Researchers from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center discovered that treatment resistance in patients with myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) is caused by two distinct classes of stem cells and identified possible therapeutic approaches that target these cells. Their findings could have significant benefits for patients with disease progression. This research, which spans preclinical and clinical studies, represents the largest analysis to date of MDS patient samples. If further validated in larger clinical trials, the data...

Details about variants hiding in the deluge of genetic SARS-CoV-2 sequences would be good to know, if only researchers a new program developed by Rice University’s George R. Brown School of Engineering will make it possible, at least for “intrahost variants,” those that appear in genome data from the same COVID-19-positive person. A Rice team led by computer scientist Todd Treangen and graduate student Yunxi Liu has developed Variabel, which accurately identifies “low-frequency variants” of the virus that causes COVID-19....

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is the most common leukemia in adults and, despite advances in targeted therapies, is associated with poor prognoses. Immunotherapy has shown promise, especially in combination with chemotherapy. A research team led by V. Lokesh Battula, Ph.D., demonstrated that the immune checkpoint protein B7-H3 may serve as a potential immunotherapy target in patients with AML. The team found elevated expression of B7-H3 to be associated with poor treatment outcomes in patients with AML. In preclinical studies,...