Markus Branse has added a photo to the pool:
Dusk, Litchfield Park Road, Northern Territory, Australia
NBC News reports on a 16-person clinical trial of "personalized messenger RNA vaccines" which use the immune system to fight cancer cells. "The goal is not to eliminate existing tumors, but instead to stamp out lingering, undetected cancer cells, and later any new cells that form before they can cause a recurrence."
Patients still have surgery to remove tumors. After that, the mRNA vaccines are personalized for each individual using genetic material taken from their unique tumor cells. In the clinical trial, after getting the vaccine, the patients also received chemotherapy, which is standard post-op treatment for operable pancreatic cancer... [The article notes that less than 13% of people diagnosed with pancreatic cancer live for more than five years, making it "one of the deadliest cancers."]
[E]xperts have long believed that people with pancreatic cancer could not generate an immune response against tumors. But after nine doses of the personalized vaccine, [clinical trial participant Donna] Gustafson is one of eight people in the 16-person Phase 1 trial who did just that, producing an army of immune cells called T cells that seek out and destroy tumor cells... [Dr. Vinod Balachandran, a vaccine center director who is leading the trial, said] it was unclear whether the immune response would last and lead to the patients living longer... New data collected during the trial's six-year follow-up period shows that it may. Those findings will be presented Monday at the American Association for Cancer Research's annual meeting in San Diego. Six years after treatment, Gustafson and six others who responded to the treatment are still alive...
More research is still needed. Genentech and BioNTech, the two drugmakers behind the vaccine, have already launched a larger Phase 2 clinical trial... Another team is working on an off-the-shelf vaccine that targets a protein called KRAS that is present in as many as 90% of pancreatic cancers. In a small, early trial, about 85% of the participants mounted an immune response to the protein.
Patients still have surgery to remove tumors. After that, the mRNA vaccines are personalized for each individual using genetic material taken from their unique tumor cells. In the clinical trial, after getting the vaccine, the patients also received chemotherapy, which is standard post-op treatment for operable pancreatic cancer... [The article notes that less than 13% of people diagnosed with pancreatic cancer live for more than five years, making it "one of the deadliest cancers."]
[E]xperts have long believed that people with pancreatic cancer could not generate an immune response against tumors. But after nine doses of the personalized vaccine, [clinical trial participant Donna] Gustafson is one of eight people in the 16-person Phase 1 trial who did just that, producing an army of immune cells called T cells that seek out and destroy tumor cells... [Dr. Vinod Balachandran, a vaccine center director who is leading the trial, said] it was unclear whether the immune response would last and lead to the patients living longer... New data collected during the trial's six-year follow-up period shows that it may. Those findings will be presented Monday at the American Association for Cancer Research's annual meeting in San Diego. Six years after treatment, Gustafson and six others who responded to the treatment are still alive...
More research is still needed. Genentech and BioNTech, the two drugmakers behind the vaccine, have already launched a larger Phase 2 clinical trial... Another team is working on an off-the-shelf vaccine that targets a protein called KRAS that is present in as many as 90% of pancreatic cancers. In a small, early trial, about 85% of the participants mounted an immune response to the protein.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Thomas Hawk posted a photo:
SOFIA (ANP/BLOOMBERG) - Voormalig president Rumen Radev, die zich verzet tegen sancties tegen Rusland en militaire steun aan Oekraïne, heeft de overwinning geclaimd in de Bulgaarse parlementsverkiezingen. Hij beloofde vernieuwing na jaren van politieke impasse en corruptie.
Bij de achtste algemene verkiezingen van het land sinds 2021 stevent Radevs partij, Progressief Bulgarije, af op een absolute meerderheid met 129 zetels in het 240 zetels tellende parlement, zo blijkt uit een prognose van peilingsbureau Alpha Research. Radev ligt op koers om 44 procent van de stemmen te behalen. Daarmee ligt hij 30 procentpunten voor op zijn naaste uitdager, voormalig premier Bojko Borissov, die zijn nederlaag heeft erkend.
"Progressief Bulgarije wint ondubbelzinnig", zei de 62-jarige Radev tegen verslaggevers in Sofia nadat de prognoses waren gepubliceerd. "Dit is een overwinning van hoop op wantrouwen. Dit is een overwinning van vrijheid op angst. En ten slotte is dit een overwinning, als ik dat zo mag zeggen, van de moraal."
Hongarije
Radev trad in januari af als staatshoofd om deel te nemen aan de verkiezingen, nadat een golf van demonstraties een coalitie onder leiding van Borissovs partij GERB ten val had gebracht. Met de belofte om de strijd aan te binden met wat hij een corrupte elite noemde, vergaarde hij steun vanuit het gehele politieke spectrum. Hij deed dit met beloften de rechterlijke macht te hervormen, de inkomens van kiezers uit de arbeidersklasse te verhogen en bruggen te slaan naar het Kremlin.
Met de nederlaag van Viktor Orbán in Hongarije, een week geleden, heeft het Kremlin net zijn belangrijkste bondgenoot binnen de EU verloren. Het is onduidelijk of Radev zal proberen de nadruk van het EU-beleid te verleggen richting Moskou. Hij heeft ook verklaard dat hij de EU en de NAVO wil versterken.
Trump says cargo ship tried to get past US naval blockade near strait of Hormuz ‘and it did not go well for them’
The US military took custody of an Iranian-flagged container ship that attempted to get past an American blockade near the strait of Hormuz, Donald Trump announced on Sunday.
In a social media post, Trump said that an “Iranian-flagged cargo ship named TOUSKA” tried to get past the US naval blockade, “and it did not go well for them”.
Continue reading...Reported response comes hours after Trump announced delegation to Islamabad, having earlier threatened to raze Iran’s infrastructure
Tehran is not currently planning to take part in new talks with the US, Iran state media reported on Sunday evening, hours after Donald Trump said he was dispatching negotiators to Islamabad.
“There are currently no plans to participate in the next round of Iran-US talks,” state broadcaster IRIB said, citing Iranian sources.
Continue reading...
In The Music Video Is Dead, Long Live The Music Video, Patrick (H) Willems explores the history of music videos, how important they were both to culture and to film, and performs a bit of a eulogy to an art form which used to command millions of dollars and today continues is a greatly diminished form. ~1hour
