Some people who have Alzheimer’s disease pathology never get dementia because they have a protective biological mechanism working in their favor, a new study suggests.   Researchers at the University of Texas Medical Branch studied postmortem brains and found that people who presented with brain pathology consistent with fully symptomatic Alzheimer’s disease—but not dementia—also had preserved autophagy, a physiological system that allows cells to recycle or eliminate junk and clutter.   “This is significant, because...

Researchers from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center reported study results showing that the targeted therapy fruquintinib significantly improved overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) in patients with refractory metastatic colorectal cancer.   The OS was 7.4 months with fruquintinib versus 4.8 months in the placebo arm, while the median PFS was 3.7 months with fruquintinib compared to 1.8 months in the placebo arm. These results represent a statistically significant improvement relative to controls....

Researchers from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center found the KRAS G12C inhibitor adagrasib showed promising activity suppressing cancer growth not only within the lungs but also in brain metastases for patients with KRAS G12C-mutated non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).   Findings from the Phase Ib cohort of the KRYSTAL-1 trial represent the first prospective data of anti-tumor activity from a KRAS G12C inhibitor in brain metastases, providing continued evidence of the drug’s efficacy.   The targeted...

For the well over 700 million people around the globe living with Type 1 diabetes, getting a host immune system to tolerate the presence of implanted insulin-secreting cells could be life-changing.   Rice University bioengineer Omid Veiseh and collaborators identified new biomaterial formulations that could help turn the page on Type 1 diabetes treatment, opening the door to a more sustainable, long-term, self-regulating way to handle the disease.   To do so, they developed a new screening technique that involves...

A novel approach to administering intrathecal (IT) immunotherapy (directly into the spinal fluid) and intravenous (IV) immunotherapy was safe and improved survival in a subset of patients with leptomeningeal disease (LMD) from metastatic melanoma, according to interim analyses of a Phase I/Ib trial led by researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.   The study represents the first-in-human trial of concurrent IT and IV nivolumab (anti-PD-1) in melanoma patients with LMD. Across...

Intratumoral delivery of an engineered oncolytic virus (DNX-2401) targeting glioblastoma (GBM) cells combined with subsequent immunotherapy was safe and improved survival outcomes in a subset of patients with recurrent GBM, according to results from a multi-institutional Phase I/II clinical trial co-led by researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and the University of Toronto.   The study met its primary safety endpoint and demonstrated the combination was well tolerated overall with no dose-limiting toxicities. The study did not meet...

The University of Texas Medical Branch welcomed some new staff members at the Angleton Danbury campus this week: two nearly life-sized robots programmed to support the human staff and free up nurses from certain tasks to allow them more time to spend with patients. Nurses are consummate multitaskers who are focused on patient care. But what about the important but non-patient-facing tasks that take nurses away from patient care for what studies have shown to...

Researchers from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center demonstrated that adding metastasis-directed radiation therapy to intermittent hormone therapy improved progression-free survival (PFS) in patients with oligometastatic prostate cancer.   At a median follow-up of 22.1 months, the median PFS had not yet been reached in men who received the combination therapy, suggesting a significant improvement over the median PFS of 15.8 months in men who received only hormone therapy. The combination was well-tolerated and lengthened the period men could...

Missing crucial doses of medicines and vaccines could become a thing of the past thanks to Rice University bioengineers’ next-level technology for making time-released drugs. This is a huge problem in the treatment of chronic disease,” said Kevin McHugh, corresponding author of a study about the technology. “It’s estimated that 50% of people don’t take their medications correctly. With this, you’d give them one shot, and they’d be all set for the next couple of months.” When...

The GENCODE project showed that roughly 70% of the human genome is transcribed into RNA, including many long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs), defined as RNA molecules longer than 200 nucleotides that lack protein-coding potential. However, recent evidence suggests some lncRNAs may produce “hidden” proteins whose potential role in cancer remains unknown. To investigate this, researchers led by Yiwen Chen, Ph.D., used an integrative genomic strategy combining CRISPR/Cas9 knockout screens with data from The Cancer Genome Atlas....