Skip to main content

Author: The Wistar Institute

Wistar Scientists Discover Blood-based Biomarkers to Predict HIV Remission After Stopping Antiretroviral Therapy

Written by The Wistar Institute on . Posted in Featured News.

Antiretroviral therapy (ART) is highly effective at controlling HIV infection, keeping the amount of virus in the blood so low as to be undetectable. This condition is called viral suppression.

Yet most people experience viral rebound and disease progression if they stop treatment, so scientists are looking to find a functional cure that allows infection control without ART.

Cure-directed clinical trials designed to test new therapeutic interventions require study participants to discontinue ART to allow researchers to evaluate new strategies. This is called analytical treatment interruption (ATI).

Currently, there are no simple, non-invasive methods available to monitor viral rebound after ATI. Therefore, new biomarkers are urgently needed to improve the safety of treatment interruption by predicting how long a patient can be off ART.

Scientists at The Wistar Institute have studied a rare population of HIV-infected individuals who can naturally restrain infection and sustain viral suppression after stopping ART, known as post-treatment controllers.

“We analyzed one of the largest sets of samples ever studied from post-treatment controllers, who don’t experience viral rebound after ART interruption,” said Mohamed Abdel-Mohsen, Ph.D., assistant professor in The Wistar Institute Vaccine & Immunotherapy Center, who led the study, published in Nature Communications. “This condition is extremely rare and provides very important insights into what a functional HIV cure looks like.”

Analyzing the blood of these individuals, scientists identified promising biomarker signatures that may fast-track future HIV cure trials and treatments.

“These biomarkers also provide us with insights on how post-treatment controllers restrain infection and how we can design novel HIV curative strategies to repeat this promising phenotype in the millions of HIV-infected individuals worldwide.”

For more information on this study, read our press release.

Wistar’s Women and Science Program Talks Melanoma Research

Written by The Wistar Institute on . Posted in Featured News.

After a day of virtual scientific talks that concluded Wistar’s 4th annual Noreen O’Neill Melanoma Research Symposium, a lay-friendly examination of melanoma with a group of interdisciplinary scientists continued into the evening during the Women & Science event Advances in Melanoma and Skin Cancer Research.

Distinguished epidemiologist Dr. Marianne Berwick, from the University of New Mexico, and Wistar Drs. Chengyu Liang, Jessie Villanueva, and Noam Auslander met for a roundtable discussion on melanoma research, prevention, diagnosis, and treatment advances. Dr. Maureen Murphy moderated a lively exchange that touched on the history of melanoma up to the latest solutions to treat and prevent this dangerous skin cancer.

Dr. Berwick kicked off the conversation by addressing why melanoma seems much more prevalent than in the past.

“We wear less clothing, we test for skin cancer with more biopsies, and people spend more time indoors,” says Berwick. “Melanoma incidence increased because we are not covered by our clothes like we were during Victorian times. Also, we have more sensitive detection tools and folks that spend a lot of time indoors then get intermittent but intense sun exposure, increasing the risk of sunburns and developing melanoma.”

Berwick went on to remind the audience of the ABCDs of melanoma and how important it is to know our bodies as any changes in Asymmetry, Border, Color, and Diameter (no wider than a pencil eraser) can be a sign of melanoma.

Cancer researcher Dr. Chengyu Liang spoke of melanoma treatment and why it’s so stubborn to treat.

“For some patients with melanoma, we have different treatments to stimulate their immune system. We can use immunotherapy—finding the wolf (or cancer) in sheep’s clothing, or we can use targeted therapy—finding a way to stop or put on the brakes of an out-of-control car,” says Liang. “Wistar is a front runner in melanoma-targeted therapies and Wistar’s cell bank is vital in the research and treatments that have been accomplished thanks to Dr. Meenhard Herlyn’s lab.”

Dr. Liang joined Wistar less than a year ago and is recognized for her study of melanoma development and progression, with a particular focus on autophagy, or “self-eating”— a process in which cells digest and recycle waste.

“We now can have many patients survive and have their disease controlled through targeted or immunotherapy or a hybrid combo therapy,” said Liang. “But we want 100% survival, and we want to know the right therapy for the right patient at the right time.”

Dr. Jessie Villanueva is a research leader in how tumor cells become resistant. She discussed the challenges of therapy resistance in melanoma—when tumors become indifferent to drugs and escape therapy.

“Some tumors rewire and bypass the effect of the drugs,” says Villanueva. “Sometimes treatment works great for a period, but then tumors become resistant. The genetic make-up of the cancer cells is highly variable within tumors, and even from one another, so drugs can work on some cells but not others. Cancer cells that ‘escape’ treatment can remain asleep and then can be triggered to reawaken, which leads to tumor relapse.”

Dr. Villanueva is developing ways to target NRAS mutations in melanoma.

“The tumors that I work on harbor mutations in NRAS and account for 25-30% of all melanomas,” says Villanueva. “These tumors are highly aggressive and can spread to other organs. NRAS acts as a molecular switch controlling (molecular) signals that instruct the cell to grow or proliferate. A mutation in NRAS breaks the molecular switch, causing cells to proliferate indefinitely and accumulate additional mutations.”

Villanueva continued, “At Wistar, we have the tools and sophisticated models to mimic what happens in a patient’s tumor and we have faculty with diverse skills and backgrounds—from cancer biology, proteomics, and structural biology—to develop novel drugs to combat drug resistant melanoma.”

Dr. Noam Auslander is a computer scientist and uses artificial intelligence to interpret biomedical research data and extract and identify new information. She joined Wistar in June and focuses on the question of who responds to which cancer treatments.

“I do computational work and analyze data sets to generate research questions,” says Auslander. “I build predictors for treatment responses to predict who will respond and who will be resistant. Using these predictors and evaluating large scale data sets for the next drug targets, I hope to find new solutions to drug resistance.”

Before the event ended, the scientists shared challenges or helpful advice they considered key to their success and reminded the attendees to check and protect their skin.

Dr. Mohamed Abdel-Mohsen

Wistar Scientists Discover Blood-based Biomarkers to Predict HIV Remission After Stopping Antiretroviral Therapy

Written by The Wistar Institute on . Posted in Press Releases.

PHILADELPHIA — (June 29, 2021) — New biomarkers that predict HIV remission after antiretroviral therapy (ART) interruption are critical for the development of new therapeutic strategies that can achieve infection control without ART, a condition defined as functional cure. These biomarkers can also provide critical clues into the biological mechanisms that control HIV replication after stopping therapy, and can help design novel strategies to cure HIV. Scientists at The Wistar Institute have identified metabolic and glycomic signatures in the blood of a rare population of HIV-infected individuals who can naturally sustain viral suppression after ART cessation, known as post-treatment controllers. These findings were published in Nature Communications and may provide new, non-invasive biomarkers to predict both the likelihood and duration of HIV remission after treatment interruption.

Cure-directed clinical trials are designed to test new therapeutic interventions to eradicate HIV infection. These trials require study participants to undergo analytical treatment interruption (ATI) to allow researchers to evaluate their strategies in the absence of the confounding effect of ART. HIV remains undetectable during ART, yet in the vast majority of cases viral loads go up within a few days or weeks after stopping ART and need to be carefully monitored. Currently, there are no simple, non-invasive methods available to monitor viral rebound after ATI. Therefore, biomarkers are urgently needed to improve the safety of ATI by predicting how long a patient can be off ART, and will be critical to understanding the mechanisms of post-ART viral control.

“We analyzed one of the largest sets of samples ever studied from post-treatment controllers, who don’t experience viral rebound after ART interruption,” said Mohamed Abdel-Mohsen, Ph.D., assistant professor in The Wistar Institute Vaccine & Immunotherapy Center, who led the study. “This condition is extremely rare and provides very important insights into what a functional HIV cure looks like. Analyzing the blood of these individuals, we identified promising biomarker signatures that may fast-track future HIV cure trials and treatments. These biomarkers also provide us with insights on how post-treatment controllers restrain infection and how we can design novel HIV curative strategies to recapitulate this promising phenotype in the millions of HIV-infected individuals worldwide.”

The study was conducted using blood samples available from two cohorts of patients who participated in previous clinical trials: a group of 24 HIV-infected individuals who underwent an open-ended ATI without concurrent immunoregulatory agents (the Philadelphia cohort) and one group of 74 individuals from six AIDS Clinical Trial Group (ACTG) clinical studies that evaluated different vaccines and immunotherapies. Importantly, this cohort included all 27 participants from these studies that were identified as post-treatment controllers and 47 non-controllers from the same studies.

Researchers analyzed blood samples collected shortly before ATI for the presence and quantity of certain small molecules produced as a result of cellular metabolism, called metabolites, and proteins that have sugar molecules attached to them, called glycoproteins. Metabolites and glycoproteins are secreted or leaked from various tissues and enter the circulation, therefore their abundance and chemical characteristics can reflect the overall status of multiple organs, making them excellent candidates for biomarker discovery.

The team first performed metabolomic analyses on the Philadelphia cohort samples and identified a select set of metabolites linked to inflammation whose pre-ATI levels are associated with time to viral rebound. These observations were confirmed in virus reactivation assays in vitro.

They then extended the metabolomic analysis to the larger cohort, also including glycomic studies to measure the levels of sugar-bound proteins. Since this cohort includes post-treatment controllers and non-controllers, Abdel Mohsen and colleagues were able to confirm their observations by comparing the two groups.

Using machine learning algorithms, they then combined the identified biomarkers to create two models for prediction of the likelihood and timing of viral rebound, with 95% and 74% accuracy, respectively.

“A growing body of research applies metabolomics and glycomics methods for the unbiased discovery of biomarkers associated with clinical conditions,” said Leila Giron, Ph.D., postdoctoral fellow in the Abdel-Mohsen lab and first author on the study. “We are among the first to apply this strategy in the context of ATI to analyze two carefully selected and well characterized groups of individuals, including a rare population of post-treatment controllers.”

Overall, this study identified potential biomarkers associated with control of HIV after ART and has the potential to contribute significantly to both HIV cure research and discovery of novel biological mechanisms underlying viral control in people living with HIV.

Co-authors: Qin Liu, Xiangfan Yin, Emmanouil Papasavvas, Mohammad Damra, Aaron R. Goldman, Hsin-Yao Tang, and Luis J. Montaner from The Wistar Institute; Clovis S. Palmer (co-first author) from The Burnet Institute, Melbourne, Australia and Monash University, Melbourne, Australia; Radwa Sharaf, Behzad Etemad and Jonathan Z. Li from Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School; Rowena Johnston from amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research; Karam Mounzer and Jay R. Kostman from Philadelphia FIGHT; Pablo Tebas from University of Pennsylvania; Alan Landay from Rush University; and Jeffrey M. Jacobson from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.

Work supported by: amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research; National Health Institutes (NIH) grants R21 AI143385, R01 DK123733, R01 AG062383, R01NS117458, R21 AI129636, R21NS106970, R01AI48398, BEAT-HIV Martin Delaney Collaboratory to cure HIV-1 infection (1UM1Al126620), UM1 AI068634, UM1 AI068636, UM1 AI106701, and Penn Center for AIDS Research (P30 AI 045008); W.W. Smith Charitable Trust; the Herbert Kean, M.D., Family Professorship; and the Robert I. Jacobs Fund of the Philadelphia Foundation. Support for The Wistar Institute core facilities was provided by Cancer Center Support Grant P30 CA010815. This work was also supported by NIH instrument award S10 OD023586.

Publication information: Non-Invasive Plasma Glycomic and Metabolic Biomarkers of Post-treatment Control of HIV, Nature Communications, 2021. Online publication.

###

The Wistar Institute is an international leader in biomedical research with special expertise in cancer research and vaccine development. Founded in 1892 as the first independent nonprofit biomedical research institute in the United States, Wistar has held the prestigious Cancer Center designation from the National Cancer Institute since 1972. The Institute works actively to ensure that research advances move from the laboratory to the clinic as quickly as possible. wistar.org.

The Wistar Institute Announces COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate for All Employees

Written by The Wistar Institute on . Posted in Press Releases.

PHILADELPHIA — (June 2, 2021) — The Wistar Institute, an international biomedical research leader with special expertise in cancer, immunology and infectious disease research and vaccine development, will require all employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19 by July 1, 2021.

“As an institution that has long been recognized for its contributions to vaccine research, Wistar takes a stand for the importance of mass vaccination in this critical time by setting an example,” said Dario Altieri, M.D., Wistar president and CEO, director of The Wistar Institute Cancer Center and the Robert and Penny Fox Distinguished Professor. “Now that the COVID vaccine is widely available, we need to act as a community, look after each other and protect each other.”

For more than half a century, Wistar has been creating vaccines that saved countless lives in the U.S. and across the world. Wistar scientists developed the rubella vaccine that is given to infants as part of the routine measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) immunization; advanced a post-exposure rabies vaccine that is nearly 100 percent effective in preventing infection and a wildlife rabies vaccine that is used worldwide to protect wild animals and, indirectly, neighboring human populations; and co-created a rotavirus vaccine that has been added to the recommended childhood immunization schedule in the U.S. and many other countries and has saved millions of young lives.

###

The Wistar Institute is an international leader in biomedical research with special expertise in cancer research and vaccine development. Founded in 1892 as the first independent nonprofit biomedical research institute in the United States, Wistar has held the prestigious Cancer Center designation from the National Cancer Institute since 1972. The Institute works actively to ensure that research advances move from the laboratory to the clinic as quickly as possible. wistar.org.

Dr. Noam Auslander

The Wistar Institute Recruits Noam Auslander, Ph.D., as Assistant Professor to Bring Artificial Intelligence Research to Its Cancer Center

Written by The Wistar Institute on . Posted in Press Releases.

PHILADELPHIA — (June 1, 2021) — The Wistar Institute, an international biomedical research leader in cancer, immunology and infectious diseases, announces the appointment of Noam Auslander, Ph.D., as assistant professor in the Molecular and Cellular Oncogenesis Program of The Wistar Institute Cancer Center.

Auslander’s research focuses on the development and application of advanced machine learning methods to investigate cancer progression and evolution of viral infections. Artificial intelligence (AI) uses computing power to process large and complex datasets, integrate different types of data and identify complex patterns in the data. It can uncover biologically and clinically relevant information and help predict prognosis and treatment response.

“We are absolutely thrilled to be able to welcome Noam Auslander to Wistar. Her recruitment is part of our long-range institutional commitment to expand state-of-the-art approaches in computational biology, machine learning and artificial intelligence specifically applied to critical cancer problems,” said Dario Altieri, M.D., Wistar president and CEO, director of The Wistar Institute Cancer Center and the Robert and Penny Fox Distinguished Professor. “Noam has established herself as an emerging leader in these areas, creating innovative algorithms to identify novel genomic predictors of aggressive disease, in particular metastasis, which is responsible for over 90% of all cancer deaths. Our researchers in the Cancer Center cannot be more excited about the broad and impactful collaborations that Noam’s arrival at Wistar will enable, creating new, transformative knowledge to tailor personalized cancer medicine for our patients.”

Auslander is especially interested in how cancer evolves over time. Cancer cells accumulate mutations and other alterations, leading to the emergence of different populations of cells with varying prognoses and metastatic potential. Those that carry the most favorable alterations to promote cancer are selected and cause disease progression. Deciphering this process has important implications for therapy response and resistance to treatment.

“My research is very collaborative by nature, and I’m thrilled by the opportunity to join Wistar’s world class faculty and collaborate with some of the scientists who are advancing transformative cancer research,” said Auslander. “AI has revolutionized other scientific and technologic fields and is starting to show its full potential in biomedical research. At Wistar, it can be used to identify biomarkers, develop clinical predictors, and uncover deleterious alterations. I am looking forward to establishing my laboratory and expanding my research to help answer important biologic questions.”

Auslander majored in computer science and biology at Tel Aviv University, Israel, and received her Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Maryland. She conducted her postdoctoral research work with the Evolutionary Genomics Research group at the National Center for Biotechnology Information of the National Institutes of Health.

###

The Wistar Institute is an international leader in biomedical research with special expertise in cancer research and vaccine development. Founded in 1892 as the first independent nonprofit biomedical research institute in the United States, Wistar has held the prestigious Cancer Center designation from the National Cancer Institute since 1972. The Institute works actively to ensure that research advances move from the laboratory to the clinic as quickly as possible. wistar.org.

Discovering the Mechanisms That Fine-tune Gene Expression 

Written by The Wistar Institute on . Posted in Featured News.

Turning on or off one or more genes at the wrong time or in the wrong cells can dramatically alter their activity and lead to unrestrained growth and cancer. Therefore, numerous control mechanisms are in place to keep the whole process in check.

Because of the complexity of gene expression regulation, this is one of the most intensely studied subjects.

In a new study published in the prestigious journal Cell, the lab of Dr. Alessandro Gardini and collaborators at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne, Australia, discovered a new mechanism that fine-tunes gene expression and is disrupted in cancer, indicating a possible new avenue for cancer treatment.

RNA transcription is the first step in the flow of genetic information from DNA to proteins. This is a very dynamic process operated by an enzyme called RNA polymerase II (RNAPII) and is tightly controlled through the opposing functions of several proteins. 

After starting transcription, RNAPII comes to a pause to allow the cell to check that the process is taking place smoothly and with no incidents. Shortly after, the enzyme starts transcribing again and elongating the newly synthesized RNA molecule.

Gardini and team uncovered a new regulatory checkpoint in which two proteins work in tandem to control the balance between pausing and elongation.

“Cancer is a consequence of altered gene expression,” said Gardini. “We described one of the essential ways through which gene transcription is kept in check.”

Researchers also showed that blocking one protein and activating the other at the same time represents a new potential strategy for combination treatment, demonstrating activity in preclinical models of leukemia and solid malignancies.

Overall, this study provided new insight into how gene expression is tightly controlled and opened new avenues for transcription-based anticancer therapy.

To learn more about this research, read our press release.

The Wistar Institute and Other Top U.S. Cancer Centers Call for Urgent Action to Get Cancer-Preventing HPV Vaccination Back on Track

Written by The Wistar Institute on . Posted in Press Releases.

PHILADELPHIA – May 20, 2021 – The Wistar Institute has partnered with doctors and scientists across America at National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated cancer centers to issue a joint statement urging the nation’s physicians, parents and young adults to get the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination back on track.

“Vaccination is critical to preventing human papillomavirus infection that can lead to cervical cancer, head and neck cancer and other preventable, HPV-related cancers. Yet pandemic-related safety concerns are discouraging people across the country from receiving these important, safe and effective HPV vaccines,” said Dario Altieri, M.D., Wistar president and CEO, Cancer Center director, and the Robert & Penny Fox Distinguished Professor. “It is vital that we remain vigilant against these preventable cancers and ensure HPV vaccination of our children and young adults and continue to schedule routine cancer screenings and check-ups each year.”

Dramatic drops in annual well visits and immunizations during the COVID-19 pandemic have caused a significant vaccination gap and lag in vital preventive services among U.S. children and adolescents—especially for the HPV vaccine.

Nearly 80 million Americans – 1 out of every 4 people – are infected with HPV, a virus that causes several types of cancers. Of those millions, more than 31,000 will be diagnosed with an HPV-related cancer this year. Despite those staggering figures and the availability of a vaccine to prevent HPV infections, HPV vaccination rates remain significantly lower than other recommended adolescent vaccines in the U.S. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, HPV vaccination rates lagged far behind other vaccines and other countries’ HPV vaccination rates. According to 2017 data from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), fewer than half (49%) of adolescents were up to date on the HPV vaccine.

Those numbers have declined dangerously since the pandemic:

  • Early in the pandemic, HPV vaccination rates among adolescents fell by 75%, resulting in a large cohort of unvaccinated children.
  • Since March 2020, an estimated one million doses of HPV vaccine have been missed by adolescents with public insurance— a decline of 21% over pre-pandemic levels.

“Cervical cancer is one of the most common causes of cancer death in America and is the fourth most common cancer in women worldwide. United Kingdom and Australia are on a path to eliminate this disease in the next decade due to strong public health initiatives on the benefits of cancer screening and HPV vaccination. We can do the same and unite behind the need to eradicate this preventable cancer through education and a commitment to increasing HPV vaccination across the U.S.,” Altieri said.

The U.S. has recommended routine HPV vaccination for females since 2006, and for males since 2011. Current recommendations are for routine vaccination at ages 11 or 12 or starting at age 9. Catch-up HPV vaccination is recommended through age 26.

NCI Cancer Centers strongly encourage parents to vaccinate their adolescents as soon as possible. The CDC recently authorized COVID-19 vaccination for 12-15-year-old children allowing for missed doses of routinely recommended vaccines, including HPV, to be administered at the same time. NCI Cancer Centers strongly urge action by health care systems and health care providers to identify and contact adolescents due for vaccinations and to use every opportunity to encourage and complete vaccination.

More information on HPV is available from the CDC and National HPV Vaccination Roundtable. This is the third time that all NCI-designated cancer centers have come together to issue a national call to action. All 71 cancer centers unanimously share the goal of sending a powerful message to parents, adolescents and health care providers about the importance of HPV vaccination for the elimination of HPV-related cancers.

###

The Wistar Institute is an international leader in biomedical research with special expertise in cancer, immunology, infectious disease research, and vaccine development. Founded in 1892 as the first independent nonprofit biomedical research institute in the United States, Wistar has held the prestigious Cancer Center designation from the National Cancer Institute since 1972. The Institute works actively to ensure that research advances move from the laboratory to the clinic as quickly as possible. wistar.org.

Celebrating 15 Years of Protecting Children’s Health Worldwide

Written by The Wistar Institute on . Posted in Featured News.

Milestone discoveries made at The Wistar Institute have led to the development of vaccines that protect children and adults from widespread and life-threatening diseases and have saved countless lives in the United States and around the world. 

2021 marks the 15th anniversary of the approval and commercialization of a rotavirus vaccine based on research conducted at Wistar and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and developed by Merck & Co., Inc.

This tremendous achievement would not have been realized without the collaboration among an academic research institute, a research hospital and a pharmaceutical partner taking this lifesaving solution from the discovery phase and all the way through to commercialization.

Rotavirus is the leading cause of severe gastroenteritis in young children globally. It causes diarrhea and vomiting that can lead to dehydration and death if left untreated. 

Before a vaccine, rotavirus caused 200,000 emergency room visits and 60 deaths in children under five years of age every year in the U.S1. 

Dr. Stanley Plotkin, a veteran Wistar vaccine researcher who created important vaccines including one against rubella and now professor emeritus at Wistar and the University of Pennsylvania; the late Dr. H. Fred Clark, veterinarian and research professor at Wistar, CHOP and University of Pennsylvania; and Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at CHOP, began their research on rotavirus, which lasted for just more than a decade starting in 1980.

In 1981, Clark isolated the Wistar Calf-3 or WC3 strain of rotavirus from a calf. From then until 1991, the three researchers worked together to create a prototype vaccine. Building on their research, Merck & Co., Inc. tested the vaccine between 1990 and 2006 in a series of clinical trials that was a huge undertaking spanning 11 countries and involving 72,000 subjects. In 2006, the vaccine was approved by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration with the name RotaTeq®. 

Shortly after, the vaccine was included in the list of routine childhood vaccinations in the Americas and Europe.

Since then, other rotavirus vaccines have been approved and all the available vaccines are highly effective in preventing severe gastrointestinal disease from rotavirus. In 2009, the World Health Organization recommended that all countries include a rotavirus vaccine in their infant immunization programs. More than 100 countries have done so to date.

Vaccination has significantly reduced death and illness from rotavirus infections in the U.S. and worldwide. The public health impact of rotavirus vaccination has been profound: Countries using rotavirus vaccines have seen a 40 percent decrease in hospital admissions among children younger than 5 years2 and annual deaths caused by rotavirus diarrhea have decreased by more than 30 percent globally3. In the U.S., child hospitalizations from rotavirus have dropped by 85 percent4.

Today, rotavirus still kills more than 500,000 children under age five every year globally5, with the vast majority of deaths occurring in low-income countries, where intravenous rehydration is often unavailable.

Organizations like Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance, provide support to those countries to introduce rotavirus vaccination. Thanks to this effort, full vaccine coverage across Gavi-supported countries increased by 11 percent between 2017 and 2018, to reach 39 percent6. 

Rotavirus vaccination is also cost-effective: It has been estimated that without vaccination, $987 million would have been spent on treatment costs in 20107.

Importantly, rotavirus vaccination helps avoid the unnecessary use of antibiotics that are often erroneously prescribed for this viral disease, contributing to the emergence of antibiotic resistance.

Wistar celebrates the 15-year milestone of this vaccine and is proud of its contribution to protecting babies and young children around the world from rotavirus disease.
 

1Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
2Global impact of rotavirus vaccine introduction on rotavirus hospitalisations among children under 5 years of age, 2008–16: findings from the Global Rotavirus Surveillance Network, The Lancet Global Health, 2019
3Global impact of rotavirus vaccination on diarrhea hospitalizations and deaths among children <5 years old: 2006–2019, The Journal of Infectious Diseases, 2020
4Source: CDC
5Estimates of global, regional, and national morbidity, mortality, and aetiologies of diarrhoeal diseases: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2015, The Lancet Infectious Diseases, 2017
6Source: GAVI, The Vaccine Alliance
7Epidemiological and economic impact of monovalent and pentavalent rotavirus vaccines in low and middle income countries: a cost-effectiveness modeling analysis. The Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal, 2015.

May is National Cancer Research Month

Written by The Wistar Institute on . Posted in Featured News.

Wistar joins the American Association for Cancer Research and many other organizations in raising awareness on the importance of cancer research.

In 2018, the world saw more than 18 million new cases and 9.5 million cancer-related deaths*.

Research advances are critically needed to better understand cancer and create more effective therapies to provide hope for patients.

Basic discoveries are the foundations for future medicines. Scientists at the Wistar Institute Cancer Center keep pushing the limits of cancer research to uncover new mechanisms that allow cancer to grow and spread in the body and can be targeted to create new treatment approaches.

Read the blogs below to learn what they’ve been up to in the past year:

*Source: International Agency for Research on Cancer

Groundbreaking of Life Science Building Encapsulates West Philadelphia Growth and Power of Partnership 

Written by The Wistar Institute on . Posted in Featured News.

University Place Associates (UPA) celebrated the groundbreaking of soon-to-be-constructed 3.0 University Place, a more than 250,000 square foot, technologically advanced and environmentally sustainable life science building in West Philadelphia that will provide innovative lab and office space for Wistar and other academic institutions and biotech companies.

The event kicked off with a performance by the West Powelton Steppers, before government officials, life science industry representatives and prominent members of the West Philadelphia business, arts and neighborhood community spoke to the importance of a much-needed life science space that will also create 400+ construction jobs and make a positive impact for generations to come.

Alongside speeches from UPA founder Scott Mazo and chairman and CEO Howard Lutnik of Cantor Fitzgerald Partner, a global finance firm investing in the project, Wistar’s president and CEO Dr. Dario Altieri made brief remarks on Wistar’s proud history of accomplishments and future innovations through the lens of the pandemic that has made this past year beyond compare.

“What’s really behind UPA 3.0 is a vision of innovative research, forward-looking entrepreneurship and productive public-private partnerships,” said Dr. Altieri. “If there is one thing that we learned from the despair caused by COVID-19 is that we need more science, more scientists and more innovation to find life-saving solutions to the world’s biggest health problems. Building on Scott’s vision, UPA 3.0 will be a critical catalyst to fulfill that promise and bring to life the medicines of the future. I could not be prouder and more eager to embrace the unique opportunities created by UPA 3.0 and expand innovation and creativity in the life sciences in our region and beyond.”

UPA partnered with major New York City development firm Silverstein Properties, responsible for the Hudson Research Center life science hub in Manhattan and behind the building of 7 World Trade Center in 2006. Chairman Larry Silverstein spoke to the excitement of this state-of-the-art space that will be developed sustainably and the impact it will bring to the local cell and gene therapy sector, but also to the community.

Of the many that spoke from their respective political, business, scientific, and community sectors, they all wished the same prosperity and community connection that made the project happen in the first place.