University of Amsterdam

CHICAGO, July 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- At ADLM 2024 (formerly the AACC Annual Scientific Meeting & Clinical Lab Expo) in Chicago, more than 300 experts will present cutting-edge research and technology that will shape the future of laboratory medicine and improve patient care. From July 28-August 1, the meeting's 250-plus sessions will delve into a variety of timely topics, including the health consequences of ending federal protection for abortion in the U.S., a recent Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ruling that could significantly impede patient access to essential laboratory developed tests, and how to harness data science to achieve health equity. The case for clinical trials of lab tests. Clinical trials are the recognized standard for evaluating pharmaceuticals and other clinical interventions. In the meeting's opening plenary, Dr. Patrick M. Bossuyt will make a compelling, research-based argument for why clinical trials of laboratory tests should also be used to support practice guidelines, reimbursement decisions, and more. Dr. Bossuyt is the recipient of the 2024 Wallace H. Coulter Lectureship Award and a professor of clinical epidemiology at the University of Amsterdam. Lymphoma biomarkers and therapeutic targets from mass spectrometry-driven proteomics. Dr. Kojo S.J. Elenitoba-Johnson, chair of the department of pathology and laboratory medicine at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, will deliver a plenary about the emergence of mass spectrometry as a way to assess complex protein mixtures in patient tissue samples, a technique that allows clinicians to detect cancer and develop more targeted treatments. Pharmacogenetic testing in precision health. In this plenary, Dr. Ron H.N. van Schaik, professor of pharmacogenetics at Erasmus University Medical Center, will explain how pharmacogenetics uses people's unique genetic profiles to develop personalized therapies for diseases. He'll describe recent challenges and successes in this field that could benefit patients in psychiatry, cardiology, and oncology, along with pharmacogenetic-testing developments that will further refine treatments. Providing more options in HIV prevention. Current HIV-prevention medications have limitations. Oral antiretrovirals combining tenofovir and emtricitabine reduce HIV only in certain people, while an injectable form of cabotegravir is effective but expensive. In this plenary, Dr. Sharon L. Hillier, director of reproductive infectious disease research at Magee-Womens Research Institute, will discuss the development of new prevention options for at-risk populations. Projected consequences of ending abortion protection. In this plenary, Dr. Diana Greene Foster, professor of obstetrics, gynecology, and reproductive sciences at the University of California, San Francisco, will discuss the changing landscape of abortion law and its impact on patient care. Drawing on data from nearly 1,000 pregnant people at 30 U.S. abortion facilities, she'll describe the health and socioeconomic consequences of receiving abortions versus carrying pregnancies to term. Special session on laboratory developed tests. This year, the FDA released a final rule placing laboratory developed tests under FDA oversight, even though these tests are already regulated by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. In this July 30 session, representatives from ADLM, the American Medical Association, and the Children's Hospital Association will discuss the negative impact this rule will have on patient care. They will be joined by a caregiver and patient advocate who will give the patient perspective on why laboratory developed tests are so important to timely diagnoses and treatment. The winning entry of the FairLabs Data Analytics Challenge. The University of Washington Department of Laboratory Medicine & Pathology Team has been named winner of a competition challenging participants to develop analytic tools that promote fairness in peripartum urine drug screening. ADLM 2024 attendees can learn about the winning entry and how to apply data science to health equity at the Health Equity & Access Division breakfast meeting on July 29. "From plenaries highlighting testing breakthroughs to a session on achieving health equity through data science, to a critical discussion of the FDA's laboratory developed tests ruling, ADLM 2024 showcases how clinical laboratory professionals are making bold moves every day to advance medicine around the globe," said ADLM CEO Mark J. Golden. Session information ADLM 2024 registration is free for members of the media. Reporters can register online here: Plenary sessions Session 11001 Why we need more strong clinical trials of laboratory tests Sunday, July 28 5-6:30 p.m. U.S. Central Time Session 12001 Lymphoma biomarkers and therapeutic targets from mass spectrometry-driven proteomics Monday, July 29 8:45-10 a.m. U.S. Central Time Session 13001 Implementation of PGx-based testing in precision health: Do you have your DNA-passport? Tuesday, July 30 8:45-10 a.m. U.S. Central Time Session 14001 Empowering choice by providing more options in HIV prevention Wednesday, July 31 8:45-10 a.m. U.S. Central Time Session 15001 Projected health and social consequences of ending the federal protection for abortion in the United States Thursday, August 1 8:45-10 a.m. U.S. Central Time All plenary sessions will take place in Room S100 of the McCormick Place Convention Center in Chicago. Special session on laboratory developed tests Session 13002 How FDA oversight of LDTs will affect patient care Tuesday, July 30 4:30-6 p.m. U.S. Central Time Room S100, McCormick Place Convention Center Presentation of the FairLabs Data Analytics Challenge winning entry Health Equity and Access Division and the Data Analytics in Laboratory Medicine Committee breakfast meeting Monday, July 29 7:30-9 a.m. U.S. Central Time Great Lakes Ballroom A, Marriott Marquis Chicago About ADLM 2024 ADLM 2024 (formerly the AACC Annual Scientific Meeting & Clinical Lab Expo) offers 5 days packed with opportunities to learn about exciting science from July 28-August 1 in Chicago. Plenary sessions will explore the projected consequences of ending abortion protection, new HIV prevention options, lymphoma biomarkers and therapeutic targets, pharmacogenetic testing in precision health, and the need for clinical trials of laboratory tests. At the ADLM 2024 Clinical Lab Expo, more than 900 exhibitors will fill the show floor of the McCormick Place Convention Center in Chicago, with displays of the latest diagnostic technology, including but not limited to artificial intelligence, point-of-care, and automation. About the Association for Diagnostics & Laboratory Medicine (ADLM) Dedicated to achieving better health through laboratory medicine, ADLM (formerly AACC) brings together more than 70,000 clinical laboratory professionals, physicians, research scientists, and business leaders from around the world focused on clinical chemistry, molecular diagnostics, mass spectrometry, translational medicine, lab management, and other areas of progressing laboratory science. Since 1948, ADLM has worked to advance the common interests of the field, providing programs that advance scientific collaboration, knowledge, expertise, and innovation. For more information, visit . Christine DeLong ADLM Associate Director, Communications & PR (p) 202.835.8722 [email protected] Molly Polen ADLM Senior Director, Communications & PR (p) 202.420.7612 (c) 703.598.0472 [email protected] SOURCE Association for Diagnostics & Laboratory Medicine (ADLM)

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico and LAUSANNE, Switzerland, July 12, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- ImmuneAGE Bio raised $2M and has built the first drug discovery platform to rejuvenate the entire immune system at the source: the hematopoietic stem cell (HSCs) residing in the bone marrow. The platform allows for large-scale ex vivo combinatorial drug screening for geroprotective cocktails of rejuvenating therapeutics. ImmuneAGE achieve 1000x expansion of HSCs, a factor of >70x more than prior efforts, allowing high throughput drug discovery in HSCs for the first time. ImmuneAge Bio is now advancing 3 programs: IA-101, an oral small molecule immune booster targeting respiratory infections and vaccine response in elderly patients. IA-201, an immune rejuvenation cocktail for ex vivo use (on peripheral mobilized HSCs) targeting chemotherapy recovery and bone marrow transplantation. IA-301, an HSC expansion platform targeting bone marrow transplantation as well as other immune cell types like T cells. ImmuneAGE is now raising a seed round. 'Immune Refresh Therapy' Transplant of young bone marrow into aged mice can extend lifespan by ±30% (largest lifespan effect size of any therapeutic intervention tested to date). The entire immune system originates from HSCs. Management Team Founder & CEO: Sebastian Brunemeier, a longevity scientist by training. Previously co-Founder and CIO of Cambrian Biopharma, Founder & COO of Samsara Therapeutics, Principal at Apollo Health Ventures, General Partner at Healthspan Capital. Formerly Oxford and University of Amsterdam. COO: Josef Christensen, PhD, Previously with McKinsey & Co focusing on pharma for 6 years, Former Global Commercial Associate Director for Stem Cell Therapies at Novo Nordisk, Former CBDO of StemMedical (second only company to have gotten regulatory approval for mesenchymal stem cell therapy in Europe), former Partner at Apollo Health Ventures, PhD in Regenerative Medicine and stem cell biology (Harvard & University of Copenhagen). Scientific collaborators at the University of Oxford (Dr Adam Wilkinson) and University of Lausanne (Dr Nicola Vannini), research operations led by Dr Stephan Emmrich and Ryan Spangler. Investors Investors include 1517 Fund (Thiel Fellowship founders), Infinita Fund, Emerging Longevity Ventures, VitaDAO, Healthspan Capital, Balaji Srinivasan PhD (ex-a16z, The Network State), Thomas Ebeling (Fmr CEO of Novartis, board of Bayer and Lonza), Diane Seimetz PhD (Fresenius CSO & Founder of Biopharma Excellence), Karl Pfleger PhD (Google AI, longevity superangel), Alberto Santagostino (Head of Gene and Cell Therapy at Lonza, fmr McKinsey partner), Jack O'Meara (Co-Founder of Ochre Bio), and more. SOURCE ImmuneAge Bio

The effects of coffee consumption on human health is a knotty question, but one thing is sure: coffee is a psychoactive substance. Coffee drinking is a heritable habit, and one that carries a certain amount of genetic baggage. Caffeinated coffee is a psychoactive substance, notes Sandra Sanchez-Roige, Ph.D., an associate professor in the University of California San Diego School of Medicine Department of Psychiatry. She is one of an international group of researchers that compared coffee-consumption characteristics from a 23andMe database with an even larger set of records in the United Kingdom. She is the corresponding author of a study recently published in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology. Hayley H. A. Thorpe, Ph.D., is the lead author on the paper. Thorpe, of the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology, Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry at Western University in Ontario, explained that the team collected genetic data as well as self-reported coffee-consumption numbers to assemble a genome-wide association study (GWAS). The idea was to make connections between the genes that were known to be associated with coffee consumption and the traits or conditions related to health. "We used this data to identify regions on the genome associated with whether somebody is more or less likely to consume coffee," Thorpe explained. "And then identify the genes and biology that could underlie coffee intake." Abraham Palmer, Ph.D., is also a lead researcher on the paper and a professor in the UC San Diego School of Medicine Department of Psychiatry. He said that most people are surprised that there is a genetic influence on coffee consumption. "We had good reason to suspect from earlier papers that there were genes that influence how much coffee someone consumes," he said. "And so, we weren't surprised to find that in both of the cohorts we examined there was statistical evidence that this is a heritable trait. In other words, the particular gene variants that you inherit from your parents influence how much coffee you're likely to consume." Sanchez-Roige said the genetic influence on coffee consumption was the first of two questions the researchers wanted to address. "The second is something that coffee lovers are really keen on learning," Sanchez-Roige said. "Is drinking coffee good or bad? Is it associated with positive health outcomes or not?" The answer is not definitive. The group's genome-wide association study of 130,153 U.S.-based 23andMe research participants was compared with a similar UK Biobank database of 334,649 Britons, revealing consistent positive genetic associations between coffee and harmful health outcomes such as obesity and substance use. A positive genetic association is a connection between a specific gene variant (the genotype) and a specific condition (the phenotype). Conversely, a negative genetic association is an apparent protective quality discouraging the development of a condition. The findings get more complicated when it comes to psychiatric conditions. "Look at the genetics of anxiety, for instance, or bipolar and depression: In the 23andMe data set, they tend to be positively genetically correlated with coffee intake genetics," Thorpe said. "But then, in the UK Biobank, you see the opposite pattern, where they're negatively genetically correlated. This is not what we expected." She said there were other instances in which the 23andMe set didn't align with the UK Biobank, but the greatest disagreement was in psychiatric conditions. "It's common to combine similar datasets in this field to increase study power. This information paints a fairly clear picture that combining these two datasets was really not a wise idea. And we didn't end up doing that," Thorpe said. She explained that melding the databases might mask effects, leading researchers toward incorrect conclusions -- or even cancelling each other out. Sanchez-Roige says the researchers have some ideas about how the differences in results arose. To begin with, there was an apples-and-oranges aspect to the surveys. For instance, the 23andMe survey asked, "How many 5-ounce (cup-sized) servings of caffeinated coffee do you consume each day?" Compare it to the UK Biobank's "How many cups of coffee do you drink each day? (Include decaffeinated coffee)" Beyond serving size and the caffeinated/decaf divide, the surveys made no accommodation for the various ways coffee is served. "We know that in the U.K., they have generally higher preference for instant coffee, whereas ground coffee is more preferred in the U.S.," Thorpe said. "And then there's the frappuccinos," Sanchez-Roige added, citing the American trend of taking coffee loaded with sugary additives. Palmer mentioned other caffeinated drinks and especially in the context of the UK Biobank, tea, none of which were included in the GWAS, which addressed only coffee. Palmer added that the GWAS demonstrates the relationship between genotype and phenotype is more different than the relationship between coffee and tea. "Genetics influences lots of things. For instance, it influences how tall you might be," he said. "And those kinds of things probably would play out very similarly, whether you lived in the U.S. or the U.K. But coffee is a decision that people make." Sanchez-Roige pointed out that coffee comes in a variety of forms, from instant to frappuccino, and is consumed amid cultural norms that differ from place to place. A person with a given genotype might end up having quite a different phenotype living in the U.K. versus the U.S. "And that's really what the data are telling us," she said. "Because unlike height, where your behavior doesn't really have much to do with it, your behavior and the choices you're making in your environment play out in various ways. So the interaction between genotype and environment complicates the picture." The collaborators stressed the need for more investigation to unravel the relationships between genetics and the environment, focusing not only on coffee/caffeine intake but also other substance-use issues. In addition to the researchers noted above, co-authors on the paper from UC San Diego are: Benjamin K. Pham, John J. Meredith, Mariela V. Jennings, Natasia S. Courchesne-Krak and Sevim B. Bianchi, all of the Department of Psychiatry. Other co-authors are Pierre Fontanillas, of 23andMe, Inc.; Laura Vilar-Ribó, of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain; Julian Mutz, of King's College London, U.K.; Sarah L. Elson and Jibran Y. Khokhar, of the University of Guelph, Canada; Abdel Abdellaoui, of the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Lea K. Davis, of Vanderbilt University Medical Center; and the 23andMe Research Team. Mariela V. Jennings, Sevim B. Bianchi and Sandra Sanchez-Roige are supported by funds from the California Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program (TRDRP; Grant Number T29KT0526 and T32IR5226). Sevim B. Bianchi and Abraham Palmer were also supported by P50DA037844. BKP, Julian Mutz, and Sandra Sanchez-Roige are supported by NIH/NIDA DP1DA054394. Hayley H. A .Thorpe is funded through a Natural Science and Engineering Research Council PGS-D scholarship and Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Fellowship. Jibran Y. Khokhar is supported by a CIHR Canada Research Chair in Translational Neuropsychopharmacology. Lea K. Davis is supported by R01 MH113362. Natasia S. Courchesne-Krak is funded through an Interdisciplinary Research Fellowship in NeuroAIDs (Grant Number R25MH081482). Julian Mutz is funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and King's College London.