Dual immunotherapy plus chemotherapy before surgery improves patient outcomes in operable lung cancer

Tina Cascone, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of Thoracic/Head & Neck Medical Oncology
Photo Credit: Courtesy of University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center

In a Phase II trial led by researchers from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, adding ipilimumab to a neoadjuvant, or pre-surgical, combination of nivolumab plus platinum-based chemotherapy, resulted in a major pathologic response (MPR) in half of all treated patients with early-stage, resectable non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

New findings from the NEOSTAR trial, published today in Nature Medicine, provide further support for neoadjuvant immunotherapy-based treatment as an approach to reduce viable tumor at surgery and to improve outcomes in NSCLC. The combination also was associated with an increase in immune cell infiltration and a favorable gut microbiome composition.

The current study reports on the latest two arms of the NEOSTAR trial, evaluating neoadjuvant nivolumab plus chemotherapy (double combination) and neoadjuvant ipilimumab plus nivolumab and chemotherapy (triple combination). Both treatment arms met their prespecified primary endpoint boundaries of six or more patients achieving MPR, defined as 10% or less residual viable tumor (RVT) in the resected tumor specimen at surgery, a candidate surrogate endpoint of improved survival outcomes from prior studies.

Climate change creates ‘win-win’ between bald eagles and farmers

Bald eagle
Photo Credit: Brian E. Kushner/Lab of Ornithology 

As they seek new foods because climate change has altered their traditional diet of salmon carcasses, bald eagles in northwestern Washington state have become a boon to dairy farmers, deterring pests and removing animal carcasses from their farms, a new study finds.

The mutually beneficial relationship is described in “A Win-Win Between Farmers and an Apex Predator: Investigating the Relationship Between Bald Eagles and Dairy Farms,” which published March 10 in the journal Ecosphere.

“The narrative around birds of prey and farmers has traditionally been negative and combative, mainly due to claims of livestock predation,” said lead author Ethan Duvall, a doctoral student in ecology and evolutionary biology. “However, dairy farmers in northwestern Washington do not consider the eagles threats. In fact, many farmers appreciate the services that the eagles provide such as carcass removal and pest-deterrence.”

Plants adapt to climate disruptions to lure pollinators

Morning glory flowers at U-M’s Matthaei Botanical Gardens.
Photo Credit: Malia Santos

There’s been a well-documented shift toward earlier springtime flowering in many plants as the world warms. The trend alarms biologists because it has the potential to disrupt carefully choreographed interactions between plants and the creatures—butterflies, bees, birds, bats and others—that pollinate them.

But much less attention has been paid to changes in other floral traits, such as flower size, that can also affect plant-pollinator interactions, at a time when many insect pollinators are in global decline.

In a study published online in the journal Evolution Letters, two University of Michigan biologists and a University of Georgia colleague show that wild populations of the common morning glory in the southeastern United States increased the size of their flowers between 2003 and 2012.

Increased flower size suggests a greater investment by the plants in pollinator attraction, according to the researchers. The changes were most pronounced at more northern latitudes, in line with a broad range of previous work showing that northern plant populations tend to show more dramatic evolutionary responses to climate change.

Known active ingredient as new drug candidate against “monkeypox”

Mpox Virus
Image Credit: Samuel F. Johanns

Mpox – previously known as "monkeypox" – is currently spreading worldwide. An international research team from Goethe University and the University of Kent has now identified a compound that could help fight the disease. Their study has been published in the “Journal of Medical Virology". 

Nitroxoline is the name of the new drug candidate that could potentially be used to treat mpox. It was identified by scientists at Goethe University and the University of Kent as part of a multi-site study. The results of their research will now allow clinical trials to begin soon. 

The current mpox outbreak is the first of this size to occur outside of Africa and also the first mpox outbreak caused by human-to-human transmission. People with immunodeficiencies are particularly at risk from the disease. Although antiviral agents have already been shown to inhibit the replication of the mpox virus in experimental models, the efficacy of these substances has not yet been confirmed in humans and some may have significant side effects. In addition, there are insufficient stocks to treat all mpox patients. Moreover, resistance formation against tecovirimat, the most promising mpox drug candidate to date, has already been reported. 

Forensic Study Sheds Light on the Remains of Infants, Children

Photo Credit: Kat Wilcox

A new forensic science study sheds light on how the bones of infants and juveniles decay. The findings will help forensic scientists determine how long a young person’s remains were at a particular location, as well as which bones are best suited for collecting DNA and other tissue samples that can help identify the deceased.

“Crimes against children are truly awful, and all too common,” says Ann Ross, co-author of the study and a professor of biological sciences at North Carolina State University. “It is important to be able to identify their remains and, when possible, understand what happened to them. However, there is not much research on how the bones of infants and children break down over time. Our work here is a significant contribution that will help the medical legal community bring some closure to these young people and, hopefully, a measure of justice.”

For this study, the researchers used the remains of domestic pigs, which are widely used as an analogue for human remains in forensic research. Specifically, the researchers used the remains of 31 pigs, ranging in size from 1.8 kilograms (4 pounds) to 22.7 kilograms (50 pounds). The smaller remains served as surrogates for infant humans, up to one year old. The larger remains served as surrogates for children between the ages of one and nine.

Low-cost device can measure air pollution anywhere

MIT researchers have made an open-source version of the “City Scanner” mobile pollution detector that lets people check air quality anywhere, cheaply. Pictured are some examples of the latest version of the device, called Flatburn, as well as a researcher attaching a prototype to a car.
Image Credits: Courtesy of the researchers. Edited by MIT News
(CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)

Air pollution is a major public health problem: The World Health Organization has estimated that it leads to over 4 million premature deaths worldwide annually. Still, it is not always extensively measured. But now an MIT research team is rolling out an open-source version of a low-cost, mobile pollution detector that could enable people to track air quality more widely.

The detector, called Flatburn, can be made by 3D printing or by ordering inexpensive parts. The researchers have now tested and calibrated it in relation to existing state-of-the-art machines, and are publicly releasing all the information about it — how to build it, use it, and interpret the data.

“The goal is for community groups or individual citizens anywhere to be able to measure local air pollution, identify its sources, and, ideally, create feedback loops with officials and stakeholders to create cleaner conditions,” says Carlo Ratti, director of MIT’s Senseable City Lab. 

“We’ve been doing several pilots around the world, and we have refined a set of prototypes, with hardware, software, and protocols, to make sure the data we collect are robust from an environmental science point of view,” says Simone Mora, a research scientist at Senseable City Lab and co-author of a newly published paper detailing the scanner’s testing process. The Flatburn device is part of a larger project, known as City Scanner, using mobile devices to better understand urban life.

QUT rock stars solve long-standing diamond conundrum

Professor Balz Kamber and Carl Walsh
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Queensland University of Technology

Two QUT researchers have used a standard laptop computer and a humble piece of rock - from the ‘waste pile’ of a diamond mine - to solve a long-held geological conundrum about how diamonds formed in the deep roots of the earth’s ancient continents.

The paper Deep, ultra-hot-melting residues as cradles of mantle diamond has been published in the prestigious academic journal Nature by lead author QUT PhD student Carl Walsh, along with QUT Professor Balz Kamber and Emma Tomlinson from Trinity College, Ireland.

Mr. Walsh said the study, for his MSc research, involved computer modelling on a rock from the African continent and recovered from the bottom of the lithosphere, the outer part of the Earth between about 30km and 250km below the surface.

Mr. Walsh said the dominant part of a continent was the part that you never see. 

“If you think of an iceberg – the visible part – if you just had an iceberg floating on the ocean surface it would tip over like a boat. This is like the keel of an iceberg,” Mr. Walsh said.

Prenatal cigarette, cannabis exposure may have associations with childhood obesity

Photo Credit: Neal E. Johnson

Childhood obesity rates continue to rise in the United States, putting kids at risk for asthma, sleep apnea, type 2 diabetes, and other health conditions. Children prenatally exposed to both tobacco and cannabis had a 12 times higher risk for obesity by middle childhood (9–12 years of age) compared to non-exposed children, according to recent research, although more research is needed to determine if other factors account for these findings.

Rina Das Eiden, professor of psychology and Social Science Research Institute (SSRI) cofounded faculty member at Penn State, and Kai Ling Kong, associate professor of pediatrics at Children’s Mercy Hospital Kansas City and the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine, began collaborating on the project when they were colleagues at the University of Buffalo, along with co-lead Payanotis Thanos, senior research scientist, and a team of collaborators.

“Two of the most commonly used substances during pregnancy are cigarettes and cannabis, and they are often used together,” said Eiden. “While we know about the risks of prenatal tobacco exposure and child obesity, less is known about co-exposure to tobacco and cannabis. We wanted to examine a potential relationship between prenatal co-exposure and obesity risk from birth to middle childhood.”

Humans are altering the diet of Tasmanian devils, which may accelerate their decline

The researchers investigated the diets of devils from habitats of differing levels of disturbance.
Photo Credit: Ariana Ananda.

New research shows how human-modified landscapes affect the diets of these marsupial scavengers.

The Tasmanian devil roams the island state of Australia as the apex predator of the land, feeding on whatever it pleases as the top dog – or the top devil. But some of these marsupial scavengers could be starting to miss out on a few items from the menu.

According to a study led by UNSW Sydney, living in human-modified landscapes could be narrowing the diet of the Tasmanian devil. The research, published recently in Scientific Reports, suggests devils have access to vastly different cuisines depending on the type of environment they live in.

“We found Tasmanian devil populations had different levels of variation in their diet depending on their habitat,” says Anna Lewis, a PhD candidate at UNSW Science and lead author of the study. “The more that habitat was impacted by humans, the more restrictive the diet became.”

A previous study by the team found most devils are individual specialists, feeding on the same food items consistently over time. But human impacts could be influencing whether they have access to their favorite foods.

“How humans change the environment impacts the animals within them,” says Professor Tracey Rogers, an ecologist at UNSW Science and senior author of the study. “Even small changes can have significant consequences for devils, so we need to be mindful of the consequences of our actions.”

Maintaining heart function in donors declared ‘dead by circulatory criteria’ could improve access to heart transplantation

More donated hearts could be suitable for transplantation if they are kept functioning within the body for a short time following the death of the donor, new research has concluded.
Photo Credit: Wagner

The organs are kept functioning by restarting local circulation to the heart, lungs and abdominal organs – but, crucially, not to the brain – of patients whose hearts have stopped beating for five minutes or longer and have been declared dead by circulatory criteria (donation after circulatory death, or DCD).

It is hoped that this technique could increase the number of usable donated hearts by as much as 30% in the future, helping address the shortage of transplant organs. In 2021, 8,409 heart transplants were reported to the Global Observatory on Donation and Transplantation (GODT) by 54 countries. This activity is in contrast with the 21,935 patients who were on a heart waiting list during the year 2021, of whom 1,511 died while waiting and many others became too sick to receive a transplant.

John Louca, a final year medical student at Gonville & Caius College, University of Cambridge, and the study’s first author, said: “Heart transplants are the last bastion for patients with end-stage heart failure. They are successful – patients who receive a transplant live on average a further 13 to 16 years. The biggest problem they face is actually getting access to a donated heart: many patients will die before an organ becomes available. That’s why we urgently need to find ways to increase the suitability of donor organs.”