Design of a randomized, placebo-controlled study evaluating efficacy and safety of a cancer preventative vaccine in dogs.

Preventative anti-cancer vaccination strategies have long been hampered by the challenge of targeting the diverse array of potential tumor antigens, with successes to date limited to cancers with viral etiologies. Identification and vaccination against frameshift neoantigens conserved across multiple species and tumor histologies is a potential cancer preventative strategy currently being investigated. Companion dogs spontaneously develop cancers at a similar incidence to those in people and are a complementary comparative patient population for the development of novel anti-cancer therapeutics.

Predicting response and toxicity to immune checkpoint inhibitors in lung cancer using antibodies to frameshift neoantigens.

Purpose: To evaluate a new class of blood-based biomarkers, anti-frameshift peptide antibodies, for predicting both tumor responses and adverse immune events to immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) therapies in advanced lung cancer patients.

Experimental Design: Serum samples were obtained from 74 lung cancer patients prior to palliative PD-(L)1 therapies with subsequently recorded tumor responses and immune adverse events (irAEs). Pretreatment samples were assayed on microarrays of frameshift peptides (FSPs), representing ~ 375,000 variant peptides that tumor cells can be informatically predicted to produce from translated mRNA processing errors.

Knowledge, attitudes, clinical practice and perceived barriers with nutrition support among physicians and nurses in the emergency department: A national cross-sectional survey.

Objective: To explore the current status of knowledge, attitudes, clinical practice and barriers in nutrition support amongst physicians and nurses working in Chinese Emergency Departments (EDs), and the relationship between their demographic characteristics and knowledge and attitudes regarding nutrition support.

Methods: A 34 item survey was developed, validated and distributed nationally to ED physicians and nurses from 1st April to 1st May 2018.

Results: A total of 1234 respondents completed and returned the survey.

Production of high-complexity frameshift neoantigen peptide microarrays.

Parallel measurement of large numbers of antigen-antibody interactions are increasingly enabled by peptide microarray technologies. Our group has developed an synthesized peptide microarray of >400 000 frameshift neoantigens using mask-based photolithographic peptide synthesis, to profile patient specific neoantigen reactive antibodies in a single assay. The system produces 208 replicate mircoarrays per wafer and is capable of producing multiple wafers per synthetic lot to routinely synthesize over 300 million peptides simultaneously.

Comparison of personal and shared frameshift neoantigen vaccines in a mouse mammary cancer model.

Background: It is widely hoped that personal cancer vaccines will extend the number of patients benefiting from checkpoint and other immunotherapies. However, it is clear creating such vaccines will be challenging. It requires obtaining and sequencing tumor DNA/RNA, predicting potentially immunogenic neoepitopes and manufacturing a one-use vaccine.

Author Correction: RNA Transcription and Splicing Errors as a Source of Cancer Frameshift Neoantigens for Vaccines.

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

Author Correction: RNA Transcription and Splicing Errors as a Source of Cancer Frameshift Neoantigens for Vaccines.

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

Using Frameshift Peptide Arrays for Cancer Neo-Antigens Screening.

It has been demonstrated that DNA mutations generating neo-antigens are important for an effective immune response to tumors as evident from recent clinical studies of immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs). Further, it was shown that frameshift peptides (FSP) generated in tumors from insertions and deletions (INDELs) of microsatellites (MS) in coding region are a very good correlate of positive response to PD1 treatment. However, these types of DNA-sourced FSPs are infrequent in cancer.

Low-cost detection of norovirus using paper-based cell-free systems and synbody-based viral enrichment.

Noroviruses are a primary cause of gastroenteritis and foodborne illness with cases that affect millions of people worldwide each year. Inexpensive tests for norovirus that do not require sophisticated laboratory equipment are important tools for ensuring that patients receive timely treatment and for containing outbreaks. Herein, we demonstrate a low-cost colorimetric assay that detects norovirus from clinical samples by combining paper-based cell-free transcription-translation systems, isothermal amplification and virus enrichment by synbodies.

Cross-Reactive Synbody Affinity Ligands for Capturing Diverse Noroviruses.

Noroviruses are the most common cause of acute gastroenteritis in the developed world. Noroviruses are a diverse group of nonenveloped RNA viruses that are continuously evolving. This leads to the rise of immunologically distinct strains of the same genotype on a frequent basis.

A General Method to Discover Epitopes from Sera.

Antigen-antibody complexes are central players in an effective immune response. However, finding those interactions relevant to a particular disease state can be arduous. Nonetheless many paths to discovery have been explored since deciphering these interactions can greatly facilitate the development of new diagnostics, therapeutics, and vaccines.

Parallel workflow for high-throughput (>1,000 samples/day) quantitative analysis of human insulin-like growth factor 1 using mass spectrometric immunoassay.

Insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF1) is an important biomarker for the management of growth hormone disorders. Recently there has been rising interest in deploying mass spectrometric (MS) methods of detection for measuring IGF1. However, widespread clinical adoption of any MS-based IGF1 assay will require increased throughput and speed to justify the costs of analyses, and robust industrial platforms that are reproducible across laboratories.

Could immunosignatures technology enable the development of a preventative cancer vaccine?

The exciting prospect of developing a universal prophylactic cancer vaccine now seems more possible due to advances in technology and basic knowledge. However, the problem of testing the efficacy of such a vaccine in a clinical trial seems daunting. The low incidence and long lead-time to diagnosis of cancer would make a standard clinical trial long and expensive.

Cardiac abnormalities in severe acute dichlorvos poisoning.

Objective: Patients with organophosphorus poisoning sometimes die suddenly during rigorous treatment, possibly from myocardial injury. This study sought to elucidate the mechanisms underlying organophosphorus poisoning-induced cardiotoxicity.

Design: Prospective observational study.

A Schistosoma japonicum chimeric protein with a novel adjuvant induced a polarized Th1 immune response and protection against liver egg burdens.

Background: Schitosomiasis japonica is still a significant public health problem in China. A protective vaccine for human or animal use represents an important strategy for long-term control of this disease. Due to the complex life cycle of schistosomes, different vaccine design approaches may be necessary, including polyvalent subunit vaccines.

[Evaluation of immunogenicity and protection efficacy of the recombinant hypoxanthine-guanine-xanthine of plasmodium falciparum in mice].

Objective: To investigate immunogenicity and protection efficacy of the recombinant hypoxanthine-guanine-xanthine (HGXPRT) of Plasmodium falciparum expressed in Pichia pastoris.

Methods: 35 BALB/c mice were divided randomly into five groups: HGXPRT+ISA720 experiment group, HGXPRT+Freund experiment group, ISA720 adjuvant control group, Freund adjuvant control group, and blank control group. BALB/c mice were subcutaneously immunized three times with the HGXPRT protein formulated by either Freund or ISA720 adjuvants at a three weeks interval.

[CTL response to pre-erythrocytic stage vaccine candidate of plasmodium falciparum in HLA-A*0201 transgenic mice detected by ELISPOT assay].

The importance of cytotoxic T-lymphocyte (CTL) against malaria parasite in pre-erythrocytic stage has been presented in relevant researches. In order to investigate whether one CTL epitope (YLNKIQNSL) involved in a chimeric pre-erythrocytic stage vaccine candidate of Plasmodium falciparum which was expressed and purified in the laboratory can stimulate in vivo CTL response, HLA-A*0201 transgenic mice were immunized with this vaccine candidate. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent spot (ELISPOT) assay was performed on the splenocytes from the immunized transgenic mice.