Monthly Archives: June 2020

Amsterdam, The Netherlands, June 25, 2020 Kiadis Pharma N.V. (Kiadis or the Company) (Euronext Amsterdam and Brussels: KDS), a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company, and The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital (OSUCCC-James), today announced that the first patient has been enrolled and treated in a phase I, first-in-human clinical trial in patients with relapsed/refractory acute myeloid leukemia (R/R AML) with off-the-shelf Natural Killer (NK) cells manufactured at the Cell Therapy laboratory at the OSUCCC-James using Kiadis FC21 and proprietary universal donor platforms. The trial is being conducted at the OSUCCC-James and is expected to provide valuable data to support Kiadis K-NK003 development program.

The phase I study, NCT04220684, will evaluate the NK cell product in up to 56 patients, ages 18 80 who have primary refractory AML, relapsed AML, or myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS). The goal of this study is to establish safety of the NK cell therapy for the induction of remission in patients with R/R AML or MDS and to determine the optimal dosing and overall response rate. Patients enrolled in the study will receive six doses of NK cells of 1 x 107 cells/kg to 1 x 108 cells/kg after receiving reinduction chemotherapy. The trial is expected to provide further clinical proof-of-concept of Kiadis K-NK003 product. Kiadis is supporting the Investigator-sponsored study through a collaborative research agreement with OSUCCC-James.

Sumithira Vasu, MBBS, the principal investigator of the clinical trial, hematologist and scientist, Medical Director of the Cell Therapy Lab at OSUCCC-James, and associate professor at the Ohio State College of Medicine says, This off-the-shelf universal donor NK cell therapy is an exciting new experimental treatment option for patients with R/R AML and MDS that allows us to infuse large numbers of hyperfunctional NK cells immediately when needed. Treating our first patient with this therapy is an important step in this ongoing clinical research.

Andrew Sandler, MD, chief medical officer of Kiadis commented, This trial uses a novel off-the-shelf, readily available NK cell product to treat a very sick and difficult-to-treat group of patients. We are very enthusiastic with the initiation of this trial and to be one step closer to bringing K-NK-cell therapies to a broad patient population across a potentially wide range of cancers.

Kiadis contacts

Dutch Translation/Nederlandse vertaling

Kiadis Pharma N.V. (Kiadis of de Onderneming) (Euronext Amsterdam en Brussel: KDS), een biofarmaceutisch bedrijf gericht op onderzoek in de klinische fase, en de Comprehensive Cancer Center Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital van de Ohio State University (OSUCCC-James), kondigen aan dat de eerste patint is behandeld in een fase-I klinische studie voor behandeling van patinten met recidiverende of refractaire acute myelode leukemie (R/R AML). De studie wordt uitgevoerd door de OSUCCC-James met NK-cellen geproduceerd in het Cell Therapy laboratorium aan de OSUCCC-James op basis van de Kiadis FC21- en universele-donorplatforms. De studie zal naar verwachting waardevolle gegevens leveren voor het K-NK003 product van Kiadis.

In de fase-I studie (NCT04220684) wordt het NK-celproduct gevalueerd bij maximaal 56 patinten van 18-80 jaar met primaire refractaire AML, recidiverende AML of myelodysplastische syndromen (MDS). Het doel van de studie is om veiligheid, inductie van remissie, optimale dosering en responspercentage met NK celtherapie vast te stellen bij deze patienten. Deelnemende patinten krijgen zes doseringen NK-cellen van 1 x 107 cellen/kg tot 1 x 108 cellen/kg. Kiadis ondersteunt de studie door middel van een onderzoeksovereenkomst met Ohio State University.

Dit persbericht vormt een vertaling van het gepubliceerde Engelstalige persbericht. Bij eventuele verschillen is de tekst van het Engelstalige persbericht altijd bepalend.

About Kiadis K-NK-cell Therapies Kiadis NK-cell programs consist of off-the-shelf and haplo donor cell therapy products for the treatment of liquid and solid tumors as adjunctive and stand-alone therapies.

The Companys NK-cell PM21 particle technology enables improved ex vivo expansion and activation of anti-cancer cytotoxic NK-cells supporting multiple high-dose infusions. Kiadis proprietary off-the-shelf NK-cell platform is based on NK-cells from unique universal donors. The Kiadis off-the-shelf K-NK platform can make NK-cell therapy product rapidly and economically available for a broad patient population across a potentially wide range of indications.

Kiadis is clinically developing K-NK003 for the treatment of relapse/refractory acute myeloid leukemia. The Company is also developing K-NK002, which is administered as an adjunctive immunotherapeutic on top of HSCT and provides functional, mature and potent NK-cells from a haploidentical family member. In addition, the Company has pre-clinical programs evaluating NK-cell therapy for the treatment of solid tumors.

About Relapsed/Refractory Acute Myeloid Leukemia (R/R AML) Acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) is the most common type of acute leukemia in adults and has the lowest survival rate of all leukemias. AML relapse affects nearly half of all leukemia patients who achieved remission after initial treatment and can continue to occur several months to several years after treatment with the majority of relapses occurring within two to three years of the initial treatment. Patients with relapsed or refractory leukemia have limited treatment options and poor survival rates.

The goal of treatment for acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is to put the leukemia into complete remission and to keep it that way. Unlike conventional chemotherapy options, which primarily target dividing cells, immunotherapeutic therapies aim at directing an immune response against tumor cells. Natural Killer (NK) cells are effector lymphocytes of the innate immune system capable of exerting anti-AML activity. The K-NK cell platform is a cell-based immunotherapy to treat patients with advanced blood cancer.

About KiadisFounded in 1997, Kiadis is building a fully integrated biopharmaceutical company committed to developing innovative therapies for patients with life-threatening diseases. With headquarters in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and offices and activities across the United States, Kiadis is reimagining medicine by leveraging the natural strengths of humanity and our collective immune system to source the best cells for life.

Kiadis is listed on the regulated market of Euronext Amsterdam and Euronext Brussels since July 2, 2015, under the symbol KDS. Learn more at http://www.kiadis.com.

Forward Looking Statements Certain statements, beliefs and opinions in this press release are forward-looking, which reflect Kiadis or, as appropriate, Kiadis officers current expectations and projections about future events. By their nature, forward-looking statements involve a number of known and unknown risks, uncertainties and assumptions that could cause actual results, performance, achievements or events to differ materially from those expressed, anticipated or implied by the forward-looking statements. These risks, uncertainties and assumptions could adversely affect the outcome and financial effects of the plans and events described herein. A multitude of factors including, but not limited to, changes in demand, regulation, competition and technology, can cause actual events, performance, achievements or results to differ significantly from any anticipated or implied development. Forward-looking statements contained in this press release regarding past trends or activities should not be taken as a representation that such trends or activities will continue in the future. As a result, Kiadis expressly disclaims any obligation or undertaking to release any update or revisions to any forward-looking statements in this press release as a result of any change in expectations or projections, or any change in events, conditions, assumptions or circumstances on which these forward-looking statements are based. Neither Kiadis nor its advisers or representatives nor any of its subsidiary undertakings or any such persons officers or employees guarantees that the assumptions underlying such forward-looking statements are free from errors nor does either accept any responsibility for the future accuracy of the forward-looking statements contained in this press release or the actual occurrence of the anticipated or implied developments. You should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this press release.

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Kiadis announces first patient enrolled in clinical study conducted at The Ohio State University in R/R AML with off-the-shelf K-NK cells from...

Newswise ITHACA, N.Y. When animal, insect or human embryos grow in a malnourished environment, their developing nervous systems get first pick of any available nutrients so that new neurons can be made.

In this process, called organ sparing, resources are preferentially delegated to the nervous system at the cost of less important organs or tissues.

New research now shows that developing nervous systems demonstrate this preferential growth even at the level of individual neurons. In a paper published in eLife June 22,Low FoxO expression in Drosophila somatosensory neurons protects dendrite growth under nutrient restriction,a team of Cornell researchers discovered the molecular mechanism that helps facilitate organ sparing on this cell-by-cell basis.

The phenomena we found is similar to the phenomena of the sparing of the brain, but there are very important differences, saidChun Han, senior author and a Nancy M. and Samuel C. Fleming Associate Professor in the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and in the Weill Institute for Cell and Molecular Biology. The neurons are protected at the growth level of individual neurons, and they become bigger and bigger by extending their branches.

Those branches are called dendrites. They form a system of elaborate arms that extend from neurons cellular bodies, and they can receive stimuli from the external environment.

Han and his team wanted to look at how nutrient deficiency affects the dendrite growth of individual neurons, and then examine what cellular sacrifices bodies make so that vital organs, including the brain, continue to develop.

They divided Drosophila (fruit fly) larva into groups receiving either a high- or low-yeast diet, simulating nutrient-rich and nutrient-poor environments. Then they observed how neural cells developed compared to neighboring skin cells on the body wall. They monitored the progress every 24 hours using confocal microscopy that uses lasers to light up fluorescent markers that label individual cells.

We have very beautiful markers that specifically label these populations of neurons, Han said. Every neuron is very clear to us down to every single branch.

The researchers observed that the neurons grew at a much higher rate than skin cells in the low-yeast environment. Skin cells grew faster when there was less competition for nutrients. Han and his team learned that this difference is due to a critical gene called FoxO an important regulator of cellular stress response.

FoxO is a gene thats expressed in pretty much most cells of the body, Han said. When the cells face low nutrients, FoxO puts a brake on the system and slows cell growth.

Whats particularly interesting about FoxO is that just because most cells have it, doesnt mean they all use it at the same time or under the same conditions. Hans team discovered that even during malnutrition, the Drosophila neurons expressed very little FoxO, whereas the epidermal cells expressed FoxO at much higher levels.

When there are fewer nutrients available, FoxO triggers a response in epidermal cells called autophagy, which tells the cell to self-destruct by consuming itself. However, the limited FoxO expression in neurons preserves individual neural cells and their dendrite growth.

And while humans have more complex systems than Drosophila, Han said that this research helps pave the way for investigating similar phenomenon in humans.

Our study reveals another layer of nervous system sparing under nutrient deficiency and discovers a novel mechanism by which neurons are protected. Han said. These findings may facilitate the development of better approaches to treat problems caused by malnutrition during early development.

Co-authors include Amy Poe, Ph.D. 18; graduate student Yineng Xu; Christine Zhang 19; Joyce Lei 21; Kailyn Li 17; and David Labib 20; they conducted research through theHan Labin the Weill Institute for Cell and Molecular Biology and the Department of Microbiology and Genetics. Poe is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine; Li is currently in the Doctor of Medicine Program at Weill Cornell Medicine.

This research was supported by a Cornell startup fund and two grants from the National Institutes of Health.

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Neurons thrive even when malnourished - Newswise

SAN DIEGO and CALGARY, Alberta, June 25, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Oncolytics Biotech Inc. (NASDAQ: ONCY) (TSX: ONC), today announced a new investigator-sponsored triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) study to be managed by Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey. The phase 2 trial, known as IRENE, will investigate the use of pelareorep in combination with Incyte's anti-PD-1 checkpoint inhibitor retifanlimab (INCMGA00012) in patients with unresectable locally advanced or metastatic TNBC.

"We are very excited to evaluate pelareorep in TNBC, as prior clinical data show it has the potential to address a pressing unmet need in this challenging indication," said principal investigator Mridula George, M.D., Medical Oncologist, Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey and Assistant Professor of Medicine, Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. "Checkpoint inhibitors targeting interactions between PD-L1 and PD-1, while commercially successful, are ineffective in up to 80% of TNBC patients. This is often due to an immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment. Checkpoint inhibitors are beneficial in patients who have upregulation of PD-L1 expression in the tumor environment. Clinical data show that systemic pelareorep administration can upregulate PD-L1 expression in tumors across multiple breast cancer subtypes, highlighting its potential to substantially increase the percentage of patients who respond to checkpoint inhibitor therapy. Through the IRENE study, we aim to explore how pelareorep-induced adaptive immune responses synergistically interact with PD-1 inhibition to improve patient outcomes in TNBC."

The newly announced IRENE study represents an expansion of Oncolytics' lead breast cancer program into a new disease subtype (TNBC). In addition to investigating the safety and efficacy of pelareorep-anti-PD-1 combination treatment in TNBC patients, the study will also evaluate changes in PD-L1 expression and correlations between treatment outcomes and peripheral T cell clonality, a previously identified biomarker of pelareorep response that may enable the success of future pivotal studies by facilitating the patient selection process. The trial will take place at the Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey and The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center, and is co-sponsored by Oncolytics, the Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey, and Incyte.

About IRENE

The IRENE (INCMGA00012 and the oncolytic virus pelareorep in metastatic triple-negative breast cancer) study is a single-arm, open-label, phase 2 study evaluating the combination of pelareorep and INCMGA00012 for the treatment of unresectable locally advanced or metastatic triple-negative breast cancer. The study will enroll 25 patients and will be conducted at the Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey and The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Study participants will receive pelareorep intravenously on days 1, 2, 15, and 16 of 28-day treatment cycles. INCMGA00012 will be administered on day 3 of each cycle, with treatment cycles continuing until disease progression is observed. The co-primary endpoints of the study are safety and objective response rate. Secondary endpoints include progression free survival, overall survival, and duration of response. Exploratory endpoints include peripheral T cell clonality and pre- vs. post-treatment change in tumor PD-L1 expression.

About Breast Cancer

Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women worldwide, with over two million new cases diagnosed in 2018, representing about 25 percent of all cancers in women. Incidence rates vary widely across the world, from 27 per 100,000 in Middle Africa and Eastern Asia to 85 per 100,000 in Northern America. It is the fifth most common cause of death from cancer in women globally, with an estimated 522,000 deaths.

Breast cancer starts when cells in the breast begin to grow out of control. These cells usually form a tumor that can often be seen on an x-ray or felt as a lump. The malignant tumor (cancer) is getting worse when the cells grow into (invade) surrounding tissues or spread (metastasize) to distant areas of the body.

About Pelareorep

Pelareorep is a non-pathogenic, proprietary isolate of the unmodified reovirus: a first-in-class intravenously delivered immuno-oncolytic virus for the treatment of solid tumors and hematological malignancies. The compound induces selective tumor lysis and promotes an inflamed tumor phenotype through innate and adaptive immune responses to treat a variety of cancers and has been demonstrated to be able to escape neutralizing antibodies found in patients.

About Oncolytics Biotech Inc.

Oncolytics is a biotechnology company developing pelareorep, an intravenously delivered immuno-oncolytic virus. The compound induces selective tumor lysis and promotes an inflamed tumor phenotype -- turning "cold" tumors "hot" -- through innate and adaptive immune responses to treat a variety of cancers.

Pelareorep has demonstrated synergies with immune checkpoint inhibitors and may also be synergistic with other approved immuno-oncology agents. Oncolytics is currently conducting and planning additional studies in combination with checkpoint inhibitors and targeted therapies in solid and hematological malignancies, as it prepares for a phase 3 registration study in metastatic breast cancer. For further information, please visit: http://www.oncolyticsbiotech.com.

This press release contains forward-looking statements, within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended and forward-looking information under applicable Canadian securities laws (such forward-looking statements and forward-looking information are collectively referred to herein as "forward-looking statements"). Forward-looking statements, including the Company's belief as to the potential and mode of action of pelareorep as a cancer therapeutic, the design, purpose, timing and anticipated benefits of the IRENE study; and other statements related to anticipated developments in the Company's business and technologies involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties, which could cause the Company's actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Such risks and uncertainties include, among others, the availability of funds and resources to pursue research and development projects, the efficacy of pelareorep as a cancer treatment, the success and timely completion of clinical studies and trials, the Company's ability to successfully commercialize pelareorep, uncertainties related to the research and development of pharmaceuticals, uncertainties related to the regulatory process and general changes to the economic environment. In particular, we may be impacted by business interruptions resulting from COVID-19 coronavirus, including operating, manufacturing supply chain, clinical trial and project development delays and disruptions, labour shortages, travel and shipping disruption and shutdowns (including as a result of government regulation and prevention measures). It is unknown whether and how the Company may be affected if the COVID-19 pandemic persists for an extended period of time. We may incur expenses or delays relating to such events outside of our control, which could have a material adverse impact on our business, operating results and financial condition. Investors should consult the Company's quarterly and annual filings with the Canadian and U.S. securities commissions for additional information on risks and uncertainties relating to the forward-looking statements. Investors are cautioned against placing undue reliance on forward-looking statements. The Company does not undertake to update these forward-looking statements, except as required by applicable laws.

Company ContactKirk Look, CFOOncolytics Biotech Inc.+1-403-670-7658klook@oncolytics.ca

Investor Relations for Oncolytics Timothy McCarthyLifeSci Advisors+1-212-915-2564tim@lifesciadvisors.com

View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/oncolytics-biotech-announces-investigator-sponsored-phase-2-trial-evaluating-pelareorep-anti-pd-1-combination-treatment-in-triple-negative-breast-cancer-301083401.html

SOURCE Oncolytics Biotech Inc.

Company Codes: NASDAQ-NMS:ONCY, Toronto:ONC, Dusseldorf:ONY, Frankfurt:ONYN, Munich:ONYN, Stuttgart:ONYN

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Oncolytics Biotech Announces Investigator Sponsored Phase 2 Trial Evaluating Pelareorep-anti-PD-1 Combination Treatment in Triple-Negative Breast...

Pulses of ultrasound aimed at a motion-sensitive brain area (from brown device, right) improved peoples ability to judge dots direction of motion.

By Kelly ServickJun. 24, 2020 , 1:30 PM

As a way to see inside the body, revealing a tumor or a fetus, ultrasound is tried and true. But neuroscientists have a newer ambition for the technology: tinkering with the brain. At frequencies lower than those of a sonogram but still beyond the range of human hearing, ultrasound can penetrate the skull and boost or suppress brain activity. If researchers can prove that ultrasound safely and predictably changes human brain function, it could become a powerful, noninvasive research tool and a new means of treating brain disorders.

How ultrasound works on the brain remains mysterious. But recent experiments have offered reassurance about safety, and small studies hint at meaningful effects in humansdampening pain, for example, or subtly enhancing perception. Ive seen a lot of tantalizing data, says Mark Cohen, a neuroscientist at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). While the challenges are very large, the potential of this thing is so much larger that we really have to pursue it.

Scientists can already modulate the brain noninvasively by delivering electric current or magnetic pulses across the skull. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to treat depression, migraine pain, and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).

But unlike magnetic or electric fields,sound waves can be focusedlike light through a magnifying glasson a point deep in the brain without affecting shallower tissue. For now, that combination of depth and focus is possible only with a surgically implanted wire. But ultrasound could temporarily disrupt a deep human brain regionthe almond-shaped amygdala, a driver of emotional responses, for example, or the thalamus, a relay station for pain and regulator of alertnessto test its function or treat disease.

Results in animals are encouraging. Experiments in the 1950s first showed ultrasound waves could suppress neural activity in a visual region of the cat brain. In rodents, aiming ultrasound at motor regions has triggered movements such as a twitch of a paw or whisker. And focusing it on a frontal region of monkey brains can change how the animals perform at eye movement tasks.

But its technically tricky to aim ultrasound through thick, dense skull bone and to show its energy has landed at the intended point. And ultrasounds effects on the brain can be hard to predict. How much it boosts or suppresses neural activity depends on many parameters, including the timing and intensity of ultrasound pulses, and even characteristics of the targeted neurons themselves. I have tremendous excitement about the potential, says Sarah Hollingsworth Lisanby, a psychiatrist at the National Institute of Mental Health who studies noninvasive neuromodulation. We also need to acknowledge that theres a lot we have to learn, she says.

For one thing, researchers are largely in the dark about how sound waves and brain cells interact. Thats the million-dollar question in this field, says Mikhail Shapiro, a biochemical engineer at the California Institute of Technology. At high intensities, ultrasound can heat up and kill brain cellsa feature neurosurgeons have exploited to burn away sections of brain responsible for tremors.

Even at intensities that dont significantly increase temperature, ultrasound exerts a mechanical force on cells. Some studies suggest this force alters ion channels on neurons, changing the cells likelihood of firing a signal to neighbors. If ultrasound works primarily via ion channels, Thats great news, Shapiro says, because that means we can look at where those channels are expressed and make some predictions about what cell types will be excited. In a preprint on bioRxiv last month, Shapiros team reported that exposing mouse neurons in a dish to ultrasound opens a particular set of calcium ion channels to render certain cells more excitable.

But these channels alone wont explain ultrasounds effects, says Seung-Schik Yoo, a neuroscientist at Harvard University. He notes that ultrasound also appears to affect receptors on nonneuronal brain cells called glia. Its very hard to [develop] any unifying theory about the exact mechanism of ultrasound, he says.

Regardless of mechanism, ultrasound is starting to show clear, if subtle, effects in humans. In 2014, a team at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University showed focused ultrasound could increase electrical activity in a sensory processing region of the human brain and improve participants ability to discern the number of points being touched on their fingers. Neurologist Christopher Butler at the University of Oxford and colleagues have tested ultrasound during a more complex sensory task: judging the motion of drifting, jiggling dots on a screen. Last month at the Cognitive Neuroscience Societys annual meeting online, he reported that stimulating a motion-processing visual region called MT improved subjects ability to judge which way the majority of the dots drifted.

Ultrasounds effects have so far been subtler than those of TMS, says Mark George, a psychiatrist at the Medical University of South Carolina, who helped develop and refine that technology. With TMS, you put it on your head and turn it on and your thumb moves, he says. But the ultrasound experiments that prompted paw twitches in mice used intensities so, so, so much higher than what were being allowed to use in humans.

Regulators have limited human studies in part because ultrasound has the potential to cook the brain or cause damage through cavitationthe creation of tiny bubbles in tissue. In 2015, Yoo and colleagues found microbleeds, a sign of blood vessel damage, in sheep brains repeatedly exposed to ultrasound. This was a huge speed bump, says Kim Butts Pauly, a biophysicist at Stanford University. But in February in Brain Stimulation, her group reported microbleeds in control animals as well, suggesting this damage might result from dissection of the brains. Butts Pauly and Yoo now say theyre confident the technology can be used safely.

Cohen and collaborators recently tested safety in people by aiming ultrasound at regions slated for surgical removal to treat epilepsy. With FDAs OK, they used intensities up to eight times as high as the limit for diagnostic ultrasound. As they reported in a preprint on medRxiv in April, they found no significant damage to brain tissue or blood vessels. However, to find the limit of safety, researchers will likely need to go all the way to levels that damage tissue, Cohen says.

Several teams are cautiously moving into tests of ultrasound as treatment. In 2016, UCLA neuroscientist Martin Monti and colleagues reported that a man in a minimally conscious state regained consciousness following ultrasound stimulation of his thalamus. Monti is preparing a publication on a follow-up study of three people with chronically impaired states of consciousness. After ultrasound, they showed increased responsiveness over a period of daysmuch faster than expected, Monti says, although the study included no control group.

That research and the tests in epilepsy patients used an ultrasound device developed by BrainSonix Corporation. Its founder, UCLA neuropsychiatrist Alexander Bystritsky, hopes ultrasound can disrupt neural circuits that drive symptoms of OCD. A team at Massachusetts General Hospital and Baylor College of Medicine is planning a study in humans using the BrainSonix device, he says.

Columbia University biomedical engineer Elisa Konofagou hopes to use ultrasound to treat Alzheimers disease. Before COVID-19 interrupted participant recruitment, she and colleagues were preparing a pilot study to inject tiny gas-filled bubbles into the bloodstream of six people with Alzheimers and use pulses of ultrasound to oscillate the microbubbles in blood vessels lining the brain. The mechanical force of those vibrations can temporarily pull apart the cells lining these vessels. The researchers hope opening this blood-brain barrier will help the brain clear toxic proteins. (Konofagous team and others are also exploring this ultrasound-microbubble combination to deliver drugs to the brain.)

In his first test of ultrasound after years of studying TMS, George looked to reduce pain. His team applied increasing heat to the arms of 19 participants, who tended to become more sensitive over repeated tests, reporting pain at lower temperatures by the last test. But if, between the first and last test, they had pulses of ultrasound aimed at the thalamus, their pain threshold dipped half as much. This is definitely a double green light to keep pursuing the technology, George says.

George regularly treats depressed patients with TMS and has seen the technology save lives. But everybody wonders if we could go deep with a different technologythat would be a game changer, he says. Ultrasound holds that promise, but the question is can it really deliver?

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Aiming ultrasound at the brain raises hope of new treatments - Science Magazine

It was once thought that the fat cell was fairly inactive, but we suspect that its active and controls a lot more than previously thought, says Niklas Mejhert, co-senior author of the paper and joint group leader with Rydn at the Department of Medicine, Huddinge, Karolinska Institutet. If we can regulate the accumulation of fat in a more controlled way, it could bring huge advantages.

The results of the study, which explain why adipose tissue becomes less effective and how lipolysis declines with age, are of interest to the efforts being made to find future treatments able to improve the function of adipose tissue.

We now plan to examine how different cells within the fat tissue are affected by age, continues Rydn. This is particularly interesting when it comes to stem cells, which have the unique and important ability to renew themselves and repair injury. Its something were keen to follow up on.

The study was conducted with grants from the Karolinska Institutet Strategic Research Programme in Diabetes, the Knut & Alice Wallenberg Foundation, the Swedish Research Council and the Novo Nordisk Foundation.

Age-Induced Reduction in Human Lipolysis: A Potential Role for Adipocyte Noradrenaline Degradation, Hui Gao, Peter Amer, Gallic Beauchef, Christelle Guere, Katell Vie, Ingrid Dahlman, Niklas Mejhert and Mikael Rydn. Cell Metabolism, online June 25, 2020, doi: 10.1016/j.cmet.2020.06.007

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Study gives insights into how human fat cells are affected by age - Mirage News