Periadventitial delivery of mesenchymal stem cells improves vascular remodeling and maturation in arteriovenous fistulas.

Worldwide, more than 4 million patients with end-stage kidney disease require hemodialysis through an arteriovenous fistula (AVF). AVFs fail because of venous neointimal hyperplasia (VNH) resulting in venous stenosis formation. A phase 1 randomized trial in patients undergoing upper extremity AVF placement was performed to evaluate the safety and efficacy of autologous adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) in improving AVF function.

A live tumor fragment platform to assess immunotherapy response in core needle biopsies while addressing challenges of tumor heterogeneity.

Background: Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) have revolutionized cancer treatment, providing durable and even curative responses. However, most patients do not respond and current biomarkers (eg, programmed death ligand (PD-L1), mismatch repair deficiency (dMMR)/high microsatellite instability (MSI) and tumor mutational burden) lack predictive accuracy. Ex vivo profiling of patient-derived tumor fragments shows promise as a predictive biomarker but relies on substantial surgical tissue to mitigate intra-specimen heterogeneity.

Extending the detectable time window of fast protein dynamics using H E-CPMG.

Recent advances in high power NMR relaxation dispersion experiments have significantly enhanced our ability to study fast µs timescale motions in proteins, which are crucial for understanding their biological functions. Here, we have extended the detectable time window of such fast dynamics with the development of extreme power H Carr-Purcell-Meiboom-Gill (H E-CPMG) experiments targeted at the backbone amide protons (H). Using this methodology, artifact-free relaxation dispersion profiles can be obtained up to extreme pulsing conditions with minimal setup effort using commonly used standard NMR hardware.

Tumor-Treating Fields Alter Nanomechanical Properties of Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma Cells Co-Cultured with Extracellular Matrix.

Tumor-Treating Fields (TTFields), a novel therapeutic avenue, is approved for therapy in Glioblastoma multiforme, malignant pleural mesothelioma, and metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). In pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC), several clinical trials are underway to improve outcomes, yet a significant knowledge gap prevails involving the cell-extracellular matrix (ECM) crosstalk. Herein, we hypothesized that treatment with TTFields influence this crosstalk, which is reflected by the dynamic alteration in nanomechanical properties (NMPs) of cells and the ECM in a co-culture system.