Technical note: The calculated real world BNT162b2 vaccine efficacy was 88% when accounting for asymptomatic cases.

COVID-19 trials have relied on symptomatic subjects for judging the effectiveness of vaccine candidates, whereas asy-mptomatic subjects have been suspected as the main driver of the pandemic. An assumption of the same impact on symptomatic and asymptomatic breakthrough infections is shown to be flawed, resulting in an overestimate of the vaccines' true effectiveness. Recent available data provide the first large-scale unbiased data on asymptomatic versus symptomatic infections postvaccination, providing a unique opportunity to reassess the true infection rates after vaccination.

Benign tumors in TSC are amenable to treatment by GD3 CAR T cells in mice.

Mutations underlying disease in tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC) give rise to tumors with biallelic mutations in TSC1 or TSC2 and hyperactive mammalian target of rapamycin complex 1 (mTORC1). Benign tumors might exhibit de novo expression of immunogens, targetable by immunotherapy. As tumors may rely on ganglioside D3 (GD3) expression for mTORC1 activation and growth, we compared GD3 expression in tissues from patients with TSC and controls.

Antigen Specificity Enhances Disease Control by Tregs in Vitiligo.

Vitiligo is an autoimmune skin disease characterized by melanocyte destruction. Regulatory T cells (Tregs) are greatly reduced in vitiligo skin, and replenishing peripheral skin Tregs can provide protection against depigmentation. Ganglioside D3 (GD3) is overexpressed by perilesional epidermal cells, including melanocytes, which prompted us to generate GD3-reactive chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) Tregs to treat vitiligo.

Wafer-level integration of self-aligned high aspect ratio silicon 3D structures using the MACE method with Au, Pd, Pt, Cu, and Ir.

The wafer-level integration of high aspect ratio silicon nanostructures is an essential part of the fabrication of nanodevices. Metal-assisted chemical etching (MACE) is a promising low-cost and high-volume technique for the generation of vertically aligned silicon nanowires. Noble metal nanoparticles were used to locally etch the silicon substrate.

HITM-SURE: Hepatic immunotherapy for metastases phase Ib anti-CEA CAR-T study utilizing pressure enabled drug delivery.

In recent years, cell therapy technologies have resulted in impressive results in hematologic malignancies. Treatment of solid tumors with chimeric antigen receptor T-cells (CAR-T) has been less successful. Solid tumors present challenges not encountered with hematologic cancers, including high intra-tumoral pressure and ineffective CAR-T trafficking to the site of disease.