074 | An unprecedented act of kindness, a jump in cancer immunotherapy, and trusting your gut On this episode of Biotechnology Focus radio are some of the top stories this week: How an unprecedented act of kindness will transform lives Promising news out of Ottawa that could take cancer immunotherapy to the next level How a known anti-psychotic has the possibility of being a solution to ALS And how a researcher’s gut reaction turned out to be right. ++++++ Making headlines this week is about the staggering $100 million anonymous donation that was received by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) in Toronto to combat the causes of mental illness and develop cures to save lives and further hope. This anonymous gift leaves many incredulous and excited to fuel discovery and create social change for all Canadians. The donor made a comment on how they had seen first-hand the impact mental illness has on individuals and their families, and that they just wanted to support the next generation of researchers so that they can transform care. This investment has presented CAMH the opportunity to create the Discovery Fund, aimed to transform the lives of those touched by mental illness. The fund will attract talent, explore innovative ideas, support young scientists and leverage data to pick the brain and uncover how the pieces fit together. Dr. Catherine Zahn, the president and CEO of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health said that “Complex problems need complex solutions. We need to invest in the fundamental research and the clinical innovation that will improve the health of individuals and populations, locally, nationally and globally. This gift will make that a reality.” +++++ The Ottawa Hospital and the University of Ottawa have released a promising study. It suggests that combinations of two immunotherapies – oncolytic viruses and checkpoint inhibitors – could be more successful as treatments for combating triple-negative breast cancer than traditional methods. The study was published in Science Translational Medicine using mice models by Dr. Marie-Claude Bourgeois-Daigneault, lead-author of the study and postdoctoral fellow, and Dr. John Bell, a grantee from the Alliance of Cancer Gene Therapy (ACGT), professor at the University of Ottawa and senior scientist at the Ottawa Hospital. Cancer immunotherapy has become a prominent tool in the treatment of cancer, especially melanoma and leukemia, but has not had such a strong effect on solid tumour cancers. The researchers studied three mouse models of triple negative breast cancer and found that all were resistant to a checkpoint inhibitor which is commonly used to treat other kinds of cancer. They also found that while an oncolytic virus called Maraba could replicate inside these cancers and help the mouse’s immune system recognize and attack the cancer, the virus alone had minimal impact on overall survival. The researchers decided to up the ante and put both the oncolytic and checkpoint inhibitor in unison to determine if the results would change in models that mimicked metastatic breast cancer. They found that this combination cured 60 to 90 per cent of the mice, compared to zero for the checkpoint inhibitor alone and 20 to 30 per cent for the virus alone. In these models, the virus was given previous to the surgery and the checkpoint inhibitor was given afterward. There are other ongoing clinical trials that are testing oncolytic viruses, such as Maraba, in aggregation with checkpoint inhibitors in people with cancer, as well as expanding the use of oncolytic viruses to fight other infectious diseases, such as HIV. These results could be a breakthrough and make this an incredibly exciting find. +++++ Most people are familiar with the Ice Bucket Challenge that went viral a couple years ago to raise awareness for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or more familiarly known as ALS. It topped the charts with over $17 million participants that raised a substantial amount of money for the cause. So where did these raised funds go? Well, some of that capital has been invested into a research study at the University of Calgary to investigate a potential pre-established drug for use as a treatment for ALS. Dr. Lawrence Korngut, associate professor at the Cumming School of Medicine and a member of the Hotchkiss Brain Institute, is spearheading a clinical trial associated with nine hospital centres around Canada to determine if a well-known anti-psychotic drug could be repurposed to either cure or treat symptoms of ALS. Studies from researchers in Montreal indicated that the use of pimozide to stabilize mobility was receptive in animal models who were born with the equivalent of human ALS. They discovered that the drug had a particular knack for preventing paralysis in fish with a genetic form of ALS by preserving the neuromuscular function – which can be related to the disease in humans. After only six weeks, the research team started to see results of the drug’s effectiveness. One of the first more typical signs of ALS – which is the loss of control of the thenar muscles – maintained normal functioning. However, it is not known yet if pimozide can be repurposed for this disease. More studies will be necessary to determine if this will only have a stabilizing effect, or if it is curative. It appears as if things are looking up for ALS patients as more clinical trials are introduced, but there is still no definitive cure for the disease. More ALS patients are needed for these studies. Any who are interested in participating please contact [email protected]. +++++ Many people around the world rely on catheters every day to empty their bladder – especially people with spinal cord injuries. After a well-respected publication concluded that catheters could be reused without an increased risk of infection, a professor and researcher from the University of British Columbia began to question. Dr. Andrei Krassioukov, a professor of medicine at UBC and chair of rehabilitation research with International Collaboration On Repair Discoveries (ICORD), who works closely with groups such as the American Paraplegic Society, and the Canadian Association of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, just this past summer spoke to a few of the wheelchair athletes that participated in the Summer Paralympics in London about the single-use versus multiple-use issues on catheters. A urinary tract infection (UTI) is an infection in any part of your urinary system — your kidneys, ureters, bladder, and urethra. Most infections involve the lower urinary tract — the bladder and the urethra. It can be an extremely painful and incapacitating infection. Antibiotics like amoxicillin, are used to heal the infection and soothe the symptoms. Sexually active women and patients that use catheters, like spinal cord injury patients are at higher risk. It has been a debate amongst the medical community of whether or not to reuse catheters. The instrument can cost anywhere from $5 to $30, and for people with spinal cord injuries that require a new one every time they release their bladder, it begins to add up. Around the world, and even within Canada, there are price and coverage differences for the individual. In France, it is illegal to reuse catheters; and in other countries, they simply can not afford the healthcare costs of single-use. Cochrane Canada, a non-profit, non-governmental organization formed to organize medical research findings to facilitate evidence-based choices about health inventions, reviewed evidence from 31 clinical trials of single vs. multi-use catheters and urinary tract infections in 2014. Their statement is that there was no convincing evidence that the incidence of infection was linked by catheterization. From Krassioukov’s clinical experience and study conducted at the Paralympics he instinctively knew that these results were false. He assembled a team of experts from around the world to re-examine the evidence. Due to the sufficiency of the errors they found in the previous concluding evidence, Cochrane has since withdrawn their conclusion. While there have been new developments on how to make catheters sterile and ready for multi-use, they have yet to be fully confident that it will not reimpose infection. +++++ Well that wraps up another episode of Biotechnology Focus Radio. If you are interested in contributing an article to Biotechnology Focus, please email us at [email protected]. For the full stories of this week’s headlines, check out biotechnologyfocus.ca. Thank you all so much for listening. I hope you are having a great week and tune in soon again! From my desk to yours – this is Michelle Currie.