As current staging systems for cancer are typically found through anatomical evaluations of the disease, stratification of patients for treatment and further therapy strategies prove difficult. Much potential remains in cancer biomarker research for the identification of prognostic gene expression signatures capable of classifying tumor subgroups via their biological counterparts. With the advancements in genomic and transcriptomic technologies, researchers are making great discoveries in cancer biomarkers for detection, prediction of therapeutic response and prognoses of cancer. Recent research highlights a new cuproptosis (copper-induced death) related immune checkpoint gene signature recently investigated as a potential biomarker for anticancer therapy for hepatocellular carcinoma.
For past decades, the treatment of cancer has generally meant surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, or a combination of the above. Through recent work from a collaboration of researchers from the University of Rhode Island and Yale University comes the promising new approach of delivering immunotherapy agents, STING agonists, via a cancer-seeking molecular delivery system. The delivery relies on the acid-seeking molecule- pHLIP. These molecules deliver cargo directly to the tumor environment via targeting of the high acidity of cancerous tumors. Through this novel drug delivery technique, cancer immunotherapy may become even more effective.
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Lab members gathered on a sunny July afternoon for the annual VIC at Myopia Polo event alongside VIC friends and family. Cocktails and hors d’ oeuvre’s were enjoyed while socializing and watching the competitive tournament play.
Liam Dwyer was presented with the Will Tankard Scholar Award as the most dedicated young scientist at VIC in 2022. This award is given out in memory of a courageous young polo player dedicated to improving his craft.
Lab members took the opportunity to gather for a pot luck picnic with many members contributing delightful homemade treats representative of their home countries.
VIC hosted six undergraduate student interns this summer
Alice Barocco and Jacob Smith came from Imperial College, London. The Professor Dulcie Coleman Endowed Student Training Award is sponsored by Dr. Mark Poznansky in memory of his mother who was an eminent research scientist at Imperial College. This is a competitive application process and the top two students were both given the award this year.
James Adeosun came from Clare College, Cambridge University, where Dr. Poznansky studied for his PhD.. A top student is selected internally and interviewed and approved by Dr. Poznansky.
Saumya Maheshwari came from Edinburgh University Medical School. Dr. Poznansky gained his undergraduate and medical degrees at this institution. This is the first year this program has been implemented and there was an overwhelming number of applications.
Katie Lu is an undergraduate at Stamford University and successfully applied for the Vaccine and Immunotherapy Center Summer Research Studentship Program.
Jolade Adebekun is an undergraduate at Harvard University and joined us at VIC though the Summer Research Training Program (SRTP) organized by the Center for Diversity and Inclusion at MGH.
All of the students join us for a period of 12 weeks and are mentored by VIC Principal Investigators and Senior Scientists and have the opportunity to contribute to relevant ongoing research studies and to be included on the resulting publications. This has been a highly motivated group who have integrated into the lab exceptionally well over the summer and it has been a pleasure to spend time with them.
Publication in Cancer Cell: Precise reconstruction of the TME using bulk RNA-seq and a machine learning algorithm trained on artificial transcriptomes.
This manuscript was written with colleagues from across countries and institutions with major contributions from Vic’s scientists, Susan Raju Paul and Patrick Reeves.
The Vaccine and Immunotherapy Center, MGH (Charlestown, MA) and the Division of Thoracic Surgery, MGH (Boston, MA) collaborated with an external industry partner, BostonGene Corporation (Waltham, MA) to assist in validating a new proprietary RNA-Seq deconvolution algorithm, Kassandra, which has a potential for future clinical application. The manuscript detailing the work was published in Cancer Cell in August 2022. This project was led by Dr Mark Poznansky, along with VIC Scientists Dr Susan Raju Paul and Dr Patrick Reeves, in collaboration with Dr Michael Lanuti and the team at MGH Thoracic Surgery.
Publication in Frontiers in Immunology: Evaluation of a Human T Cell-Targeted Multi-Epitope Vaccine for Q Fever in Animal Models of Coxiella burnetti Immunity.
Ann Sluder and Mark Poznansky are first and last authors with major contributions from Christine Rollier and the team at Epivax as well as contributions from the Oxford Vaccine Group and colleagues at Colorado State University.
