Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have new weapons in the fight against HIV.

Their new study, published November 17, 2015 as the cover article of the journal Immunity, describes four prototype antibodies that target a specific weak spot on the virus. Guided by these antibodies, the researchers then mimicked the molecular structure of a protein on HIV when designing their own potential HIV vaccine candidate.

"This study is an example of how we can learn from natural infection and translate that information into vaccine development," said TSRI Research Associate Raiees Andrabi. "This is an important advance in the field of antibody-based HIV vaccine development."

Andrabi served as first author of the study, working in the lab of senior author TSRI Professor Dennis R. Burton, who is also scientific director of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) Neutralizing Antibody Center and of the National Institutes of Health's Center for HIV/AIDS Vaccine Immunology and Immunogen Discovery (CHAVI-ID) at TSRI.

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For years doctors have been advising patients with lupus not to get pregnant. It was assumed that the likelihood of pregnancy complications was too high in this population. However, ongoing work by researchers at Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) is helping identify those lupus patients who are - and aren't - at increased risk of problem pregnancies.

The research, being led by Jane E. Salmon, MD, Director of the Lupus and APS Center of Excellence at HSS, is part of the PROMISSE Study, or "Predicators of pRegnacy Outcome: BioMarkers in antiphospholipid antibody Syndrome and System lupus Erythematosus."

The goal of PROMISSE is identify factors that help predict the likelihood of a successful or unsuccessful pregnancy in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and/or antiphospholipid antibodies (APL) syndrome. The study has identified multiple clinical and biologic markers that correlate with adverse pregnancies, including, most recently, the activation of complement, a series of proteins that protect us from invading microbes.

At this year's American...

By introducing a particular strain of bacteria into the digestive tracts of mice with melanoma, researchers at the University of Chicago were able to boost the ability of the animal's immune systems to attack tumor cells. The gains were comparable to treatment with anti-cancer drugs known as checkpoint inhibitors, such as anti-PD-L1 antibodies.

The combination of oral doses of the bacteria and injections with anti-PD-L1 antibody nearly abolished tumor outgrowth, the researchers report online Thursday in the journal Science.

"Our results clearly demonstrate a significant, although unexpected, role for specific gut bacteria in enhancing the immune system's response to melanoma and possibly many other tumor types," said study director Thomas Gajewski, MD, PhD, professor of medicine and pathology at the University of Chicago.

"The field has recently recognized close connections between the gut microbiome and the immune system," he said. "This finding provides a novel way to exploit that connection, to improve immunotherapy by selectively modulating intestinal...

Today the U.S. Food and Drug Administration expanded the approved use of Yervoy (ipilimumab) to include a new use as adjuvant therapy for patients with stage III melanoma, to lower the risk that the melanoma will return following surgery.

Melanoma, the most aggressive type of skin cancer, is the leading cause of death from skin cancer. Melanoma is more likely to spread to other parts of the body than other forms of skin cancer and has been on the rise over the past several decades, according to the National Cancer Institute, with an estimated 73,870 new cases and 9,940 deaths from the disease this year. In stage III melanoma, the cancer has reached one or more lymph nodes. Patients with stage III melanoma are generally treated by surgery to remove the melanoma skin lesions and the nearby lymph nodes.

"Today's approval of Yervoy extends its use to patients who are at high risk of developing recurrence of melanoma after surgery," said Richard Pazdur, M.D., director of the Office of Hematology and Oncology Products in FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. "...