety of a single subcutaneous vaccine injection, and determine the antigen-specific immune response following vaccination.

Retinal Organoids Long-Term Functional Characterization Using Two-Photon Fluorescence Lifetime and Hyperspectral Microscopy.

Pluripotent stem cell-derived organoid technologies have opened avenues to preclinical basic science research, drug discovery, and transplantation therapy in organ systems. Stem cell-derived organoids follow a time course similar to species-specific organ gestation . However, heterogeneous tissue yields, and subjective tissue selection reduce the repeatability of organoid-based scientific experiments and clinical studies.