Boston-based Alexion Pharmaceuticals announced positive topline data from the company’s Phase III trial of Ultomiris (ravulizumab-cwvz) in adults with generalized myasthenia gravis.

A study from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai shows how cancer can fool immune cells, which normally repair the body, into actually helping develop the disease. 

UK researchers led by a group at Newcastle University identified a gene, HLA-DRB1*04:01, which was three times more common in asymptomatic Covid-19 patients than in people with symptomatic disease. The research was published in the journal HLA.

Nanobiotix is developing a way for the company’s locally injected radioenhancer for solid tumors to treat metastasized cancers, in combination with checkpoint inhibitors, and also deliver results distally.

Novel coronavirus

Current guidelines for screening U.S. blood donors for symptoms of COVID-19 and for a history of recent infections are effectively protecting the blood supply from contamination with the new coronavirus, researchers say.

Months after recovery from mild Covid-19 – when antibody levels in the blood have declined – immune cells in bone marrow remain ready to pump out new antibodies against the coronavirus, researchers reported on May 24 in Nature. And according to a new U.S. study, young children appear to be significant carriers of more contagious variants of the new coronavirus, such as the ones identified in the UK and in California.

The first study to directly compare immune reactions between Pfizer’s and AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccines found strong and broadly similar antibody responses in over-80-year-olds after a first dose of either shot, scientists said on April 14.

Eleven months after launching with $60 million in hand, Ventus Therapeutics raised another $100 million to drive the company’s pipeline toward the clinic.

Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR-T) therapy is one of the biggest cancer therapy breakthroughs of our time, but as with any precise science, there is still some fine-tuning to be done to overcome safety risks, limited payload capacity and the prohibitive cost of manufacturing.

Novel coronavirus

A critical component of the immune system known as T cells that respond to fight infection from the original version of the novel coronavirus appear to also protect against three of the most concerning new virus variants, according to a U.S. laboratory study released on March 30.