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Scientists believe a new genetically-targeted therapy to treat motor neurone disease (MND) could be a turning point for patient care, after the results of a Phase 3 clinical trial showed significant physical benefits for patients after 12 months.
Researchers from the Sheffield Institute for Translational Neuroscience (SITraN) found that patients with a faulty SOD1 gene — responsible for two per cent of MND cases — noticed that the progression of their symptoms slowed down 12 months after taking the investigational drug tofersen.
108 MND patients known to have the faulty SOD1 gene took part in the pioneering Phase 3 clinical trial funded by biotechnology company Biogen Inc. Although a significant clinical improvement was not found at the primary endpoint of the study at 28 weeks, when the trial was extended to 52 weeks, notable changes in patients’ motor function and lung function were reported.
Results of the trial, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, show that biomarkers in patients’ spinal fluid showed a reduction in the SOD1 and neurofilament protein levels after taking tofersen for six months, suggesting that the treatment successfully hits the therapeutic target and reduces loss of motor neurones which may allow them to start regenerating connections with muscles in the body. However, it took longer for patients to experience reported physical improvements.
Professor Dame Pamela Shaw, Professor of Neurology and Director of SITraN at the University of Sheffield, said: “I have conducted more than 25 MND clinical trials and the tofersen trial is the first trial in which patients have reported an improvement in their motor function. Never before have I heard patients say ‘I am doing things today that I couldn’t do a few months ago — walking in the house without my sticks, walking up the garden steps, writing Christmas cards’. For me this is an important treatment milestone.”
Dame Pam added: “What we have found is that we can reduce or slow damage from happening biologically, but it takes more time for the motor neurones to heal and regenerate their connections with the muscles. So, the motor system needs time to heal before we see a physical and clinical change.
“Patients with SOD1 mutations are relatively rare, but this trial is going to change the future of MND trials for patients. Not only can we look at other genes which also cause MND, but we now have a biomarker which we can measure to see if a treatment is working. This is going to make trials much more efficient. In future we may be able to tell in three to six months if an experimental therapy is having a positive effect.”
Professor Chris McDermott, Professor of Translational Neurology at SITraN University of Sheffield and Co-Author of the study, said: “This is the first time I have been involved in a clinical trial for people living with MND where I have seen real benefits to participants. Although tofersen is a treatment for only two per cent of those living with MND, we have learned much in doing this clinical trial that will help us do smarter and faster clinical trials in the future. The approach used, of reducing proteins harmful in MND, is likely to have wider applications for more common types of MND.”
MND, also known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a disorder that affects the nerves — or motor neurones — in the brain and spinal cord that form the connection between the nervous system and muscles to enable movement of the body. The messages from these nerves gradually stop reaching the muscles, leading them to weaken, stiffen and eventually waste. The progressive disease affects a patient’s ability to walk, talk, use their arms and hands, eat and breathe.
SOD1 is the known cause for triggering MND in two per cent of all patients with ALS, and up to 20 per cent of patients who have a family history of the disease.
Dr Brian Dickie, Director of Research at the MND Association said: “These latest results provide mounting confidence that tofersen is having both a biological and a beneficial clinical effect in people living with SOD1 MND. They also provide important ‘proof of concept’ that similar gene therapy-based approaches may be helpful for other forms of the disease. We are closely following the recent news that tofersen will be reviewed by the U.S. drug regulatory authorities and are in contact with Biogen to discuss what the regulatory approval process will look like elsewhere.”
Clinicians and scientists hope that this is a first step towards a licensed therapy for MND patients.
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A McMaster University-led study has found that most people infected with the SARS-CoV2 virus recover within 12 months, irrespective of the severity.
However, although 75 per cent had recovered at the 12-month mark after becoming ill with the virus, 25 per cent of patients still had at least one of the three most common symptoms, including coughing, fatigue and breathlessness. Researchers also found that patients with persistent symptoms also had antibodies associated with autoimmune illnesses, as well as raised levels of cytokines, which cause inflammation.
Researchers gleaned the results by surveying 106 people recovering from COVID-19 infections at three, six and 12 months after contracting the disease. All patients surveyed were otherwise healthy and had no pre-existing autoimmune conditions or any other underlying diseases pre-pandemic.
“Generally, one should not worry if they are feeling unwell right after their infection, as the chances of recovering within 12 months is very high, and just because you have typical long COVID symptoms at three months does not mean they will stay forever,” said senior author Manali Mukherjee, an assistant professor of the Department of Medicine.
“However, the study highlights that at 12 months, if you still feel unwell and the symptoms are persisting or worsening, you should definitely seek medical attention.”
Mukherjee said patients with persistent long COVID symptoms should see a rheumatologist, as they specialize in autoimmune disorders and can better assess development of rheumatological complications and the need for an early intervention.

Published15 hours agoSharecloseShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingThis video can not be playedTo play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.Scientists say they have slowed and even reversed some of the devastating and relentless decline caused by motor-neurone disease (MND). The treatment works in only 2% of patients but has been described as “truly remarkable” and a “real moment of hope” for the whole disease. One leading expert said it was the first time she had seen patients improve – but this is not a cure. The MND Association said there was “mounting confidence” in the therapy. MND, also known as amyotrophic-lateral sclerosis (ALS), is caused by the death of the nerves that carry messages from the brain to people’s muscles. It affects their ability to move, talk and even breathe. The disease dramatically shortens people’s lives and most die within two years of being diagnosed.Image source, University of SheffieldLes Wood, 68, from South Yorkshire, was the first British patient in the international trial, published in the New England Journal of Medicine.MND had forced him, an electrician, and his wife, Val, a nurse, to give up their careers, as walking and using his hands became more difficult. A mutation in a specific part of his genetic code leads to the production of a toxic form of the protein SOD1, which kills motor neurones. These mutations cause about 2% of MND cases but one in five of those that run in families. The trial on 108 people, funded by pharmaceutical company Biogen, used an innovative type of medicine called gene silencing. The drug tofersen effectively mutes the defective DNA so less SOD1 is produced.Podcast: The Silence of the GenesGene silencing medicine transforms crippling painThe treatment requires monthly lumbar punctures, in which a needle is passed between the bones in the spine to put the drug directly into the spinal fluid. After six months of therapy, those getting the drug had lower levels of SOD1 but were physically no better. After a year, however, it was slowing the pace of the disease – and some patients’ symptoms improved.Les had his first dose in 2016 – and in home videos recorded a year later, he said: “I could genuinely say, hand-on-heart, I felt better.”I actually walked in the house, without sticks, I thought, ‘This drug’s working.'”Now, he says: “MND is a progressive disease – so although my symptoms have continued to worsen, I would not be without the drug and the difference I know it has made to my quality of life.”Image source, University of SheffieldFor Prof Dame Pamela Shaw, the director of the Neuroscience Institute, in Sheffield, and a veteran of more than 25 clinical trials in the disease, this was something incredible. She told me: “This is the first where patients participating have reported improvement in their motor function – ‘I can walk without my sticks. I can go up my garden steps, which I haven’t been able to do for two years. I can write my Christmas cards this year, which I couldn’t do last year.'”The results were a “real moment of hope” and the start of a “new era” in which we can expect progress in other forms of MND too.In the early stages, the researchers say, the drug is stopping further damage. It cannot lead to the formation of new motor neurones and the remaining ones may be taking a year to recover and form new connections with muscle tissue.”It may take time for people to heal from the damage that has already been caused,” said Dr Timothy Miller, the principal investigator, at Washington University.”The vast majority of people living with ALS experience a relentlessly progressive downhill course, so the stabilisation of function is truly remarkable.”Image source, Getty ImagesThe treatment directly targets the fundamental cause of this type of MND so it will do nothing for the 98% of patients without the SOD1 mutation – although, it is hoped the other mutations, in more than 30 different genes, implicated could be targeted in a similar way. “The approach used, of reducing proteins harmful in MND, is likely to have wider applications for more common types of MND,” said Prof Chris McDermott, of University of Sheffield.Tofersen is being considered for regulatory approval in the US and provided free in the UK ahead of a decision on whether the NHS should pay for it.MND Association research director Dr Brian Dickie said the treatment had the “potential to deliver a significant benefit” for a relatively rare group of people with the disease. The big question, he added, was whether to give the drug in the earliest stages of the disease, when it “may be even more effective”, or even to healthy people with the SOD1 mutation to “prevent the onset of disease”.Follow James on Twitter.More on this storyWorkouts increase motor neurone risk – scientists11 June 2021The woman with MND who has had two children3 May

Listen and follow Modern LoveApple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Amazon Music“My motto is sex for one, sex for two, sex for all who desire it. And that emphatically includes those of us who are deep into old, old age.”Brian Rea“Everyone deserves an orgasm” is a fair way to express Diana de Vegh’s attitude toward life. Diana is a firm believer in the pursuit of pleasure — of all sorts — for all people.As we kick off a new season of Modern Love, our host, Anna Martin, gets Diana’s advice on how people can infuse sensuality into their day-to-day lives. (Hint: a chilled beverage, a warm bath and a juicy mango.)We also listen to Diana’s story about seeking help at a sleek sex shop in downtown Manhattan. Why should a legally blind 83-year-old woman have to struggle so much just to get a sex toy?[Modern Love is back for a new season! New episodes drop on Wednesdays. Follow the show on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts.]Today’s Story“Why Won’t Anyone Help Me in This Sex Shop?,” Diana de VeghHosted by: Anna MartinProduced by: Elyssa Dudley, Julia Botero, Hans Buetow, Christina Djossa and Anna MartinEdited by: Sara SarasohnEngineered by: Elisheba IttoopTheme Music by: Dan PowellOriginal Music by: Dan Powell and Rowan NiemistoRead by: Holly PalanceWritten by: Diana de VeghFounder, Modern Love: Daniel JonesEditor, Modern Love Projects: Miya LeeSpecial thanks: Anna Diamond, Noelle Franco, Bianca Maiocchi, Mahima Chablani, Nell Gallogly, Julia Simon and Jeffrey Miranda.Want more from Modern Love? Read past stories. Watch the TV series and sign up for the newsletter. We also have swag at the NYT Store and two books, “Modern Love: True Stories of Love, Loss, and Redemption” and “Tiny Love Stories: True Tales of Love in 100 Words or Less.”

Cooking poultry in cold medicine is a bad, dangerous idea that few people seemed to be aware of until the government warning attracted media coverage.A truism of the internet, central to the work of researchers who study the spread of dangerous trends and misinformation, holds that attempting to discourage bad behavior can, if clumsily handled, reinforce the bad behavior by amplifying it to people who would have otherwise never considered it.Which leads us to the NyQuil chicken.In recent weeks, some people on TikTok, Twitter and other sites discovered years-old videos and images of people pouring blue-green NyQuil, a nighttime cold medicine, over chicken breasts in a pan or pot. It was, to be clear, a dangerous idea that no one should do — it could lead to consuming unsafe levels of the product, and over-the-counter medicines should be used only as directed.But it was not clear if people were actually trying it themselves in significant numbers; most people commenting were expressing horror at the concept or making jokes about it. There have been no reports of hospitalizations or deaths related to NyQuil chicken, a tongue-in-cheek recipe that first surfaced in the notorious 4chan forum in 2017 and also received a spike of attention in January.Still, the new flurry of interest in recent weeks caught the attention of the Food and Drug Administration, which issued a straight-faced notice on Sept. 15 advising against participating in what it called “a recent social media video challenge.”“The challenge sounds silly and unappetizing — and it is,” the agency warned. “But it could also be very unsafe.”The Spread of Misinformation and FalsehoodsElection Fraud Claims: A new report says that major social media companies continue to fuel false conspiracies about election fraud despite promises to combat misinformation ahead of the midterm elections.Russian Falsehoods: Kremlin conspiracy theories blaming the West for disrupting the global food supply have bled into right-wing chat rooms and mainstream conservative news media in the United States.Media Literacy Efforts: As young people spend more time online, educators are increasingly trying to offer students tools and strategies to protect themselves from false narratives.Global Threat: New research shows that nearly three-quarters of respondents across 19 countries with advanced economies are very concerned about false information online.It laid out the science behind why it was dangerous, concluding that “someone could take a dangerously high amount of the cough and cold medicine without even realizing it.”The F.D.A.’s alert directly drew renewed attention to the dangerous dish. The next day, a few TV stations reported on the F.D.A.’s advisory, repeating the assertion that a dangerous trend was playing out. Days later, some of the nation’s biggest media organizations followed.And on Tuesday, it was a trending topic on Twitter, with reaction videos spreading on TikTok and links to news articles aplenty on Facebook.The whole affair left NyQuil, which is produced by Procter & Gamble, on the defensive. Responding to people on Twitter who appeared to be treating the concept, also called sleepy chicken, as a joke, the company’s Twitter account urged people not to try the recipe, declaring, “We do not endorse inappropriate use of our product.”According to Know Your Meme, a website that chronicles the origins of internet phenomena, the first known reference to NyQuil chicken came when someone documented their apparent cooking experience in 2017 on 4chan, an often noxious message board where trolling was common and few things were to be taken too seriously. A few others on YouTube and TikTok recorded videos of the stunt in the following years.Janet Yang, a professor of communication at the State University of New York at Buffalo, first heard about NyQuil chicken after being contacted by The New York Times on Wednesday. She said the volume of coverage could inadvertently make more people think they should pay attention to the issue and divert attention from more immediate health threats, such as Covid-19 and monkeypox.“Once it has that certain degree of volume or attention, basically you are making this more a real thing than it truly is,” Professor Yang said.The F.D.A. alert was unlikely to reach adolescents considering this behavior and was “clearly” written more as a warning to parents, said Corey Hannah Basch, a professor of public health at William Paterson University in Wayne, N.J.“The F.D.A. took a certain step to raise awareness, but has it gone too far to be helpful at this point?” Professor Basch said. “Most likely because it’s just brought many people to think about something they were not thinking about before.”It was unclear how many more people had tried it because of the recent attention. On Twitter, most of the images being shared in recent days were taken from the small number of videos recorded years ago. On TikTok, searches for #nyquilchicken, before the app limited access to that content, revealed mostly people newly reacting to the same years-old videos.The F.D.A. did not immediately respond to questions about what prompted the warning or whether it had received reports of people falling ill from the practice.On some of the most popular reaction videos, TikTok appended a warning: “Participating in this activity could result in you or others getting hurt.”“Content that promotes dangerous behavior has no place on TikTok,” a TikTok representative said. “This is not trending on our platform, but we will remove content if found and strongly discourage anyone from engaging in behavior that may be harmful to themselves or others.”In a grim precedent, some people really did eat laundry detergent packets in 2018 after a similar “challenge” based on Tide pods took off. And the F.D.A. cited a “Benadryl challenge” from 2020 that reportedly caused at least one teenager’s death.But no, despite news reports every year, people aren’t putting razor blades or THC in Halloween candy.

The majority of the socioeconomic disparity, or deprivation gap, in cancer incidence could have been prevented in England between 2013 and 2017 if nobody had smoked, according to a new study published September 21 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Nick Payne of Cancer Research UK and colleagues.
Smoking is the main cause of preventable cancer and death in the UK, accounting for around 15% of all cancer cases in England in 2015. Cancer incidence also varies by socio-economic position across the UK, with the overall cancer incidence rate 17% higher in the lowest-income quintile of the population compared with the highest in England.
In the new study, the researchers focused on the 15 cancer types with strong evidence for an association with smoking — which contribute over 8 in 10 deprivation-associated cancer cases in England. Smoking-attributable cancer cases in 2013-17 were calculated by combining cancer incidence with smoking prevalence (in 2003-07, allowing for the lag between smoking and cancer diagnosis) and relative risk of being diagnosed with cancer among smokers vs non-smokers. These smoking-attributable cases were then shown as a proportion of the deprivation-associated cancer cases total.
The study found that 21.1% of cancer cases in the most deprived quintile of the population could be attributed to smoking, but only 9.7% of cancers in the least deprived quintile could be attributed to smoking — a difference of nearly 2.2-fold. If everyone had the same smoking prevalence as the least deprived quintile, 20.3% of deprivation-associated cancers, or more than 5,000 cases each year, could have been prevented. If nobody smoked at all, 61% of deprivation-associated cancer incidence, or more than 16,000 cases each year, could have been prevented. Among cancer types, the fraction of cases attributable to smoking was highest for lung, larynx, pharynx, bladder, and oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma.
The authors conclude that tobacco control policies that tackle smoking inequalities could prove cost-effective given their impact in reducing smoking-related ill-health, including cancer rates.
The authors add: “This study is the first of its kind to quantitively assess the contribution of smoking to deprivation-associated cancer incidence in England. The findings help to confirm that smoking is the key driver of cancer incidence inequalities in England, therefore policy measures should continue to bring down smoking prevalence with a specific focus on the most deprived populations.”
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Parkinson’s disease is the fastest-growing neurodegenerative disease, now affecting more than 10 million people worldwide, yet clinicians still face huge challenges in tracking its severity and progression.
Clinicians typically evaluate patients by testing their motor skills and cognitive functions during clinic visits. These semisubjective measurements are often skewed by outside factors — perhaps a patient is tired after a long drive to the hospital. More than 40 percent of individuals with Parkinson’s are never treated by a neurologist or Parkinson’s specialist, often because they live too far from an urban center or have difficulty traveling.
In an effort to address these problems, researchers from MIT and elsewhere demonstrated an in-home device that can monitor a patient’s movement and gait speed, which can be used to evaluate Parkinson’s severity, the progression of the disease, and the patient’s response to medication.
The device, which is about the size of a Wi-Fi router, gathers data passively using radio signals that reflect off the patient’s body as they move around their home. The patient does not need to wear a gadget or change their behavior. (A recent study, for example, showed that this type of device could be used to detect Parkinson’s from a person’s breathing patterns while sleeping.)
The researchers used these devices to conduct two studies that involved a total of 50 participants. They showed that, by using machine-learning algorithms to analyze the troves of data they gathered (more than 200,000 gait speed measurements), a clinician could track Parkinson’s progression more effectively than they would with periodic, in-clinic evaluations.
“By being able to have a device in the home that can monitor a patient and tell the doctor remotely about the progression of the disease, and the patient’s medication response so they can attend to the patient even if the patient can’t come to the clinic — now they have real, reliable information — that actually goes a long way toward improving equity and access,” says senior author Dina Katabi, the Thuan and Nicole Pham Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), and a principle investigator in the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and the MIT Jameel Clinic.

Scientists have engineered mosquitoes that slow the growth of malaria-causing parasites in their gut, preventing transmission of the disease to humans.
The genetic modification causes mosquitoes to produce compounds in their guts that stunt the growth of parasites, meaning they are unlikely to reach the mosquitoes’ salivary glands and be passed on in a bite before the insects die.
So far, the technique has been shown to dramatically reduce the possibility of malaria spread in a lab setting, but if proven safe and effective in real-world settings it could offer a powerful new tool to help eliminate malaria.
The innovation, by researchers from the Transmission:Zero team at Imperial College London, is designed so it can be coupled with existing ‘gene drive’ technology to spread the modification and drastically cut malaria transmission. The team is looking towards field trials, but will thoroughly test the safety of the new modification before combining it with a gene drive for real-world tests.
Collaborators from the Institute for Disease Modeling at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation also developed a model that, for the first time, can assess the impact of such modifications if used in a variety of African settings. They found that the modification developed by the Transmission:Zero team could be a powerful tool for bringing down cases of malaria even where transmission is high.
The results of the modification technology in the lab and the modelling are published today in Science Advances.

An international research team has used satellite data to demonstrate that concentrations of pollutant particles have decreased significantly since the year 2000. This is desirable due to their impact on health. But it is also of great significance for another reason, since it has reduced the particles’ cooling effect on the climate.
Global warming is caused by the emission of greenhouse gases. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), by 2019 the temperature had risen by 1.1 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels. However, at the same time, the combustion of fossil fuels emits aerosols, in the form of pollutant particles such as soot or sulfuric acid, which cool our climate. They reflect sunlight and also increase the reflectivity of clouds. According to the IPCC, the presence of aerosols in the atmosphere caused the climate to be 0.5 degrees Celsius cooler in 2019 than without them. Other effects such as land use change also play a role.
Study documents widespread evidence of this reduced cooling climate effect
In a new international analysis, Professor Johannes Quaas, a meteorologist at Leipzig University, and colleagues from across Europe, China, and the US have now documented robust evidence of this effect on the climate of improved air quality. “We analysed data from NASA’s Terra and Aqua satellites. They have been providing comprehensive satellite observations of the Earth since the year 2000, measuring incoming and outgoing radiation, but also clouds and aerosol pollution. The latter has decreased significantly across North America, Europe and East Asia since 2000,” says Professor Johannes Quaas, lead author of the study, which was initiated in a meeting by the two European research projects CONSTRAIN and FORCES.
Reduction in aerosol-induced cooling increases warming due to CO2 since 2000 by up to 50 per cent
This has also reduced the cooling effect of aerosols. Compared to the year 2000, it has led to an increase in the warming effect that is up to 50 per cent of the one by CO2 increases in the same period. This means an acceleration of the drivers of global warming compared to the previous period. “Our study should not be interpreted to mean that we should now be emitting more aerosols to cool the climate. On the contrary: aerosols are harmful to human health and the environment, which is why we need to keep reducing emissions,” Quaas concludes. And it is why air quality legislation has become increasingly stringent since the 1970s and is being implemented by more and more countries. Professor Quaas and his colleagues on the new study stress the ever more urgent need for rapid and strong reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.
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It may soon be possible to identify Group 4 medulloblastomas — the most common malignant brain tumor in children — from more aggressive Group 3 tumors. Research based on a little-explored part of RNA, which creates proteins, could lead to the development of better-targeted cancer treating drugs, according to investigators at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center.
Four groups of medulloblastomas have been identified, with Group 3 being the most aggressive — survival at 5 years is a 45% to 60% rate. Group 4 is the most common form of medulloblastoma, accounting for 35-40% of all cases.
The findings were published in Aug. 22 in the journal Neuro-Oncology Advances.
To date, it is difficult to distinguish Group 3 tumors — which have a better prognosis (five-year survival is 75%-80%) — from Group 4 tumors. Treatment for Group 3 is more aggressive than Group 4, often including radiation therapy. Distinguishing between Group 3 and Group 4 medulloblastomas relies on immunohistochemistry of tissue samples — specialized testing used to distinguish types — and imaging.
“Group 3 and group 4 medulloblastomas are very similar to each other and, it’s hard to differentiate them under the microscope. So, we started looking at the molecular markers,” said senior study author Ranjan Perera, Ph.D., director of the Center for RNA Biology at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital (JHACH) in St. Petersburg, Florida. Perera is also a senior scientist at the JHACH Cancer & Blood Disorders Institute and an associate professor of oncology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He has a secondary affiliation with the JHACH Institute for Fundamental Biomedical Research.
In particular, the investigators looked at long non-coding RNA (lncRNA), which experts thought did not play a role in building proteins. New evidence, however, finds that they play a role in regulating gene expression that impacts cancer growth and behavior.
Perera and coinvestigators found that a lncRNA gene, called SPRIGHTLY, is highly expressed in Group 4 medulloblastomas, but not Group 3. “We found that this long noncoding RNA (SPRIGHTLY) interacts with one gene called SMYD3,” he said. SMYD3 regulates endothelial growth factor receptor (EGFR), which helps the cancer develop new blood vessels that nourish the tumor.
“Clearly, SPRIGHTLY could serve as a biomarker for Group 4 because we have not seen this in Group 3 or the other two groups,” he says.
The researchers studied SPRIGHTLY in mouse and human models of medulloblastoma and observed that developing tumors were smaller than cells without SPRIGHTLY. Tumor growth was also slower in models where SPRIGHTLY deactivated, supporting the role of SPRIGHTLY in tumor growth and proliferation.
The investigators also conducted laboratory tests that showed that SPRIGHTLY interacts with another protein called PTPB1, which regulates SMYD3 protein production. This pathway enhances the expression of EGFR in Group 4 medulloblastomas — and potentially provides a treatment target. There are several existing drugs that inhibit EGFR. Of course, much work is needed to better understand the molecular mechanisms of the SPRIGHTLY pathway in Group 4 medulloblastomas before investigation of treatments.
In addition to Perera, study co-authors were Bongyong Lee, Keisuke Katsushima, Rudramani Pokhrel, Menglang Yuan, Stacie Stapleton, George Jallo and Charles Eberhart of Johns Hopkins; Robert J. Wechsler-Reya of Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute in La Jolla, California; and Animesh Ray of Keck Graduate Institute in Claremont, California, and California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California.
The work was supported in part by the Schamroth Project funded by Ian’s Friends Foundation, Hough Family Foundation, and Susan and Robb Hough to Ranjan J. Perera and George Jallo, and NCI grant to Ranjan J. Perera and Charles Eberhart (1R37CA230400).