Ventus Therapeutics, which is developing therapies aimed at diseases of the innate immune system, closed a $140 million Series C financing round that will be used to drive three lead programs into the clinic during 2022.
A new variant of HIV was recently discovered in Europe that is more contagious and more deadly – the virus degrades the immune system into AIDS twice as fast as previous strains.
While food shortage and malnutrition have been a common scenario throughout human history, the worldwide public health crisis caused by the epidemic of obesity is relatively recent.
Scientists believe that Alzheimer’s disease is a potential cause of not just beta-amyloid accumulation, but also immune system dysfunction.
A COVID-19 vaccine that can be produced locally in low-income and middle-income countries is yielding promising results in early clinical trials, researchers say. Other researchers believe that once the body has been “primed” by mRNA vaccines to recognize and attack the coronavirus, a booster containing purified versions of virus’ spike protein that could be given intranasally would have many advantages.
Researchers studying Merck & Co. Inc.’s cancer drug Keytruda for HIV patients who also have cancer say the immunotherapy may help displace the virus from human immune cells, offering an intriguing area of study for treatment of chronic HIV infection.
Prellis Biologics entered into a multi-target drug discovery collaboration and licensing agreement with Bristol Myers Squibb utilizing the Bay Area biotechnology company’s first-in-class externalized human immune system (EXIS) based on human lymph node organoids (LNO).
Coronavirus vaccines are known to be less protective in people with the blood cancer multiple myeloma, such as former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, who died on Oct. 18 of complications from Covid-19 despite being fully vaccinated. Additionally, in a paper in the journal Stem Cell Reports, researchers said numerous businesses have made unsubstantiated and inaccurate claims about supposed stem cell products to treat Covid-19.
AstraZeneca requested emergency use authorization from U.S. regulators for the company’s new treatment to prevent Covid-19 for people who respond poorly to vaccines because of a weakened immune system.
A protein called CD47 that helps damaged cells avoid destruction by the immune system may be contributing to severe cases of Covid-19, researchers suggested in a report. In other news, Gilead Sciences Inc.’s intravenous antiviral drug remdesivir helped keep high-risk Covid-19 patients out of the hospital in a randomized trial.