A third dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine significantly increased neutralizing antibody levels against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, according to new research. Pfizer, BioNTech, and University of Texas Medical Branch scientists tracked the immune response of participants in clinical trials for the vaccine. They found that neutralizing antibody levels, the key protective immunity, dropped significantly over seven to nine months after the two-dose vaccination. This drop of neutralizing antibody levels correlates to the observation...

A new study from researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center showed that stereotactic ablative radiotherapy (SABR) was as effective as surgery at providing long-term benefits to patients with operable early-stage non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and generated minimal side effects. The study is the first of its kind to compare long-term results of SABR against surgical treatment in patients with operable early-stage NSCLC. The findings from the single-arm, non-randomized STARS trial were developed and led...

Progress on treating Alzheimer’s disease has been frustratingly slow. A group of scientists in Houston suggests frustration at a very small scale may lead to a new path toward treatment. Researchers at the University of Houston (UH) and at Rice University, associated with the Rice-based Center for Theoretical Biological Physics (CTBP), found through experiments and computations that amyloid-beta peptides, small molecules that are abundant in the brain, go through several intermediate stages of frustration as...

When John Davis collapsed on the basketball court, he knew he could have prevented it. He could have avoided the heart attack, the trip to the ER, and the need for a stent to allow blood to once again flow freely from his heart to the rest of his body. Davis was healthy and, in his twenties when doctors diagnosed him with a genetic condition that required him to take medication to lower his cholesterol....

Researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center have discovered a critical new factor in regulating phenylalanine metabolism and, therefore, in preventing the inherited metabolic disorder phenylketonuria (PKU). The research also suggests a possible avenue for new treatments that may be effective for certain patients with PKU. The study demonstrates that the long noncoding RNA (lncRNA) HULC directly regulates the metabolic enzyme phenylalanine hydroxylase (PAH). Loss of the lncRNA resulted in excess phenylalanine and symptoms consist with...

A Phase II cohort from the international PIVOT-02 study has shown the combination of interleukin-2 (IL-2) pathway agonist bempegaldesleukin (BEMPEG) plus nivolumab is safe and produces a deep, durable response in previously untreated metastatic melanoma patients by researchers from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. The Food and Drug Administration awarded Breakthrough Therapy designation to the combination of BEMPEG and nivolumab in 2019 for previously untreated metastatic melanoma. The publication also includes an...

Two board-certified neurologists have joined the staff at Houston Methodist Neurology Associates-Clear Lake, bringing the group to three physicians and expanding the level of service available to Bay Area patients. Bingzhong Chen, M.D., Ph.D., joined Dr. Vijayakumar in June in Medical Office Building 1 at 2060 Space Park Drive, Suite 104, on the Houston Methodist Clear Lake Hospital campus. Chen has a broad range of clinical expertise with a focus on treating headaches/migraines, epilepsy, vertigo,...

Bone cancer is hard to treat and prone to metastasis. Research teams at Rice University and Baylor College of Medicine have a new strategy to attack it. Chemist Han Xiao, Rice and biologist Xiang Zhang at Baylor and their labs have developed an antibody conjugate called BonTarg that delivers drugs to bone tumors and inhibits metastasis. Their open-access study shows how Xiao’s pClick technology can be used to link bone-targeting antibodies and therapeutic molecules. In...

Researchers at the University of Texas Medical Branch have found SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, in the testes of infected hamsters. The findings could help explain symptoms that some men with COVID-19 have reported and have important implications for men’s health. As the pandemic goes on, clinicians are finding that COVID-19 affects more than just the lungs. Some patients have reported testicular pain and some reports have shown decreases in testosterone, a key hormone...

Surgeons who pioneered an in-utero procedure that has improved the outcomes of children with spina bifida, and their mothers who underwent the fetal surgery, performed the 100th surgery of its kind Tuesday at Texas Children’s Fetal Center. Drs. Michael Belfort, OB/GYN-in-Chief at Texas Children’s Pavilion for Women, and William Whitehead, a pediatric neurosurgeon at Texas Children’s, performed the first successful two-port fetoscopic surgery for spina bifida in the world back in 2014, a technique which...