Memory—a key feature of the adaptive immune system—is evident in the innate immune system, too. But it has been unclear whether memory in the innate immune system is specific to previously encountered antigens. Now it appears that antigen-specific memory is in fact an attribute of the innate immune system’s monocytes…

As the market for immunotherapies grows, reaching over $10 billion already, the interest in biomarkers to guide prescribing has intensified. Doctors want better ways to predict who will benefit from the drugs. “We need to protect patients from unnecessary risk of side effects from drugs that can’t help them and…

As immune checkpoint inhibitor drugs have shown spectacular results in some patients, while other patients show little or no response, the race is on to develop biomarkers of immune activity that can help identify responders from non-responders. Now, a team of investigators at Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center, the Bloomberg-Kimmel Institute…

A research team led by Hongzhe Sun from the Department of Chemistry at the University of Hong Kong (HKU), in collaboration with researchers including Junwen Wang from Mayo Clinic, Arizona, have used a deep learning approach to predict disease-associated mutations of the metal-binding sites in a protein. Understanding such mutations could…

A new study has identified a subclass of macrophages which have possibly been disrupting drugs designed to target the anti-PD-1 checkpoint blockade in the deadly form of brain cancer, glioblastoma. By understanding the mechanisms, genetic targets, and now tumor microenvironments involved in this interaction, it may be possible to design…

The UK government will partner with four biopharma giants and the Wellcome Sanger Institute on a £200 million ($246.9 million) initiative to complete the whole genome sequencing of the 450,000 yet-to-be-sequenced participants in the UK Biobank. The public-private effort aims to improve public health through genetic research, as well as…

In recent years we’ve seen the power of analyzing cell-free DNA to diagnose and track the progression of cancer. Yet, using this technology as a diagnostic tool for infectious diseases required scientists to overcome numerous hurdles. For instance, a common problem in diagnosing infectious disease is that the presence of…

Mayo Clinic Laboratories and German diagnostics developer Numares will partner to develop clinical diagnostic tests designed to measure clusters of risk factors rather than individual biomarkers, through a collaboration whose value was not disclosed. The diagnostics to be developed will target specific diseases that include cardiovascular disease, kidney disease and…

For the first time, scientists have tracked the repair of DNA damage induced by the popular chemotherapy drug, cisplatin, at the whole-genome level in a mammal around the clock. Using single-molecule sequencing, the team of scientists lead by Nobel laureate Aziz Sancar, M.D., Ph.D., found that DNA repair of transcribed…

Bio-Techne has agreed to acquire Exosome Diagnostics for up to $575 million, in a deal intended to position the buyer as a leader in non-invasive liquid biopsies and a developer of diagnostics for chimeric antigen receptor T cell (CAR-T) cancer therapies. Headquartered in Waltham, MA, Exosome Diagnostics is a developer…

As school children, we all learn the blood types O, A, B, and AB along with the positive and negative subtypes based on the presence or absence of the rhesus (Rh) antigen. But today, it is known that there are hundreds of blood-group antigens on the red blood cells that can…

The NIH is partnering with Inova Health System to launch a two-year pilot project designed to connect researchers to individuals with genotypes of interest and examine the genes and gene variants’ influence on their phenotypes. Through The Genomic Ascertainment Cohort (TGAC), the NIH plans to establish a new database of 10,000…

The Personal Genome Project Canada has released first results that suggest whole genome sequencing can benefit the country's quality of healthcare, based on the results of sequencing the entire personal genomes of 56 healthy participants. Those results, released Saturday, showed that one-quarter (14) of the 56 adult participants who had…

Patient-centric genomics company DxTerity announced it will collaborate with California-based City or Hope Medical Center on the clinical development of a blood test intended to predict whether patients about to undergo radiation therapy for cancer are likely to benefit from the treatment. The test will also seek to provide information…

Pathologists use tissue biopsy as the gold standard for definitively diagnosing an array of diseases, such as cancer, kidney disease, or inflammatory disorders like Crohn’s disease. Typically, physicians can only take two-dimensional (2D) snapshots of the tissue, and they are limited in their ability to measure protein levels that might…