Efficiency of single-pulse laser fragmentation of organic nutraceutical dispersions in a circular jet flow-through reactor.

Nutraceuticals provide health benefits and particularly profit from a sensitive, high-purity production process. Microparticle laser fragmentation in liquids is an emerging technique for the contamination-free comminution of organic drugs and nutraceuticals aiming at solubility enhancements. However, current discontinuously operated fragmentation setups suffer from chemical degradation by multipulse laser excitation at high fluence and do not allow for systematic studies of the fragmentation mechanisms.

Alpharetroviral self-inactivating vectors produced by a superinfection-resistant stable packaging cell line allow genetic modification of primary human T lymphocytes.

Primary human T lymphocytes represent an important cell population for adoptive immunotherapies, including chimeric-antigen and T-cell receptor applications, as they have the capability to eliminate non-self, virus-infected and tumor cells. Given the increasing numbers of clinical immunotherapy applications, the development of an optimal vector platform for genetic T lymphocyte engineering, which allows cost-effective high-quality vector productions, remains a critical goal. Alpharetroviral self-inactivating vectors (ARV) have several advantages compared to other vector platforms, including a more random genomic integration pattern and reduced likelihood for inducing aberrant splicing of integrated proviruses.

Alpharetroviral vectors: from a cancer-causing agent to a useful tool for human gene therapy.

Gene therapy using integrating retroviral vectors has proven its effectiveness in several clinical trials for the treatment of inherited diseases and cancer. However, vector-mediated adverse events related to insertional mutagenesis were also observed, emphasizing the need for safer therapeutic vectors. Paradoxically, alpharetroviruses, originally discovered as cancer-causing agents, have a more random and potentially safer integration pattern compared to gammaretro- and lentiviruses.