Effects of antineoplastic and immunomodulating agents on postvaccination SARS-CoV-2 breakthrough infections, antibody response, and serological cytokine profile.

Background: Despite immunization, patients on antineoplastic and immunomodulating agents have a heightened risk of COVID-19 infection. However, accurately attributing this risk to specific medications remains challenging.

Methods: An observational cohort study from December 11, 2020 to September 22, 2022, within a large healthcare system in San Diego, California, USA was designed to identify medications associated with greatest risk of postimmunization SARS-CoV-2 infection.

NAIR: Network Analysis of Immune Repertoire.

T cells represent a crucial component of the adaptive immune system and mediate anti-tumoral immunity as well as protection against infections, including respiratory viruses such as SARS-CoV-2. Next-generation sequencing of the T-cell receptors (TCRs) can be used to profile the T-cell repertoire. We developed a customized pipeline for Network Analysis of Immune Repertoire (NAIR) with advanced statistical methods to characterize and investigate changes in the landscape of TCR sequences.

A review of treatments targeting DNA-repair gene defects in metastatic castration resistant prostate cancer.

Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men. About 6% of those diagnosed will develop metastatic disease. Unfortunately, metastatic prostate cancer is fatal.

Do patients with metastatic pancreatic adenocarcinoma to the lung have improved survival?

Introduction: Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is a genetically heterogeneous disease often diagnosed with synchronous metastatic disease involving the liver. Tumors with extra-abdominal spread that bypass the liver are thought to represent a unique molecular subgroup and those with isolated pulmonary metastatic disease are thought to have a more favorable clinical phenotype.

Method: We conducted a retrospective review of patients with pathologically confirmed PDAC treated between the years 2007 and 2020 at a Scripps Health hospital.

Novel Ensemble Feature Selection Approach and Application in Repertoire Sequencing Data.

The T and B cell repertoire make up the adaptive immune system and is mainly generated through somatic V(D)J gene recombination. Thus, the VJ gene usage may be a potential prognostic or predictive biomarker. However, analysis of the adaptive immune system is challenging due to the heterogeneity of the clonotypes that make up the repertoire.