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AI model predicts B cell response to advance personalized cancer vaccines

KAIST announced on the 2nd that a team led by Professor Jeong Kyun Choi of the Department of Bio and Brain Engineering, in a joint study with the company ‘Neogene Logic,’ has developed a new AI model to predict neoantigens—a key element in developing personalized cancer vaccines—and has identified the importance of B cells in cancer immunotherapy. The research findings were published in the international journal *Science Advances* on December 3.

Neoantigens are protein fragments derived from cancer cell mutations that serve as unique markers distinguishing only cancer cells. Moderna and BioNTech developed their COVID-19 vaccines using the messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) platform secured during their research on neoantigen-based cancer vaccines. Currently, global pharmaceutical companies are actively conducting clinical trials for cancer vaccines.

The problem is that most existing cancer vaccine technologies focus solely on T-cell-centered immune responses. B cells, along with T cells, play a key role in the immune system, and recent studies have increasingly demonstrated their importance in anti-cancer immune activity.

AI-Based Cancer Models in Oncology: From Diagnosis to ADC Drug Prediction

Introduction Artificial intelligence (AI) has been influencing the way oncology has been practiced. Major issues constituting a bottleneck are the lack of data for training purposes, confidentiality preventing development, or the absence of transparency in clarifying how models operate to generate decisions. Novel Models With explainable AI, trust and utilization barriers among clinicians, researchers, and patients can be removed. With the implementation of federated learning, multiple institutions could contribute to crucial dataset’s learning information. Precise diagnosis and prescription of the right drug are essential in preventing unnecessary life losses, and economic burden to the underling system.

Abstract: Address correspondence to: Koji Haratani, Department of Medical Oncology, Kindai University Faculty of Medicine, 377–2 Ohno-higashi, Osaka-Sayama, Osaka 589‑8511, Japan

Phone: 81.72.366.0221; Email: [email protected] or [email protected].

How dual-comb spectroscopy works and why it could reshape precision sensing

Spectroscopy has many applications, ranging from fundamental tests of quantum electrodynamics and investigations of molecular structure to environmental sensing, biomedical diagnostics and industrial monitoring. A highly promising spectroscopic instrument that has the potential to transform the field has emerged over the years: the dual-comb spectrometer, which relies on the interference of two mode-locked ultrafast lasers that produce broad frequency combs composed of evenly spaced narrow spectral lines.

A frequency comb is a spectrum of phase-coherent sharp laser lines that are evenly spaced. Such combs based on femtosecond mode-locked lasers, as pioneered at the Max-Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in the 1990s, have revolutionized measurements of frequency and time. In frequency metrology, a laser comb acts as a ruler in frequency space that conveniently links microwave and optical frequencies, and/or measures a large separation between two optical frequencies.

In the past two decades, frequency combs have found new applications. One of them is dual-comb spectroscopy. Dual-comb spectroscopy addresses the challenge of combining wide spectral coverage with high resolution and accuracy by using two optical frequency combs with slightly different repetition frequencies to map optical spectra directly into the radio-frequency domain. The method relies on time-domain interferometry and avoids mechanical scanning, enabling precise, rapid, and broadband measurements. Dual-comb spectroscopy has been implemented across the electromagnetic spectrum, from the terahertz to the visible range, with ongoing efforts towards the ultraviolet range.

The nocebo effect: How prior experience and verbal suggestion rewire the brain to make pain worse

Researchers have a better understanding of the nocebo effect and the neuroscience behind it all. Opposite of the better-known placebo effect, where positive expectations trigger genuine pain relief, the nocebo effect is the experience from negative expectations, created by prior experience, verbal suggestion, or social observation, which can drive anxiety and make pain worse.

A new study published in Nature Communications, by researchers at the University of Toronto Mississauga and McGill University, identified a brain pathway through which negative expectations can amplify pain. The findings, generated independently by the two labs without prior coordination, converged on the neurochemical cholecystokinin (CCK), which has previously been linked to nocebo pain responses in humans.

The researchers identified a specific brain pathway through which CCK acts, traveling from the brain’s anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), a region involved in the emotional dimensions of pain, to a midbrain structure called the lateral periaqueductal gray (lPAG), where it increases pain sensitivity.

Vitamin D analog shuts down pancreatic cancer’s shield in a clinical trial

A small clinical trial led by Dana-Farber Cancer Institute researchers has put a Salk Institute idea to the test in patients: that activating the vitamin D receptor can help reshape the protective environment surrounding pancreatic tumors in ways that could make the notoriously difficult-to-treat cancer more vulnerable to therapeutic treatments.

In the study, published in Nature Cancer, patients with previously untreated metastatic pancreatic cancer received standard chemotherapy with or without paricalcitol, a vitamin D analog that is already FDA-approved for other uses. In patients who received paricalcitol orally or intravenously, the combination was found to be safe and to reduce activation of fibroblasts in the tumor microenvironment, validating Salk’s preclinical findings.

The trial was not intended to measure how well the approach works in treating pancreatic cancer, yet the researchers noted improved chemotherapy responses and increased progression-free survival at one year among patients who received paricalcitol plus chemotherapy. In addition, they found that patients with high vitamin D receptor expression and who received paricalcitol had the longest overall survival.

Progress in stem cell therapy for type 1 diabetes

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet and KTH Royal Institute of Technology have developed an improved method for creating insulin-producing cells from human stem cells. The results, published in Stem Cell Reports, demonstrate that these cells effectively regulate blood sugar levels in laboratory tests and can reverse diabetes in mice.

DeepMind’s Insane AI Breakthroughs With CEO Demis Hassabis

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