Immunotherapy and Nanotechnology Flashcards

Flashcards covering key vocabulary and concepts from the Immunotherapy and Nanotechnology lectures.

Immunotherapy

A treatment that uses certain parts of a person’s immune system to fight cancer.

Monoclonal Antibodies (mAbs)

Antibodies made in a laboratory to work like natural antibodies, targeting cancer cells to alter their growth.

Rituximab

A chimeric monoclonal antibody targeted against the pan-B-cell marker CD20, triggering cell death, used to treat Non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

Blinatumomab (Blincyto®)

Binds to CD19 on leukemia cells and CD3 on T cells, helping T cells kill leukemia cells.

Non-specific immunotherapies (immune system modulators)

Enhance the body’s immune response against cancer and are typically given with other cancer treatments.

Cytokines

Proteins made by white blood cells that play important roles in immune responses and the immune system’s ability to respond to cancer.

Interferons (INFs)

Enhance your immune response to cancer cells by causing certain white blood cells to become active; may also slow the growth of cancer cells or promote their death.

Hematopoietic growth factors

Cytokines that are used to reduce side effects from cancer treatment by promoting the growth of blood cells that are damaged by chemotherapy.

BCG (Bacillus Calmette-Guérin)

A weakened form of the bacteria that causes tuberculosis, used to treat bladder cancer.

Immunomodulatory drugs (e.g., Thalidomide, Lenalidomide, Pomalidomide)

Stimulate the immune system and stop tumors from forming new blood vessels.

Immune checkpoints

Normal part of the immune system that prevent an immune response from being too strong, blocking these can allow a stronger immune response to cancer.

Immune checkpoint inhibitors

Block checkpoint proteins from binding with their partner proteins, allowing immune cells to respond more strongly to cancer.

T-cell transfer therapy (adoptive cell therapy)

Boosts the natural ability of T cells to fight cancer.

Tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TIL) therapy

Uses TILs found in your tumor; TILs which display strong recognition of the tumor cells are selected for and expanded before being re-injected back into the patient.

CAR T-cell therapy

Patients T cells are modified in the lab so that they make a type of protein known as a chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) before they are expanded and re-injected into the patient.

Cancer vaccines

Medicines that trigger the body’s immune system to detect cancer cells.

Preventive (prophylactic) vaccines

May prevent cancer cells from developing; useful for cancers known to be caused by infections.

Treatment (therapeutic) vaccines

Prompt the immune system to fight existing cancer cells.

Oncolytic virus therapy

Utilities an oncolytic virus, which is a virus that infects and breaks down cancer cells but does not harm normal cells.

Solutions for Immunotherapy Resistance

Combination of immune checkpoint inhibitors and other therapies to overcome resistance to immunotherapy

Predicting Immunotherapy Responses

A major area of research to identify which people will respond to immunotherapy treatment.

Immunotherapy for food allergies

Reverse allergic reactions.

Tisotumab vedotin (TV)

Acts like a ‘Trojan horse’ to sneak into cancer cells and kill them from the inside by targeting tissue factor.

CAR T cell therapy in blood cancers

Engineered to express a chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) to treat blood cancers.

Hostile Environments of Sold Tumors

Acidic, hypoxic and immunosuppressive, making it difficult for T cells to infiltrate and persist in the solid cancerous mass.

CpG and anti-OX40 'vaccine'

Consisting of two agents delivered directly to tumors to eliminate all traces of those tumors and works on many different kinds of cancers, including untreated metastases.

Cytosine–phosphate– guanine (CpG)

Dideoxynucleotide motif

NK cells safety

Do not cause adverse events like GvHD (attack host tissue) and neurotoxicity.

Nanotechnology

Designing and producing structures at nanoscale.

Engineered Nanomaterials (ENMs)

Materials engineered to such a small scale

Nanomedicine

The application of nanotechnology for medical purposes

Carbon Nanotubes (CNTs)

Graphene sheets rolled into a tube and can be classified into single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) and multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs).

Fullerenes

allotropes of carbon, also called buckyballs because of their spherical structure

Polymeric Nanoparticles (PNP)

Nanosized solid particles that consist of natural or synthetic polymers.

Polymeric micelle nanoparticles

Structures made of copolymers that spontaneously assemble into core–shell micelle structures in aqueous solution.

Dendrimers

PNPs made of highly branched macromolecules (dendrons) that emerge from the central core.

Liposomes

Spherical vesicles made of one or more phospholipid bilayer that have low toxicity and high bicompatibilty.

Polymerosomes

Vesicles made of amphiphilic polymers

Metal Nanoparticles

Prepared from metal precursors with a magnetic material and a chemical component with functionality.

Magnetic drug delivery

Connecting drug molecules to magnetic nanomaterials followed by injection and guidance to a site of action using localized magnetic field-gradients.

Quantum dots (QDs)

Composed of inorganic semiconductor molecules that emit strong fluorescent light under UV illumination, depending on particle size.

Nanoparticles in drug delivery

Capacity of encapsulating drug and delivery it to the target site with the help of targeting ligands attached to it surface.

Advantages of nano-composites

Lighter and biodegradable, enhanced thermal stability, reduced drug toxicity

Nanomedical approaches in drug delivery

Developing nanoscale particles or molecules to improve drug bioavailability.

Cancer cell targeting strategies utilized by nanoparticles

NPs encapsulating anti-cancer drugs are conjugated to various targeting molecules.

Nanorobots

Introduced into the body to repair or detect damage and infections.

Tissue engineering (TE)

Apply the principles of engineering and life sciences toward the development of biological substitutes.

Medical imaging and Nanoparticles

Enhances almost all major imaging techniques, particularly MRI, PET, and optical imaging.

Photoacoustic imaging (PAI)

A non-invasive biomedical imaging modality, which generates ultrasonic waves by irradiating the material with pulsed laser and reconstructs the image of light energy absorption distribution in the tissue

Uses of nanomedicine

Nanotechnology, which involves the engineering and control of matter at small dimensions, has immense potential in advancing medical applications.

Advancements in Nanomedicine

Smartphone Microscopes, Nanopatch Vaccines, Smart Bandages.

Targeted therapy (precision medicine, personalized medicine)

One person’s disorder may be treated differently than another based on the specific genes and biomarkers expressed in the individual's unhealthy tissues.

Monoclonal antibodies

Artificial antibodies that are produced in a lab by using a single clone of cells that are sensitized to a specific antigenic protein present on the surface of a target.

Kinases

Moving chemicals, called phosphates, from one molecule to another to create a chemical reaction within a signalling pathway.

Kinase inhibitors

Inhibitors stop phosphates from being transferred by a kinase.

Angiogenesis

The process by which new blood vessels are formed.

Vascular epidermal growth factor (VEGF)

Growth factor released by cancer cells to start angiogenesis.

Recombinant monoclonal antibodies (rAbs)

rAbs are constructed in vitro using recombinant DNA technologies. The antibody genes are isolated and then incorporated into plasmid DNA vectors, and the resulting plasmids are transformed or transfected into expression hosts such as bacteria, yeast, or mammalian cell lines.

Antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs)

Built by attaching a small molecule anticancer drug or another therapeutic agent to an antibody, through a chemical linker, maximizing their efficacy and minimizing systemic exposure.

Bispecific Antibodies (BsAbs)

Antibodies that can simultaneously bind two separate and unique antigens (or different epitopes of the same antigen).

Multispecific antibodies (msAbs)

Can bind to either two or more targets or two or more epitopes on different cells. These features hold great therapeutic potential

Aptamers (chemical antibodies)

A new class of targeting moiety that are made of nuclei acid sequences used to specifically target drugs to cells expressing the surface markers.

Gene or genome editing

The process by which targeted changes are made to the DNA sequence using different enzymes and molecules that are able to target a specific area in the DNA and make changes

Homologous recombination

A type of genetic recombination that occurs during meiosis and is the exchange (recombination) of genetic information between two similar (homologous) strands of DNA.

Meganucleases

Also termed molecular DNA scissors, meganucleases are large base pair structures that are sometimes found in the genome and are derived from microbial mobile genetic elements.

Zinc finger nucleases (ZFN)

Each Zinc Finger Nuclease (ZFN) consists of two functional domains: a.) A DNA-binding domain comprised of a chain of two-finger modules, each recognizing a unique hexamer (6 bp) sequence of DNA. Two-finger modules are stitched together to form a Zinc Finger Protein, each with specificity of ≥ 24 bp. Several ZFNs can be attached together, where it can read many base pairs simultaneously thus increasing its specificity. b.) A DNA-cleaving domain comprised of the nuclease domain of Fok I, which is a restriction endonuclease that cleaves DNA strands at specific sites. When the DNA-binding and DNA-cleaving domains are fused together, a highly-specific pair of 'genomic scissors' are created.

Transcription activator-like effector nuclease (TALENs)

Fusions of transcription activator-like (TAL) proteins and a FokI nuclease

CRISPR/Cas9 system

The sgRNA binds to the target DNA sequence and Cas9 endonuclease precisely cleaves the DNA to generate a DSB. Following the DSB, DNA repair mechanisms initiate genome repair.

DETECTR

Develop diagnostic system for quick and easy point-of-care detection of even small amounts of DNA in clinical samples

SHERLOCK

Like DETECTR, but uses Cas 13 as its cutting tool. In SHERLOCK, Cas13 can be guided by a single CRISPR RNA (crRNA) to cleave ssRNA or mRNA along with that, a quenched fluorescent ssRNA reporter is also added to the reaction. Cleavage of the quenchable fluorescent RNA by the “activated” Cas13 produces a quantifiable signal that indicates the presence of the targeted nucleic acid

Nuremberg Code (1947)

An ethical guide that contains ten statements which even now is regarded as the founding document of contemporary research ethics.

Principle of essentiality

necessary for the advancement of knowledge and for the benefit of all members of the human species, ecological and environmental

ASBT Tissue Antibody Stain

Observed that tissue antibody stain diffused into the enterocyte, indirectly suggesting ASBT internalization induced by G/CPN anti-SLC10A2 antibodies

Figure 1D Flow Cytometry Analysis

Flow cytometry analysis for ASBT-mediated competitive cellular uptake inhibition of G40/CPN-100 with free GCA and green fluorescence G40/CPN-100 in SK-BR-3 cells

Nanoparticle transport in the EGS from the duodenum

Nanoparticle transport in the EGS from the duodenum and jejunum were compared with that from the distal ileum; ileal transport was significantly enhanced in Everted gut sac tissues (duodenum, jejunum, and dista ileum in Krebs-Ringer solution containing CPN- 100 or G40/CPN-100