A popular class of diabetes medications called GLP-1R agonists (Trulicity and Rybelsus) may also protect against glaucoma in diabetic patients, according to a new study led by researchers in the Scheie Eye Institute at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine. The findings were published in the British Journal of Ophthalmology.
The researchers looked at retrospective data of 1,961 diabetic patients who were new users of this class of drugs and matched them to 4,371 unexposed control subjects. After 150 days on average, 10 patients in the medicated group were newly diagnosed with glaucoma (0.5 percent) compared to 58 patients (1.3 percent) in the control group. The findings suggest that GLP-1 receptor agonists may decrease a diabetic patient’s risk of developing glaucoma by half.
The findings are supported by a Penn Medicine study from 2020, which found that GLP-1R agonists reduced neuroinflammation and prevented retinal ganglion cell death in mice. This class of drugs has also shown similarly protective effects against Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases in animal models, and clinical trials are underway to test the medications against neurodegenerative diseases in humans.
Glaucoma affects 3 million Americans and is the second leading cause of blindness worldwide. People with diabetes are twice as likely to develop the eye condition.
“It was very encouraging to see that a popular diabetes medication could significantly reduce the risk of developing glaucoma, and our study suggests that these medications warrant further study in this patient population,” says Qi N. Cui, MD, PhD, with Brian VanderBeek, MD, MPH, both assistant professors of Ophthalmology at Penn.
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A phase II, randomized clinical trial found that the optimal period for intensive rehabilitation of arm and hand use after a stroke should begin 60 to 90 days after the event. The study, conducted by Georgetown University and MedStar National Rehabilitation Network (NRH) researchers, published September 20, 2021, in PNAS (Critical Period After Stroke Study (CPASS): A Phase II Clinical Trial Testing an Optimal Time for Motor Recovery After Stroke in Humans).
The same intensive rehabilitation at less than 30 days after a stroke provided some benefit, but rehabilitation at six months or more after a stroke showed no significant benefit compared to those receiving standard care.
Approximately 750,000 new strokes occur each year in the United States. Nearly two-thirds of people who have a stroke do not recover complete function in their hands and arms, an impairment that can severely limit everyday activities.
“Our finding demonstrates the existence of a critical period or optimal time when adults are most responsive to rehabilitation after a stroke,” says lead author Alexander Dromerick, MD, professor of Rehabilitation Medicine and Neurology and chair of Rehabilitation Medicine at Georgetown University Medical Center and vice president for research at MedStar NRH. “Previous clinical trials have found few or very small improvements in motor function post-stroke, so our research could be an important breakthrough in finding ways we can make substantial improvements in arm and hand recovery.”
For their trial, the clinicians enrolled 72 stroke participants, primarily from the Washington, D.C. area, within three weeks after their stroke. The participants were randomly assigned to receive 20 extra hours of activity-focused motor skills therapy, starting at different times after stroke, in addition to their regularly prescribed therapies. The additional therapy began either at 30 days after their stroke, at 60 to 90 days post-stroke, or at six months or more post-stroke. The results were compared to a control group that received only their prescribed rehabilitation therapies but no extra motor rehabilitation training.
“Our results suggest that more intensive motor rehabilitation should be provided to stroke patients at 60 to 90 days after stroke onset,” said Elissa Newport, PhD, director of the Center for Brain Plasticity and Recovery at Georgetown University Medical Center and corresponding author of this article. “It is well known that a young developing brain shows great plasticity, compared to other times in life. Our results show that there may be a similar period of heightened plasticity for stroke patients at a specific time after their stroke.”
The improvement in hand and arm function found in this study was not only statistically significant, it was large enough to be perceived as functionally meaningful by the patients themselves.
“Our approach shows that patients can tolerate much more intensive motor training than is traditionally provided if they are free to choose the activities used in their training,” said Dorothy F. Edwards, PhD, professor of Kinesiology and Medicine at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and member of the Center for Brain Plasticity and Recovery. “Knowing there might be a critical period for recovery, there are many techniques one might imagine bringing to bear on understanding and enhancing recovery during this time period.”
The researchers hope that this study will establish a time window in which future research can combine therapy with brain stimulation or medications aimed at helping remaining healthy areas of the brain recover impaired functions or take over functions lost from the damage inflicted by a stroke. The investigators also plan to design a larger clinical trial to confirm the current findings and to determine the optimum dose of therapy, thereby achieving the best effects during this time-sensitive window.
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Materials provided by Georgetown University Medical Center. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Under pressure to cut the bill’s cost, Democrats disagree over whether to offer more benefits to older Americans or to cover more of the working poor.WASHINGTON — Democrats are facing tough moral and political decisions over how to pursue their century-old dream of universal health care now that their ambitious $3.5 trillion social safety net bill will almost certainly have to be trimmed back.As they try to reduce the bill’s cost, members of the party disagree over whether to prioritize expanding coverage to more poor adults in states whose leaders have refused to do so or to give new Medicare benefits to older people across income levels.Southern Democrats, in particular, are urging their leaders to prioritize insurance coverage for 4.4 million working poor people in the 12 states, mostly in the South, with Republican or divided leadership that have refused to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. But progressives, led by Senator Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent and former presidential candidate, are adamant about giving older Americans dental, hearing and vision coverage.Many provisions of the delicately constructed bill are interconnected, and division over how to lower prescription drug costs and raise taxes will likely prevent the party from acting boldly on both fronts.“I believe that health care is a human right, and if you believe it’s a human right, you don’t believe it’s a human right for 38 states,” said Senator Raphael Warnock, Democrat of Georgia, whose push for Medicaid expansion in his state was central to his special election victory last year, and who is eager to bring such an achievement to voters when he stands for re-election next year. “People are literally dying for lack of access to any care at all.”Health care has long been a winning issue for Democrats. It delivered them the House in 2018 and contributed to their taking the Senate in 2020, thanks largely to the runoff victories in Georgia of Mr. Warnock and Senator Jon Ossoff.But in raw political terms, most of the states that have refused to expand Medicaid — like Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee and Wyoming — are out of reach for Democrats. Older Americans, on the other hand, are consistent voters, increasingly up for grabs. Those voters would like Medicare to start paying for dental, vision and hearing care.Some Democrats, moreover, say Congress should not reward states that refused to expand Medicaid by creating a separate insurance program, financed entirely by the federal government, for their working poor. Under the Affordable Care Act, states that expand Medicaid pay 10 percent of the cost. The topic came up during a recent policy luncheon for Senate Democrats.“Some members have raised the question of, if we do a Medicaid benefit for states that didn’t expand, those that did expand are going to feel like, ‘Hold on a second,’ ” said Senator Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, though he said that was not his view.The provision allowing Medicare to negotiate prices with drug makers is in jeopardy and would mean a loss of about $500 billion that Democrats hoped to spend on expanding both Medicare and Medicaid.Paul Ratje for The New York TimesDemocratic leaders envisioned four major health care components to the bill: It would close the so-called coverage gap for Medicaid, reaching poor adults who earn too much to qualify for traditional Medicaid, but too little to qualify for private, subsidized insurance under the 2010 health care law. It would, for the first time, give Medicare recipients dental, vision and hearing care. It would extend recently enacted subsidies that help middle-income people buy insurance under the Affordable Care Act.All of that would be paid for by a provision allowing Medicare to negotiate prices with drug makers and tying drug prices to those paid by other developed countries.Republicans are largely absent from the conversation; they oppose the budget measure in its entirety, and thus are not weighing in on whether to expand Medicare or Medicaid. But they have long been opposed to letting Medicare negotiate drug prices, which they argue would stifle innovation in the pharmaceutical industry.That piece of the bill is now in danger. Last week, three Democrats sided with Republicans in the House Energy and Commerce Committee to strip it from the legislation. The House Ways and Means Committee did approve it, with one dissent, but if the prescription drug measure cannot survive a full House vote, it will mean a loss of about $500 billion in savings that Democrats hoped to spend on expanding both Medicare and Medicaid. The total cost would be about $600 billion over 10 years.Caught between those competing imperatives are lawmakers like Representative Lloyd Doggett, a senior Democrat on the Ways and Means Committee whose home state, Texas, has not expanded Medicaid. In a fight for scarce resources, he said, seniors who already have good coverage for most of their health needs under Medicare must take a back seat to the working poor who have no coverage at all.“I prioritize those who have been left out entirely,” he said. “They are desperate.”As committees in both the House and Senate work on writing their versions of the bill, Democrats across the philosophical spectrum are struggling to decide where their own priorities lie.Representative Charlie Crist, a Florida Democrat who was once his state’s Republican governor, noted that 800,000 of its residents do not have health insurance because the state leadership refuses to expand Medicaid. But Florida also has a significant older population that wants expanded coverage under Medicare.“I think you advocate for both; that’s my position,” he said. “It’s extremely important. We’re the richest country in the world and one of the few industrialized countries that do not provide health care for all our people, and we have to.”Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, said that “drug companies have the best lobbyists in town,” but that the party should not abandon clamping down on rising prescription costs to free up money for both priorities.“I say the choice is between the billionaires and people who don’t have health care,” she said.Pragmatists realize that some concessions will have to be made. Mr. Kaine said it was possible that Democrats would expand both Medicare and Medicaid in more modest ways, perhaps by phasing in benefits.The four House Democrats who have expressed opposition to the drug measures — Kurt Schrader of Oregon, Scott Peters of California, Kathleen Rice of New York and Stephanie Murphy of Florida — are enough to bring down the whole bill in the narrowly divided House. And more defections are likely from representatives with pharmaceutical interests in their districts, who have not had a chance to weigh in.Senator Raphael Warnock, Democrat of Georgia, made insurance expansion in his state central to his campaign last year.Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesDemocrats who favor Medicare expansion have largely stayed quiet, given the sensitivity of the issue. But they see a political boon in the expansion approved by House committees last week. Seniors would see immediate coverage of vision care. In 2023, hearing would be added. Dental coverage, which would have to be created from scratch, would not begin until 2028.Medicare proponents say Congress has given the states that have not expanded Medicaid ample time and incentive to do so, and it is time to focus on other priorities. The $1.9 trillion pandemic rescue bill this year included huge new subsidies for those states if they agreed to expand Medicaid. Not one did.States pay as much as half of traditional Medicaid costs, but under the Affordable Care Act, the federal government pays 90 percent of costs for the expansion population.The two Georgia senators and Senator Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, which has also not expanded Medicaid, initially envisioned a Medicaid look-alike program run from Washington that would offer recalcitrant states even more federal funding if they finally joined Medicaid, relieving them of virtually any fiscal responsibility.Two House committees — Ways and Means and Energy and Commerce — adopted a measure last week that for now would extend existing premium subsidies under the Affordable Care Act to those now too poor to qualify for them, covering 94 percent of their total health care costs, rising to 99 percent in 2023. By 2024, the Department of Health and Human Services will have stood up a Medicaid-like program along the lines of the Senate proposal for those 4.4 million people.To some liberal Democrats, the plan seems unfair to the 38 states that have expanded Medicaid under the original terms of the health law — at a higher cost to those states.Mr. Warnock has a ready answer for that: “I would remind my colleagues that Georgia gave us the majority.”“We wouldn’t have the privilege of debating these priorities and a package that we’re putting forward if the people of Georgia had not stood up and sent me and Jon Ossoff to the United States Senate,” he added. “So we owe it to them to give them the coverage that they deserve.”

Missing out on the recommended seven or more hours of sleep per night could lead to more opportunities to make poorer snacking choices than those made by people who meet shut-eye guidelines, a new study suggests.
The analysis of data on almost 20,000 American adults showed a link between not meeting sleep recommendations and eating more snack-related carbohydrates, added sugar, fats and caffeine.
It turns out that the favored non-meal food categories — salty snacks and sweets and non-alcoholic drinks — are the same among adults regardless of sleep habits, but those getting less sleep tend to eat more snack calories in a day overall.
The research also revealed what appears to be a popular American habit not influenced by how much we sleep: snacking at night.
“At night, we’re drinking our calories and eating a lot of convenience foods,” said Christopher Taylor, professor of medical dietetics in the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences at The Ohio State University and senior author of the study.
“Not only are we not sleeping when we stay up late, but we’re doing all these obesity-related behaviors: lack of physical activity, increased screen time, food choices that we’re consuming as snacks and not as meals. So it creates this bigger impact of meeting or not meeting sleep recommendations.”
The American Academy of Sleep Medicine and Sleep Research Society recommend that adults sleep seven hours or longer per night on a regular basis to promote optimal health. Getting less sleep than recommended is associated with higher risk for a number of health problems, including weight gain and obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease.

Cells are characterized to be stable yet highly flexible. They constantly modify their shape and even move through tissue. These vital properties are based on a dynamically organized network of branched actin filaments, which generates pushing forces to move the cell membrane. An interdisciplinary team lead by Peter Bieling and Stefan Raunser from the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Physiology (MPI) in Dortmund has now jointly revealed a previously unknown mechanism, explaining how stopping the growth of older actin filaments within the network promotes the formation of new ones, thereby maintaining the structure and function of the cytoskeleton, much like proper pruning of hedges in the garden.
Cells grow, divide, change their shape and move. They provide structure for the body and tissues, enter wounds to close them or chase down bacteria in our blood. The mobility of cells is a prerequisite for a variety of essential biological functions and is ensured by the cytoskeleton. This dynamic protein network assembles on the inside of the cell membrane and is responsible for the cell’s shape, its mechanical stability and it’s ability to move.
How tiny molecules assemble into large powerful structures
One key component of the cytoskeleton is actin, which can self-assemble into filaments. But where does the pushing force of the cytoskeleton actually originate from? The origin lies in a nucleation process that occurs just beneath the cell membrane. Nucleation of new actin filaments is initiated by a protein complex called Arp2/3, which is activated by membrane-bound nucleation promoting factors (NPF). The Apr2/3 forms the initial seed of a new filament and connects this seed to the side of older filaments. After the initial formation of this actin seed, further actin monomers attach and construct a filament, which grows against the membrane. This growth process generates the pushing force. The resulting structure of the actin network looks like a tree or a hedge, with many connected branches of actin filaments.
Trimming the actin hedge promotes the growth of new filaments
To ensure optimal power transmission to the plasma membrane, the branched actin network requires continuous maintenance. A key player in this process is the capping protein. Its main task is to stop the elongation of filaments before they become too long and to prevent the non-productive elongation of filaments that grow away from the cell membrane. Capping actin filaments thus has a similar effect to trimming a hedge: it keeps the (actin) hedge neat and tidy, much like proper pruning However, it also stimulates the budding production (actin branching) near the plant’s edges (membrane) through the Arp2/3 complex. The precise mechanism involved in how the capping protein controls the speed by which Arp2/3 forms new filaments was not previously understood.
How a molecular tentacle regulates branching
An interdisciplinary team of structural biologists and biochemists from the MPI in Dortmund, together with cell biologists from Braunschweig University, has now uncovered the so far enigmatic mechanism behind the opposing function of the capping protein in the branched network assembly. A high-resolution structure of the capping protein bound to an actin filament-end produced by co-first author Felipe Merino using electron cryo-microscopy revealed that the capping protein does much more than previously assumed. It not only stops filament growth, but also blocks the end from interacting with other proteins. Most importantly, it blocks the binding of nucleation promoting factors (the Arp2/3 activators) via a tiny “tentacle” extension. Johanna Funk, co-first author of the study, was able to show, that removing this tentacle did not prevent the capping protein from stopping filament growth, but drastically inhibited the network assembly and the efficiency of lamellipodial protrusion required for cell movement when working together with all other proteins required to build branched networks.
“Studying the role of the capping protein from many different angles has uncovered details about how the core proteins that build branched actin networks do not act as separate players as previously thought, but really as a functional unit. We hope, that our findings will contribute to a better understanding of cell movement of both healthy as well as diseased cells in the future,” says Peter Bieling.
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There may be a link between exposure to light during pregnancy and fetal brain development. New findings by researchers at Umeå University, Sweden, working in collaboration with American colleagues, may provide better understanding of certain neurological diseases later in life.
“Ultimately, this discovery may open up possibilities for using the right kind of light stimulation during pregnancy to reduce the risk of neurological disorders in adulthood,” says Professor Lena Gunhaga at Umeå Centre for Molecular Medicine, Umeå University.
The research group at Umeå University, together with researchers in the group of Professor Richard Lang in Cincinnati, USA, now demonstrate that a light receptor called Opsin 3 is already expressed in parts of the central and peripheral nervous systems during the early stages of fetal development. The Opsin 3 molecule has a broad but distinct expression that suggests an important role in the formation of various neurons, neural pathways and areas of the brain and spinal cord. Opsin 3 expression can be linked to a number of motor and sensory neural pathways that regulate movement, pain, vision and olfaction, as well as memory, mood and emotion.
While the idea that light may affect cells inside the body, even in the unborn fetus, may seem peculiar, both calculations and experiments have previously shown that light can pass through skin, soft tissue and the skull to activate photoreceptors.
Opsin 3 detects light in the blue range at a wavelength of approximately 480 nanometres. The Umeå researchers’ discovery of the expression pattern of this receptor suggests that light plays a vital role in the development and subsequent function of the brain. This might explain why the risk of certain neurological and psychiatric diseases varies depending on the seasonal time of birth. So far, this unexplained correlation have been observed in diseases such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, multiple sclerosis, bipolar disorder, autism, schizophrenia and epilepsy. That said, time of birth is only one of several risk factors for the diseases in question.
“Although more research is required before we can issue recommendations about specific light therapies for pregnant women, we are clearly on an exciting track that may eventually prove highly significant,” says Lena Gunhaga.
While the new findings are based on observations of the brain and nervous system of mice, the function is deemed to be similar in humans. The researchers continue with more detailed studies of how Opsin 3 affects the development and function of the brain.
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Materials provided by Umea University. Original written by Ola Nilsson. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Micro-organism resistance to antibiotics in particular is a major problem in everyday medicine. This has seen the number of resistant microbes increase exponentially. As a result, infections that appeared to already have been eradicated using modern drugs now once again pose a potentially fatal threat to humans. The situation is further complicated by the fact that more and more germs are emerging which are resistant to not one but several antibiotics or other drugs.
Research is under way into the mechanisms used by microbes to defend themselves against substances toxic to them. One method is to actively transport the toxic substances out of the cell before they can cause any damage. The microbes use special membrane transport proteins for this purpose. In particular in eukaryotic microbes such as fungi that have a cell nucleus — unlike bacteria, which have none — these membrane proteins are part of the family of ABC transporters (“ATP-binding cassette”). They export the toxic substances by splitting the cellular ATP energy transporter.
In a current publication in Nature Communications, a German/UK research team headed up by Prof. Dr. Lutz Schmitt from the Institute of Biochemistry at HHU has presented the three-dimensional structure of yeast ABC transporter Pdr5 in several functional states. They determined these structures using single-particle cryo-electron microscopy, which makes it possible to examine in particular biological molecules in their natural form at very high resolutions by flash-freezing them to low temperatures.
Not only did the research team show that Pdr5 is a central transport protein in creating the resistance conferred by the membrane protein, it also used solved structures to localise the drug-binding site and define the transport cycle.
For more than 30 years, Pdr5 has constituted the model for PDR proteins in pathogenic fungi such as Candida albicans, which causes Candidiasis. The new findings help to explain what it is at molecular level that enables a single membrane protein to prevent structurally diverse molecules from entering the cell or transport them out of the cell efficiently. The findings can now be used as a basis for designing new drugs in a targeted way to counteract resistance.
For almost 20 years, Professor Schmitt’s working group has been conducting research into explaining how the transport protein works. The researchers succeeded in understanding the structure by working together with Prof. Dr. Ben Luisi’s group in the Department of Biochemistry at Cambridge University. At HHU, the research also involved the working group of Prof. Dr. Holger Gohlke from the Institute of Pharmaceutical and Medicinal Chemistry and the Center for Structural Studies (led by Dr. Sander Smits).
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Materials provided by Heinrich-Heine University Duesseldorf. Original written by Arne Claussen. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

For billions of years, Nature has perfected ways of dealing with the recycling of materials. Like a good housekeeper who saves as much as she can, she knows how to avoid what is too much and too little.
One of the best examples of this thrifty behaviour of Nature is the evolution of ruminants: animals such as deer, goats, cows and antelope have developed a unique digestive system, consisting of four different stomachs, to convert even the toughest grasses and leaves into nourishing milk, wool and protein.
Remember, as a child, how one cringed at the idea of regurgitating your own food to chew on it before it being swallowed again? Well, cows spend about eight hours of their day doing exactly that, thereby assisting their microbial community to process the raw plant food.
A cow is therefore a natural example of consolidated bioprocessing where cellulose (in plantmaterial) is hydrolysed and converted to various products in a single vessel (the cow). So what can we learn from Nature, and more specifically cows, when dealing with the 83 million metric tons of agricultural, municipal and fruit waste produced in South Africa every year?
According to microbiologists at Stellenbosch University, the concept of a biorefinery based on the four-stomach digestive system of ruminants, may just be key to the establishment of simple and robust, small-scale biorefinery operations in South Africa and Africa.
Prof Emile van Zyl, distinguished professor in microbiology at SU, says first-world countries have made significant progress over the last few decades in the development of capital-intensive and advanced technologies to produce bioethanol from plant material. Yet, as long as relatively cheap fossil fuels are around, the upscaling of these technologies remain commercially non-viable.
“South Africa and Africa cannot afford the huge capital costs of large-scale cellulosic ethanol plants and the technological challenges associated with it,” he explains.
That is why, in a recent review published in the journal Catalysis, they propose the introduction of the rumen microbiome into anaerobic digestion processes. Currently, mixed anaerobic microbial cultures are used to break down organic matter to generate mostly biogas, and much research is aimed at finding the most efficient microbes and identifying the parameters for their optimal functioning. Yet, argue the researchers, mammalian ruminants have naturally evolved to perform anaerobic digestion of plant material.
Furthermore, instead of producing biogas, they suggest supressing that latter part of the digestion process and rather use microbial hosts to produce industrial important organic acids, such as acetic, propionic, butyric and valeric and caproic acids from agricultural wastes. Yeast biotechnology can also be employed for the conversion of malic acid in grape and apple pomace to higher-value lactic, citric, fumaric and succinic acids. For example, the current value of organic acids can vary from about US$600 per metric ton for acetic acid to more than US$2000 per metric ton for carbon 4-6 carboxylic acids. With the rise in demand for bioplastics, organic polymers such as polylactate reach values of more than US$3500 per metric ton.
Prof Marinda Viljoen-Bloom, one of the co-authors, says while the application of rumen microbes for the digestion of plant material is not a new concept, it remains a challenge to replicate the complicated interactions found in ruminants in a bioreactor. In the Biofuels Research Group at the Department of Microbiology, they are specifically looking at ways to add value to South African waste streams: For his PhD, Dr Sesethu Njokweni explored the anaerobic production of volatile fatty acids from agricultural waste, while PhD student Annica Steyn is constructing a recombinant yeast strain that can effectively convert malic acid to higher-value organic acids.
Did you know?
The most significant sources of organic waste in South Africa is sugarcane bagasse (5.35 million metric tonnes), invasive plants (11.30 million metric tonnes) and fruit wastes (1.3 billion metric tonnes). Microbiologists from Stellenbosch University are investigation the use of mammalian rumen in the anaerobic digestive process to break down or separate organic waste into its original building blocks, from where it can subsequently be converted into various high-value products — just as a cow does with processing the tough plant material into the basic building blocks upon which the production of milk is based.
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Materials provided by Stellenbosch University. Original written by Wiida Fourie-Basson. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Malignant tumors can enhance their ability to survive and spread by suppressing antitumor immune cells in their vicinity, but a study led by researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork-Presbyterian has uncovered a new way to counter this immunosuppressive effect.
In the study, published Sept. 20 in Nature Cancer, the researchers identified a set of anti-immunosuppressive factors that can be secreted by cells called club cells that line airways in the lungs. They showed in a mouse model of lung cancer that these club cell factors inhibit highly potent immunosuppressive cells called myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs), which tumors often recruit to help them evade antitumor immune responses.
The inhibition of the MDSCs led to an increase in the number of antitumor T cells at the tumor site, and greatly improved the effectiveness of FDA approved PD1 immunotherapy.
“These club cell-secreted factors are able to nullify immune suppressor cells that otherwise help tumors escape an effective antitumor response,” said co-senior author Dr. Vivek Mittal, director of research at the Neuberger Berman Lung Cancer Center and the Ford-Isom Research Professor of Cardiothoracic Surgery at Weill Cornell Medicine. “We’re excited by the possibility of developing these club cell factors into a cancer treatment.”
The research is part of a broad scientific effort in recent decades to find ways to harness the immune system against cancers. That effort has yielded treatments such as “immune checkpoint inhibitors” (ICIs) which partly undo tumors’ immunosuppressive effects. In recent years, oncologists also have observed that ionizing radiation, long a standard treatment for many cancers, can further undo this immune suppression and thereby enhance the effectiveness of ICI treatments.
In the new study, Dr. Mittal and co-senior authors Dr. Nasser Altorki, chief of the Division of Thoracic Surgery at Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, and Dr. Dingcheng Gao, associate professor of cell and developmental biology at Weill Cornell Medicine, teamed up to determine how radiation has this immune-enhancing effect.

Gadolinium-based contrast agents, the gold standard in magnetic resonance imaging(MRI) to determine the health of a patient, can be improved, according to Rice University engineers who are refining models they first used to enhance oil and gas recovery.
The team led by Dilip Asthagiri and Philip Singer of the George R. Brown School of Engineering had studied how nuclear magnetic resonance tools, commonly used in the oil industry to characterize deposits underground, could be optimized through molecular dynamics simulations.
“We addressed a lot of fundamental scientific questions there, and we wondered if there were other ways we could use these simulations,” Asthagiri said.
“There are roughly 100 million MRIs taken worldwide every year, and about 40% of them use gadolinium-based contrast agents, but the way they model MRI response to these agents hasn’t changed significantly since the 1980s,” Singer said. “We thought it would be a good test bed for our ideas.”
The results of their research appear in the Royal Society of Chemistry journal Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics.
Their paper demonstrates how limiting the number of parameters in simulations has the potential to improve the analysis of gadolinium-based contrast agents and how effective they are at imaging for clinical diagnosis. Their goal is to make better and more customizable contrast agents.