People who’ve recovered from severe COVID-19 may have stronger long-term immune protection from reinfection than those with milder illness, researchers report. They examined blood samples from 39 COVID-19 patients and 10 people who hadn’t been exposed to the virus (their blood samples were given pre-pandemic). In all, they analyzed the expression of individual genes of more than 80,000 CD8+ T-cells. CD8+ T-cells are immune cells that destroy virus-infected host cells, and “memory” CD8+ T-cells protect the body from reinfection by many types of viruses. Of the COVID-19 patients, 17 had milder illness and weren’t hospitalized, 13 had been hospitalized, and nine ended up in intensive care. The researchers were surprised to find that patients with milder COVID-19 had weaker CD8+ T-cell responses. The strongest CD8+ T-cell responses were in severely ill patients who required hospitalization or intensive care. “There is an inverse link between how poorly T-cells work and how bad the infection is,” study co-author Dr. Christian Ottensmeier said in a news release from the La Jolla Institute for Immunology in California. He’s a professor at the University of Liverpool in the U.K. and an adjunct professor at the La Jolla institute. The researchers found that CD8+ T-cells in people with mild COVID-19 had signs of T-cell “exhaustion,” in which cells receive so much immune system stimulation to combat viruses that they become less…  read on >  read on >

New research reveals why Black Americans might be more vulnerable to colon cancer than white people are. The researchers examined age-related “epigenetic” changes in colon tissue. These changes affect how genes work. The investigators found that in both Black and white people, one side of the colon ages biologically faster than the other. But the side that ages faster is different, depending on race. In Black Americans, the right side of the colon ages much faster than the left side, which could contribute to their increased colon cancer risk, make them more likely to develop cancer on the right side of the colon, and to have the cancer at a younger age, according to the authors of the study published recently in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. In white people, the left side of the colon ages faster and they’re more likely to develop cancer on that side. The study is the first to find that the two sides of the colon age differently. “These findings highlight the importance of colon-sidedness to biology of colorectal cancer,” said study co-leader Graham Casey, from the University of Virginia’s Center for Public Health Genomics. “The fact that the colon biology of people of African and European ancestry differ further highlights the critical importance of more research involving participation of people of African descent,” Casey added in…  read on >  read on >

Giving melanoma patients a “personalized” vaccine can prompt an anti-tumor immune response that lasts for years, an early study finds. The study involved just eight patients with advanced melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer. But it builds on earlier work showing it is possible to spur the immune system to respond to an individual’s unique tumor. All eight patients underwent standard surgery for their melanoma, but were considered high risk for a recurrence. So researchers gave them an experimental vaccine called NeoVax. Unlike traditional vaccines, it is not a one-size-fits-all jab. Each patient’s vaccine was customized based on key “neoantigens” — abnormal proteins — that were present on their tumor cells. Even though those proteins are foreign, the immune system is not able, on its own, to generate a major response against them. “The problem is, the tumor itself doesn’t present enough of a danger signal,” said Dr. Patrick Ott, one of the researchers on the new study. Beyond that, tumors have various ways of eluding the body’s defenses, explained Ott, of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. The idea behind NeoVax is to present the immune system with the tumor neoantigens so it can generate a focused T cell response against them. T cells are immune system sentries that can find and destroy cancer cells. In earlier work, Ott and his colleagues found…  read on >  read on >

Giving melanoma patients a “personalized” vaccine can prompt an anti-tumor immune response that lasts for years, an early study finds. The study involved just eight patients with advanced melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer. But it builds on earlier work showing it is possible to spur the immune system to respond to an individual’s unique tumor. All eight patients underwent standard surgery for their melanoma, but were considered high risk for a recurrence. So researchers gave them an experimental vaccine called NeoVax. Unlike traditional vaccines, it is not a one-size-fits-all jab. Each patient’s vaccine was customized based on key “neoantigens” — abnormal proteins — that were present on their tumor cells. Even though those proteins are foreign, the immune system is not able, on its own, to generate a major response against them. “The problem is, the tumor itself doesn’t present enough of a danger signal,” said Dr. Patrick Ott, one of the researchers on the new study. Beyond that, tumors have various ways of eluding the body’s defenses, explained Ott, of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. The idea behind NeoVax is to present the immune system with the tumor neoantigens so it can generate a focused T cell response against them. T cells are immune system sentries that can find and destroy cancer cells. In earlier work, Ott and his colleagues found…  read on >  read on >

Irene Greenhalgh, 83, considers herself a pretty computer-savvy senior, but even she got lost in a maze of websites and e-mails trying to get an appointment for her COVID-19 vaccine. One health provider’s e-mail provided links to sites that were giving vaccinations, but the dates listed were a week old. A board of health’s website proved glitchy and unusable. After weeks of searching, Greenhalgh finally got an appointment, but it’s more than two months away and she’ll have to travel about 13 miles from her home in Amityville, N.Y., to Jones Beach for her first shot. “I had a hard time,” Greenhalgh said. “My daughter did finally get me an appointment, but it’s on April 7.” Exasperation is building among seniors across the United States, many of whom are encountering similar roadblocks trying to line up a potentially life-saving vaccination, experts say. ‘No good stories’ In much of the country, seniors don’t know where to call, when to call, how to get an appointment. “There’s a great deal of frustration,” said Tricia Neuman, senior vice president of the Kaiser Family Foundation. “I was just on a call with about a dozen people from different parts of the country, and people were talking about their parents’ experiences. Everybody had a different story to tell, but nobody had a good story to tell,” Neuman added. “Nobody had…  read on >  read on >

The explosive rise in use of alcohol-based hand sanitizers during the COVID-19 pandemic has had a dangerous, unintended consequence: eye injuries among children. Using data from French poison control and a children’s hospital in Paris, researchers reported that accidental eye injuries to kids under age 18 shot up sevenfold during a five-month period last year, compared to 2019. Eye injury due to hand sanitizer exposure “is a known complication,” said Dr. Sonal Tuli, a clinical spokeswoman for the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) who reviewed the study findings. “This is a concern not just for children but also adults and health care workers,” Tuli said. “To my knowledge, there have been no recent similar studies in the U.S., but I suspect there are similar injuries occurring here, too.” The new study was published online Jan. 21 in JAMA Ophthalmology. Hand sanitizers consist mainly of ethanol or isopropyl alcohol (60% to 95%), which are toxic to delicate structures like eyes, noted Dr. Sonam Yangzes, a consultant in the division of lens, cornea and refractive services for the Grewal Eye Institute in Chandigarh, India. As such, exposure to sanitizers “may lead to blindness, due to development of corneal ulcer or melt,” said Yangzes, who co-wrote an editorial that accompanied the study. Increased use of the products during the COVID-19 pandemic has made “children more vulnerable to eye…  read on >  read on >

Irene Greenhalgh, 83, considers herself a pretty computer-savvy senior, but even she got lost in a maze of websites and e-mails trying to get an appointment for her COVID-19 vaccine. One health provider’s e-mail provided links to sites that were giving vaccinations, but the dates listed were a week old. A board of health’s website proved glitchy and unusable. After weeks of searching, Greenhalgh finally got an appointment, but it’s more than two months away and she’ll have to travel about 13 miles from her home in Amityville, N.Y., to Jones Beach for her first shot. “I had a hard time,” Greenhalgh said. “My daughter did finally get me an appointment, but it’s on April 7.” Exasperation is building among seniors across the United States, many of whom are encountering similar roadblocks trying to line up a potentially life-saving vaccination, experts say. ‘No good stories’ In much of the country, seniors don’t know where to call, when to call, how to get an appointment. “There’s a great deal of frustration,” said Tricia Neuman, senior vice president of the Kaiser Family Foundation. “I was just on a call with about a dozen people from different parts of the country, and people were talking about their parents’ experiences. Everybody had a different story to tell, but nobody had a good story to tell,” Neuman added. “Nobody had…  read on >  read on >

The explosive rise in use of alcohol-based hand sanitizers during the COVID-19 pandemic has had a dangerous, unintended consequence: eye injuries among children. Using data from French poison control and a children’s hospital in Paris, researchers reported that accidental eye injuries to kids under age 18 shot up sevenfold during a five-month period last year, compared to 2019. Eye injury due to hand sanitizer exposure “is a known complication,” said Dr. Sonal Tuli, a clinical spokeswoman for the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) who reviewed the study findings. “This is a concern not just for children but also adults and health care workers,” Tuli said. “To my knowledge, there have been no recent similar studies in the U.S., but I suspect there are similar injuries occurring here, too.” The new study was published online Jan. 21 in JAMA Ophthalmology. Hand sanitizers consist mainly of ethanol or isopropyl alcohol (60% to 95%), which are toxic to delicate structures like eyes, noted Dr. Sonam Yangzes, a consultant in the division of lens, cornea and refractive services for the Grewal Eye Institute in Chandigarh, India. As such, exposure to sanitizers “may lead to blindness, due to development of corneal ulcer or melt,” said Yangzes, who co-wrote an editorial that accompanied the study. Increased use of the products during the COVID-19 pandemic has made “children more vulnerable to eye…  read on >  read on >