Alper Tunga Özdemir

someday, all problems will be solved by the immunology

[Alper Tunga Özdemir @atorbo]

I proudly present our latest work. I know it's not a Covid-19 study, but it has great results for those wondering about a potential treatment approach for refractory chronic spontaneous urticaria patients. https://t.co/vsddm1HasT

[Waggoner Lab @LabWaggoner]

Long-term outcomes of anti-CD19 CAR T cell therapy in refractory myasthenia gravis: A case series @CellRepMed @aiden_haghikia
https://t.co/biAULUyz9E

[Waggoner Lab @LabWaggoner]

Immunotherapy of malignant melanoma using T cell–activating microbeads @J_Immunol
https://t.co/SfqVu21UHr 🇩🇪

[Derya Unutmaz, MD @DeryaTR_]

This is great news, though not a surprise to me & only the beginning. BioNTech has advanced mRNA trials for several cancers including lung & pancreas. Once we educate the immune system to recognize cancer cells, while more difficult than pathogens, they can eliminate the threat.

[Alper Tunga Özdemir @atorbo]

It seems that autoimmunity and cancer have finally found common ground.

https://t.co/9mATFN8bXL

[Eric Kernfeld @ekernf01]

"Is it functionally a B cell, or a T cell?"
"Yes."
https://t.co/IV3mrP7q66

[Waggoner Lab @LabWaggoner]

Development of a 3-day manufacturing method to generate CD19-CD20-CD22 trispecific CAR T-cells from whole blood
https://t.co/Jw1N5Bai32

[Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer @jitcancer]

New #JITC article: "Chimeric switch scaffold protein augments CAR synapse formation and signaling networks" https://t.co/TQFZUHcLnO

[Derya Unutmaz, MD @DeryaTR_]

It is now conceivable that we might achieve biosingularity much earlier than I had predicted 20 years ago (circa 2040s). I had coined this term for a time when we will be able to completely engineer and reengineer biological systems and even create new organisms and functions.

[Waggoner Lab @LabWaggoner]

Trogocytosis acts as a conduit for the tumor-induced transfer of vimentin and exhaustion of NK cells
https://t.co/PdofI2OKLx

[Delgoffe Lab @DelgoffeLab]

Another PSA: the ludicrous $300B reparation package for the war we didn’t need to start to open a strait that was already open could fund the ENTIRE NIH for 9 years. 9 years of scientific innovation, progress, medicines, insights, even just curiosity and understanding. For what?!

[Nature Biomedical Engineering @natBME]

Programmable mRNA 3′UTR engineering restores MHC-I and overcomes immune evasion in prostate cancer https://t.co/sVE6PIclWt

[Yumeng Zhang @yumengzhang99]

Excited to share our new preprint @supercs08 :

We present TCRDiff, a conditional diffusion model for generating antigen-specific TCRs, moving beyond prediction and toward controllable design of TCRs with specificity and functional potential.

Read more: https://t.co/SXVCPZwR0e

[Joe Sabatino @jsabatino37]

Excited to be presenting our recent work. A big thank you to @hashemkoohy for the invitation!

Free registration: https://t.co/FWlMCcqgwx

[OxASN: The Oxford Antigen Specificity Network @Ox_T_Cell_ASN]

I will be delighted hosting @jsabatino37 , please register to reserve your attendance,

[Waggoner Lab @LabWaggoner]

Preprint: A trispecific DNA-origami engager programs immunological synapse architecture for B-cell elimination in rheumatoid arthritis
https://t.co/UVpNwiFFW6 🇨🇳

[Alper Tunga Özdemir @atorbo]

@anthonystaj Oh, I see 😅

[Eric Topol @EricTopol]

A life-threatening inherited disease, hereditary angioedema, with striking benefit from one-shot CRISPR genome editing.
Phase 3 randomized, double-blind trial results @NEJM today
https://t.co/pT4fVgZcNP

[Anthony @anthonystaj]

another cancer vaccine failure. let's review

1. does the neoantigen get trafficked to professional antigen presenting cells (pAPCs)? probably yes.
2. does the pAPC present the **correct** peptide on its surface while in an MHC complex? is that geometry the same as the neoantigen on the surface of the cancer cell?
3. assuming 1&2 are true, is this presentation generalizable across a clearly defined patient population? or will patient HLA allele heterogeneity lead to a muted clinical trial response?

probably this vaccine failed because of 2 and 3. I'll take them at face value that the albumin hitchhiking MoA works. but the word "correct" is really asking whether the vaccine can successfully recapitulate the context and geometry of the neoantigen via pMHC on the t-cell. if not, it's not correct. and the HLA allele point is really important because the MHC complex itself can vary so much between individuals and change the geometry from another angle outside of the peptide. none of these vaccines have been able to bias the clonal t-cell population towards pMHCs that actually kill cancer. you might get some that present the right pMHC, but they don't become immunodominant, and so the pharmacodynamics don't add up enough to effectively kill the cancer unless you're lucky.

straddling the line between proper pMHC presentation and mounting a robust immune response that actually kills cancer cells is basically like getting to the summit of one of these mountains no one has ever climbed, like Labuche Kang III.

There are many mountains which have never been climbed. they are wildly dangerous and present unique challenges in absolute terms (oxygen levels low, steep inclines, etc) and in situationally unique terms (there was inclement weather this day, our crew got sick...). they remain some of the world's toughest challenges despite being something many do quite often- mountain climbing.

similarly, no one has ever made an effective cancer vaccine (we'll see how moderna's fairs later this year). this is one of if not the hardest thing one can do in biology in my opinion. I don't fault people for trying, but if you're looking at these programs from the outside just ask if rules 1-3 are satisfied before placing too much stock in them

[谷口研究室（北海道大学医学部 統合病理学教室） @iPatho1]

Th17細胞が細胞内のグルココルチコイド産生・感知回路によって恒常性を維持していることを明らかにし、TGF-β1が炎症性Th17細胞のステロイド抵抗性を解除できる可能性を示した論文がImmunity誌に発表されました。
https://t.co/7roPNMURwA