| To: Esoteric1 who wrote (37834) | 11/14/2021 3:07:08 PM | | From: Esoteric1 | | | | $RGBP $$$
New cancer treatments may be on the horizon—thanks to mRNA vaccines
The COVID-19 pandemic brought mRNA vaccines into the limelight. But the technology may also prove to be a powerful weapon against hard-to-treat cancers.
BYSTACEY COLINO
PUBLISHED JULY 8, 2021
• 12 MIN READ
Molly Cassidy was studying for the Arizona bar exam in February 2019 when she felt an excruciating pain in her ear. The pain eventually radiated down through her jaw, leading her to discover a bump under her tongue. “I had several doctors tell me it was stress-related because I was studying for the bar and I had a 10-month-old son,” recalls Cassidy, who also has a Ph.D. in education. After continuing to seek medical care, she found out that she had an aggressive form of head and neck cancer that required intensive treatment.
After doctors removed part of her tongue along with 35 lymph nodes, Cassidy went through 35 sessions of radiation concurrent with three cycles of chemotherapy. Ten days after she completed treatment, Cassidy noticed a marble-like lump on her collarbone. The cancer had returned—and with a vengeance: It had spread throughout her neck and to her lungs. “By that point, I was really out of options because the other treatments hadn’t worked,” says Cassidy, now 38, who lives in Tucson. “In the summer of 2019, I was told my cancer was very severe and to get my affairs in order. I even planned my funeral.”
When doctors removed the tumor from her collarbone, they told her that she might be eligible to join a clinical trial at the University of Arizona Cancer Center that was testing an mRNA (messenger ribonucleic acid) vaccine—similar technology to the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines—in combination with an immunotherapy drug to treat colorectal and head and neck cancers. Whereas the COVID-19 vaccines are preventative, mRNA vaccines for cancer are therapeutic, and Cassidy jumped at the opportunity to participate. “I was at the right place at the right time for this clinical trial,” she says.
Back when people first heard about Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccines, the mRNA technology behind them sounded like the stuff of science fiction. But while the mRNA approach seems revolutionary, long before anyone had heard of COVID-19, researchers had been developing mRNA vaccines to fight cancer, autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis, and to protect against other infectious diseases, such as the respiratory syncytial virus. “It’s not a new idea: What COVID has shown us is that mRNA vaccines can be an efficacious and safe technology for millions of people,” says Daniel Anderson, a leader in the field of nanotherapeutics and biomaterials at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a member of the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research.
Currently, phase one and phase two clinical trials are recruiting participants or are underway to assess the efficacy, tolerability, and safety of therapeutic mRNA vaccines to treat various forms of cancer. These include melanoma, non-small cell lung cancers, gastrointestinal cancer, breast cancer, ovarian cancer, and pancreatic cancer, among others.
“One of the beauties of this technology is it can be used in people agnostic to their cancer type—it doesn’t matter if it’s a breast cancer or lung cancer as long as you can identify its mutations,” says Van Morris, a physician and an assistant professor of gastrointestinal medical oncology at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston who is leading a phase two clinical trial exploring the use of personalized mRNA vaccines for patients who have stage II or stage III colorectal cancer. “One of the exciting things is the adaptability of the technology based on a given cancer and the underlying biology of that cancer.”
Over the course of 27 weeks, Cassidy received nine injections of a personalized mRNA vaccine along with intravenous infusions of an immunotherapy drug called Pembrolizumab. She saw her doctor, Julie E. Bauman, deputy director of the University of Arizona Cancer Center, on a weekly basis at first then every three weeks; she also had regular CT scans. After each injection, Cassidy would spike a fever and feel wiped out—with fatigue and body aches and pains—for 24 hours. “My immune system was really flaring up, which is what we wanted to happen so it could fight the cancer,” she explains.
By the time the treatment concluded in October 2020, Cassidy’s CT scans were clean: There was no evidence of cancer in her body.
A message in a needle
On a basic level, “what we’re trying to do with the mRNA vaccine for cancer is alert the immune system to the tumor so the immune system will attack it—it’s basically biological software,” explains John Cooke, a physician and medical director of the Center for RNA Therapeutics at Houston Methodist. “Vaccines are being developed against cancers where there’s not a very good solution right now or where the cancers are likely to metastasize.”
Some mRNA vaccines for cancer take an off-the-shelf approach: These ready-made vaccines are designed to look for target proteins that appear on the surface of certain cancer tumors. How well they work is a matter of speculation right now, but some experts have concerns. “The question is: What is the target? You always have to have the right thing to target for the vaccine to be effective,” says David Braun, an oncologist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School who specializes in immunotherapies. After all, with cancer, there isn’t a universal target the way there is with the coronavirus’s spike protein, and DNA mutations in cancer cells vary from one patient to another.
This is where personalized mRNA cancer vaccines enter the picture—and these may be more promising, experts say. With the personalized approach, a sample of tissue is taken from a patient’s tumor and their DNA is analyzed to identify mutations that distinguish the cancer cells from the normal, healthy cells, explains Bauman, who is also chief of hematology/oncology at the UA College of Medicine-Tucson. Computers compare the two DNA samples to identify the unique mutations in a tumor, then the results are used to design a molecule of mRNA that will go into the vaccine. This is typically done in four-to-eight-weeks—“it’s a technical tour de force to be able to do that,” says Robert A. Seder, chief of the Cellular Immunology Section of the Vaccine Research Center at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
After the mRNA vaccine is injected into the patient, the mRNA tells the patient’s cells to produce proteins that are associated with the specific mutations on their tumor. The tumor protein fragments that are created from the mRNA are then recognized by the patient’s immune system, Morris explains. Basically, the mRNA instructions train the immune system’s T cells—white blood cells that help us fight viruses—to recognize up to 20 mutations in cancer cells and attack only those. The immune system scours the body on a search-and-destroy mission looking for similar tumor cells.
“One of the things cancer does is it can turn on signals to tell the immune system to quiet down so the cancer is not detected,” explains Anderson. “The goal of an mRNA vaccine is to alert and gear up the immune system to go after the characteristic features of tumor cells and attack them.”
“Personalized cancer vaccines wake up specialized killer T cells that recognize abnormal cells and trigger them to kill the cells that are cancer,” Bauman says. “It’s a matter of using our own immune system as the army to eliminate the cancer.”
“This is the epitome of personalized medicine,” says Morris. “It’s a highly personalized, highly specific approach, not a one-size-fits-all treatment.”
Challenges ahead
Despite the enthusiasm and promise for this type of cancer treatment, it is important to remember: “These are early days, and the results are going to be different than the immediate success of the COVID-19 vaccines,” says Seder. For one thing, mRNA cancer vaccines aren’t going to become available at record speed the way the COVID-19 vaccines did under emergency use authorization; the cancer vaccines will require years of testing and clinical trials.
One reason for the differences in the development time for COVID-19 mRNA vaccines versus cancer mRNA vaccines stems from their therapeutic goal. The current mRNA vaccines are intended to prevent COVID-19: They’re designed to protect people from the virus by providing a preview of the coronavirus’s distinctive spike protein, so that if they encounter the virus, their immune system can fight it off. By contrast, cancer mRNA vaccines are therapies: They are given to patients to teach their immune systems to seek and destroy existing tumor cells.
Another challenge with mRNA vaccines has been to figure out how to build a nanoparticle that effectively delivers messenger RNA to where it needs to go. “If it’s [left] unprotected, messenger RNA won’t enter cells, and it will be rapidly degraded when you put it in the body,” explains Anderson. “We can protect it and deliver it inside cells by encapsulating it in a lipid-like nanoparticle.” This way, the nanoparticles can evade the body’s clearance mechanisms and get into the right cells. (Currently, lipid-based nanoparticles are the most common delivery system used in clinical trials for mRNA vaccines to treat cancer.)
Even with an optimal delivery system, however, it’s unlikely that mRNA vaccines will be a panacea for all cancers. But they are another promising tool for the treatment of advanced or incurable cancers. And researchers are exploring whether mRNA vaccines can be combined with other immune-based therapies, such as checkpoint inhibitors (which release a natural brake on the immune system so that T cells can recognize and attack tumors) or adoptive T cell therapy (in which T cells are harvested from a patient’s blood or tumor, stimulated to grow in the lab, then reinfused into a patient to help the body recognize and destroy tumor cells).
At this point, there are few published studies of trials with mRNA cancer vaccines in humans, but there are glimmers of optimism. In a phase one trial that investigated the use of an mRNA vaccine along with an immune checkpoint inhibitor in the treatment of head and neck cancer or colorectal cancer, Bauman and her colleagues found noteworthy differences: In five of the 10 patients with head and neck cancer, the combination therapy shrank the tumors and two patients had no detectable cancer after the treatment; by contrast, the 17 patients with colorectal cancer failed to respond to the combination treatment.
“With colorectal cancer, there isn’t much immune system activity—the cancer cells are better at hiding,” explains Bauman. “In some cases, it may not be enough to show the immune system what the cancer looks like.” The T cells need to reach the cancer and eliminate it. That didn’t happen with the patients who had colorectal cancer.
Hope on the horizon
Meanwhile, some promising findings are emerging from animal studies. In a study in a 2018 issue of the journal Molecular Therapy, researchers constructed an mRNA vaccine to be combined with a monoclonal antibody (a synthetic antibody made in the lab) to enhance the anti-tumor benefits in the treatment of triple negative breast cancer, which is notoriously aggressive and has a high rate of metastasis and a poor prognosis. They found that mice that were treated with the combination therapy had a significantly enhanced anti-tumor immune response compared to those who were given only the vaccine or the monoclonal antibody. And a study in a 2019 issue of the journal ACS Nano found that when mice with lymphoma (cancer of the lymphatic system) were given an mRNA vaccine along with a checkpoint inhibitor drug, they experienced significantly reduced tumor growth and 40 percent of them experienced complete tumor regression.
If mRNA vaccines prove to be effective, physicians and researchers hope that eventually vaccines could be developed to treat certain cancers, prevent recurrences, and possibly even prevent some cancers in those who are genetically predisposed to them. “I think this is going to be another arrow in the quiver for oncologists to give their patients a better chance,” says Cooke. “And if prophylactic cancer vaccines are shown to work, they could make cancer a preventable illness.”
In the meantime, Molly Cassidy is already a firm believer in the power of mRNA vaccines to treat aggressive cancers. These days, she’s feeling great and enjoying life as a stay-at-home mom with her three-year-old son, her husband, and her step-kids. “My doctor won’t say I’m cured, but she’s very happy with where I am,” says Cassidy. “This treatment saved my life, and I’m incredibly grateful to my doctors.”
Some experts say it’s conceivable that we could see an mRNA vaccine for cancer gain approval by the Food and Drug Administration within the next five years. “If we can leverage the ability of the immune system to precisely get rid of foreign invaders like cancer, that would be an amazing day,” says Bauman.
investorshub.advfn.com |
| | Pennies Arent Dead | Stock Discussion ForumsShare | RecommendKeepReplyMark as Last ReadRead Replies (1) |
|
| From: getlouied | 11/15/2021 11:26:46 AM | | | | | | $DNAX DNA Brands Signs Joint Venture Agreement
accesswire.com
LOS ANGELES, CA and FORT LAUDERDALE, FL / ACCESSWIRE / November 15, 2021 / DNA Brands is pleased to announce that it has entered an agreement with a partner located in Los Angeles, California. Under the terms of the agreement DNA Brands will be the majority owner of a newly formed wholly owned subsidiary, Green Thumb Ventures LLC, a Colorado Corp. The purpose of this subsidiary will be to identify and cherry pick distressed assets of value, specifically in the cannabis space.
The California cannabis market is the world's largest and federal legalization is anticipated to be around the corner. The price of wholesale cannabis, licenses and facilities in California are at all time lows. Businesses are hurting and feeling the pinch. Green Thumb Ventures LLC plans to strategically identify undervalued cannabis projects that are overextended and in need of additional financing but which provide immediate value for an equity investor.
Green Thumb Ventures has identified its first opportunities which include a licensed Manufacturer, Distributor and Retail delivery business, prime Humboldt County Cultivation properties. These ventures are well operated and managed but market conditions and pricing will allow us to acquire controlling stakes and become vertically integrated with very little investment.
By the numbers: With approximately 28 million people of age, California is the largest legal cannabis market in the world - nearly twice the size of New York's legal market (15 million). California generated $4.4 billion in legal marijuana sales in 2020, or roughly 20% of global cannabis sales.
In staying in line with the Berkshire Hathaway model, DNA plans to use Green Thumb Ventures as a holding company to acquire and employ distressed cannabis assets. Under the terms of the agreement DNA will finance the acquisition of projects into Green Thumb Ventures LLC. Its partner in Southern California will be led by minority business owner and cannabis veteran, Mr. Rendhel Pierre-Louis.
About Mr. Rendhel (Ren) Pierre-Louis: Mr. Pierre-Louis, is a first generation American, born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. A graduate of Washington University School of Law, in St. Louis Missouri in 2006, Ren saw the writing on the wall and headed to California to be a part of the cannabis greenrush in 2014.
As a Cannabis wholesaler in California for the past 7+ years Ren has been building and nurturing relationships and businesses nationwide. One of his current companies, Savage Valley LLC, a California cannabis company, grossed about $26 Million in Revenue in 2020. As a partner at Green Thumb Ventures LLC, Ren's primary responsibility will be to target, negotiate and manage cannabis opportunities, on behalf of the company.
Teaming Ren's knowledge and understanding of the cannabis markets with DNA Brands broad experience and investor network will enable Green Thumb Ventures to easily identify undervalued, low risk assets and investment opportunities. |
| | Pennies Arent Dead | Stock Discussion ForumsShare | RecommendKeepReplyMark as Last Read |
|
| From: getlouied | 11/16/2021 10:27:59 AM | | | | | | $CLNV Clean Vision’s Clean-Seas Acquires Pyrolysis Plant for Deployment in India; Activates Previously Announced MOU with India’s IICT in the World’s Second Largest Renewable Energy Market
globenewswire.com
LOS ANGELES, Nov. 16, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Clean Vision Corporation (OTC: CLNV), a global holding company that acquires and operates sustainable clean tech and green energy businesses, today announced that its Clean-Seas subsidiary has purchased a 2.5 ton per-day pyrolysis plant for shipment to Hyderabad, India.
The Company’s major capital expenditure solidifies its previously announced Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed last month with the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR)- Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (IICT). That MOU provides for both parties agreeing to work together to bring Clean-Seas’ waste plastic-to-energy conversion technology to India to help mitigate its growing waste streams and provide clean energy as a part of the $1 trillion renewable energy infrastructure plan already being implemented by the Indian government.
“Our purchase of this pyrolysis plant is an historic and pivotal event for Clean Vision and our Clean-Seas subsidiary,” said Dan Bates, Clean Vision Chief Executive Officer. “This pilot project is designed to showcase our technology directly for the Indian government which is making a huge push to create a greener, cleaner economy. IICT is an extraordinary partner with the resources and reach to massively scale up our joint initiative in the world’s second-most populous nation.
“While this plant is pilot sized, the technology is fully capable of operating at commercial scale. The goal of the project is to prove the economics of our waste-plastic conversion solution,” he added. “I am confident that with the enormous volume of feedstock available, the financial return will clearly serve to accelerate development and deployment of additional plants throughout the Indian marketplace.”
“The future is here now,” stated Venkat Kumar Tangirala, Managing Director, Clean-Seas India (C-SI) -- Clean-Seas’ India-based operating subsidiary. “Converting waste-plastic into valuable commodities, with positive financial returns, is vital for the reduction of waste plastic globally. Clean-Seas is confident we have the technology, knowhow, and team to revolutionize the conversion of mixed waste-plastic into hydrogen and to store it cost effectively. Within 30 days, we expect to announce further details of our waste plastic-to-hydrogen conversion technology and an overview of the current and projected global hydrogen economy.”
The C-SI owned pyrolysis plant will be shipped to India for expected delivery and installation in February. The pyrolysis plant will be installed with proprietary technology to upgrade its ability to efficiently produce hydrogen as well as low-sulfur diesel fuel. Experts in the clean tech industry expect hydrogen will be the ultimate, clean fuel of the future. |
| | Pennies Arent Dead | Stock Discussion ForumsShare | RecommendKeepReplyMark as Last Read |
|
| From: gumzsa | 11/17/2021 1:13:45 PM | | | | | | NIHK .09 News
Tytan Cybernetics (“Video River Networks” OTC) announces Arrival of First Generation Tytan Electric Vehicle
TORRANCE, Nov. 17, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Tytan Cybernetics/ Video River Networks “the Company” (OTC: NIHK TWTR: @NIHKEV), a technologically innovative Electric Vehicle and Fintech company, is pleased to announce the arrival of their first generation Electric Vehicle under the Joint Venture agreement with Lingstar Co.
Completed ahead of schedule, the EVs arrived direct from the production facilities and they’re safely and securely in planning for showroom display in the near future.
“After months of hardwork and determination by Lingstar and our team, I’m pleased to share that our first Electric Vehicles have arrived in California! Our team is coming together to review and develop innovative applications for our EVs. We’re celebrating this milestone as an outlook of our commitment to the evolution of Electric Vehicle technology. Accelerating the growth of viable technologies of tomorrow is one of the main goals of Tytan Cybernetics and we look forward to the next steps ahead!” CEO Frank Igwealor.
About Tytan Cybernetics, Inc.
Tytan Cybernetics, Inc. is an Electric Vehicle and Fintech company whose focus is to develop and bring to market the next generation of high-performance state-of-the-art Electric Vehicles. The company’s current and expanding technology portfolio includes Electric Vehicles, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Robotics ("EV-AI-ML-R"), with businesses and operations in North America and Asia. With a commitment to revolutionary technology, Tytan Cybernetics is in the process of cultivating prosperous technologies to enhance consumer’s cybernetic experience.
For more information, please check the latest updates on the company's Twitter account twitter.com
Notice Regarding Forward Looking Statements
Safe Harbor Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: This news release contains forward-looking information within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, including statements that include the words “believes,” “expects,” “anticipate” or similar expressions. Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the company to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements.
CONTACT:
Tytan Cybernetics/Video River Networks
370 Amapola Ave., Suite 200A
Torrance, CA 90501
contact@videorivernetworks.net
Attachment
Tytan Cybernetics Inc.
globenewswire.com
ml.globenewswire.com
Tytan Cybernetics Inc.
First Generation Tytan Electric Vehicle
Source: Tytan Cybernetics Inc.
© 2021 GlobeNewswire, Inc. |
| | Pennies Arent Dead | Stock Discussion ForumsShare | RecommendKeepReplyMark as Last Read |
|
| From: getlouied | 11/18/2021 10:42:42 AM | | | | | | $CBDL CBD Life Sciences, Inc. (CBDL) Set to Start Accepting Bitcoin for CBD on Its E-Commerce Store
accesswire.com
SCOTTSDALE, AZ / ACCESSWIRE / November 18, 2021 / Today CBD Life Sciences (OTC PINK:CBDL) through its wholly owned subsidiary, LBC Bioscience Inc. announces that the company is going to begin accepting Bitcoin as a method of payment on its E-Commerce Store.
CBD Life Sciences has been working diligently to integrate Bitcoin as a payment method and it is finally ready to launch! Consumers should expect this method of payment to be live on the LBC website by the end of this week! President & CEO Lisa Nelson states "I believe this will be a wonderful addition to the website and it will allow us to expand and attract more customers all around the world." Lisa Nelson also states, "With Cryptocurrency being the future, the outcome of this has to be nothing but positive and we cannot wait to launch it!"
Cryptocurrency offers overall better payment security. The pandemic has led to a surge in credit card fraud; in 2020, the dollar volume of attempted fraudulent transactions rose 35% in April 2020 as compared to April 2019. Credit and debit cards were the source of the majority of fraud reports among all payment methods in 2020. And, unfortunately, small businesses are often the target of this type of fraud. Cryptocurrency is considered more secure than credit and debit card payments. This is because cryptocurrencies do not need third-party verification. When a customer pays with cryptocurrency, their data isn't stored in a centralized hub where data breaches commonly occur. Rather, their information is stored in their crypto wallet. Plus, the blockchain general ledger is used to verify and record every transaction, making it very difficult, if not impossible, to steal someone's identity.
The number of benefits CBD has is tremendous! These benefits may help with behavioral/neurological complications such as ADD/ADHD, anxiety, autism, bipolar, OCD, PTSD, epilepsy, Parkinson's, osteoporosis, and ALS. CBD may also benefit pain management that can stem from headaches/migraines, arthritis, cramps, spinal injuries, and fibromyalgia. CBD has been found to also have gastrointestinal benefits with gastro-disorders and complications such as anorexia, cachexia, Crohn's, diabetes, and nausea. Physical complications/disorders such as muscular dystrophy and even immune system-based deficiencies and other complications such as cancer and hypertension even our bodies way and ability to maintain homeostasis have all been said to benefit from CBD. |
| | Pennies Arent Dead | Stock Discussion ForumsShare | RecommendKeepReplyMark as Last Read |
|
| From: getlouied | 11/19/2021 9:55:04 AM | | | | | | $DNAX DNA Brands Inc. CEO, Adrian Patasar, Is Featured on The Stock Day Podcast
newsfilecorp.com
Phoenix, Arizona--(Newsfile Corp. - November 19, 2021) - The Stock Day Podcast welcomed DNA Brands Inc. (OTC Pink: DNAX) ("the Company"), a holding company whose primary asset is the Two time Award Winning Energy Drink line (DNA ENERGY). CEO of the Company, Adrian Patasar, joined Stock Day host Everett Jolly.
Jolly began the interview by asking about the Company's current projects and divisions. "DNA Brands is comprised of three vertices," explained Patasar. "The first vertice is the digital marketing company, which we currently operate," he shared. "The second division is a blockchain based technology," said Patasar, before elaborating on the Company's third vertice. "We are building a cannabis holding company."
Jolly then asked about a recent press release detailing the Company's recent joint venture agreement. "We signed a joint agreement with a gentleman by the name of Rendhel Pierre-Louis," said Patasar. "He is a cannabis veteran out of Orange County, Los Angeles," he added. "He has built a successful cannabis company in Santa Ana called Savage Valley," said Patasar, noting Savage Valley's significant revenues. "DNA Brands will be the majority owner of any project we work on together," he shared.
"Ren and I will both work as consultants to the joint project, which is called Green Thumb Ventures LLC," said Patasar. "We will basically be cherry-picking cannabis assets that we see present value."
Jolly then commented on the Company's recent 10-Q and asked about the Company's revenue strategy. "The revenues were light because we were primarily focused on the company's digital marketing company," said Patasar. "We are on track to probably do about the same as last year, which is about $1.2 million for the year," he shared. "Looking at 2022, we would like to focus our efforts on our digital assets and our cannabis projects."
"What is one of the biggest obstacles the company have overcome in 2021 during this difficult COVID-19 era?", asked Jolly. "Back in September, the OTC Markets and SEC set a deadline for getting companies current and compliant," said Patasar, adding that the Company had just completed a funding perspective with the priced stock at 50 cents. "We actually had to change the price of our offering, bring it down from 50 cents to a nickel, and it seems that we're getting a lot more of a response," he shared. "It was a lesson learned; there is a lot of business to be done with the smaller priced stocks."
To close the interview, Patasar encouraged listeners and shareholders to consider the Company's potential and keep up-to-date with their upcoming announcements as they enter 2022 with a variety of exciting projects.
To hear Adrian Patasar's entire interview, follow the link to the podcast here: audioboom.com
Investors Hangout is a proud sponsor of "Stock Day," and Stock Day Media encourages listeners to visit the company's message board at investorshangout.com |
| | Pennies Arent Dead | Stock Discussion ForumsShare | RecommendKeepReplyMark as Last Read |
|
| |
