Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital

Addition of Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital Cancer & Blood Disorders Institute marks a critical expansion into pediatric oncology research and discovery TAMPA and ST. PETERSBURG, Fla., April 30, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Aster Insights, the leading provider of scientific and clinical intelligence for oncology discovery, announced today that Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital will join its Oncology Research Information Exchange Network® (ORIEN) as the newest member of the consortium. By joining ORIEN®, children with cancer receiving care at Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital will be able to participate in this research to identify novel oncology cures. With this addition, ORIEN® will be comprised of 19 cancer centers across the U.S. dedicated to collaborative research to accelerate cancer medical product discovery and development. "The addition of Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital to ORIEN is a major milestone in the history of ORIEN and Aster Insights," said Dr. Erin Siegel, ORIEN® Steering Committee Chair. "They will be instrumental in expanding and advancing our national research endeavors in pediatric patient populations, bringing a wealth of knowledge and attention to this important area of cancer research." ORIEN® members participate in Total Cancer Care® (TCC), the world's largest and longest-running observational research study in oncology, which has accrued over 400,000 patients to date. Patients enrolled in TCC® provide a lifetime connection to their multimodal health care data to best support patient care, research, and discovery of new cures for cancer. Patients at Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital will have the opportunity to participate in TCC, sharing their health data and specimens to help identify novel biomarkers and treatments. "We are thrilled to join ORIEN and integrate pediatric oncology into the critical work of these leading academic cancer centers," said Cassandra Josephson, M.D., director of the Johns Hopkins All Children's Cancer & Blood Disorders Institute. "More than 300,000 children are diagnosed with cancer globally each year. By joining ORIEN, we can bring sorely needed resources to the research and discovery of pediatric cancers, identify new treatments and provide patients and their families unique, lifelong insights into their health and care plans." Stacie Stapleton, M.D., director of pediatric Neuro-Oncology at Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital and principal investigator of the Johns Hopkins All Children's Brain Tumor Tissue Bank Study, which has nearly 3000 samples, said, "The collaboration with ORIEN is a great opportunity to conduct in-depth studies with ORIEN's research team." Aster Insights leads the Total Cancer Care study and oversees ongoing data and specimen collection from patients across ORIEN®. Through this unique capability, Aster Insights has built one of the most unique multimodal datasets from a diverse group patients treated in academic cancer centers across the U.S. "The youngest patients with cancer are in greatest need of dedicated research and development of novel treatments," said Anand Shah, M.D., Chief Executive Officer of Aster Insights. "Pediatric patients stand to benefit the most from longitudinal study of their illness and survivorship. The addition of Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital to ORIEN will accelerate new cures for children and enable Aster Insights to match the right patient to the right treatment or clinical trial at the right time." Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital joined ORIEN® on March 26, 2024. About Aster Insights Aster Insights is the leading provider of scientific and clinical intelligence for oncology discovery. We partner with drug, biologics, diagnostics, and medical device developers to accelerate oncology product discovery and development. Aster Insights leads the Oncology Research Information Exchange Network® (ORIEN), a consortium of the nation's leading cancer centers that conduct Total Cancer Care®, the world's largest and longest running observational research study in oncology. Together, we are changing the way cancer is studied, treated, and prevented. Learn more at and follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter. SOURCE Aster Insights

Scientists say that an experimental monoclonal antibody drug called mAb43 appears to prevent and reverse the onset of clinical type 1 diabetes in mice, and in some cases, to lengthen the animals' lifespan. Scientists at Johns Hopkins Medicine say that an experimental monoclonal antibody drug called mAb43 appears to prevent and reverse the onset of clinical type 1 diabetes in mice, and in some cases, to lengthen the animals' lifespan. The drug is unique, according to the researchers, because it targets insulin-making beta cells in the pancreas directly and is designed to shield those cells from attacks by the body's own immune system cells. The drug's specificity for such cells may enable long-term use in humans with few side effects, say the researchers. Monoclonal antibodies are made by cloning, or making identical replicas of, an animal (including human) cell line. The findings, reported online recently and in the May issue of Diabetes, raise the possibility of a new drug for type 1 diabetes, an autoimmune condition that affects about 2 million American children and adults and has no cure or means of prevention. Unlike type 2 diabetes, in which the pancreas makes too little insulin, in type 1 diabetes, the pancreas makes no insulin because the immune system attacks the pancreatic cells that make it. The lack of insulin interferes with the body's ability to regulate blood sugar levels. "People with type 1 diabetes face lifelong injections of insulin and many complications, including stroke and eyesight problems if the condition is not managed properly," says Dax Fu, Ph.D., associate professor of physiology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and leader of the research team. Fu says mAb43 binds to a small protein on the surface of beta cells, which dwell in clusters called islets. The drug was designed to provide a kind of shield or cloak to hide beta cells from immune system cells that attack them as "invaders." The researchers used a mouse version of the monoclonal antibody, and will need to develop a humanized version for studies in people. For the current study, the researchers gave 64 non-obese mice bred to develop type 1 diabetes a weekly dose of mAb43 via intravenous injection when they were 10 weeks old. After 35 weeks, all mice were non-diabetic. One of the mice developed diabetes for a period of time, but it recovered at 35 weeks, and that mouse had early signs of diabetes before the antibody was administered. In five of the same type of diabetes-prone mice, the researchers held off giving weekly mAb43 doses until they were 14 weeks old, and then continued dosages and monitoring for up to 75 weeks. One of the five in the group developed diabetes, but no adverse events were found, say the researchers. In the experiments in which mAb43 was given early on, the mice lived for the duration of the monitoring period of 75 weeks, compared with the control group of mice that did not receive the drug and lived about 18-40 weeks. Next, the researchers, including postdoctoral fellows Devi Kasinathan and Zheng Guo, looked more closely at the mice that received mAb43 and used a biological marker called Ki67 to see if beta cells were multiplying in the pancreas. They said, after treatment with the antibody, immune cells retreated from beta cells, reducing the amount of inflammation in the area. In addition, beta cells slowly began reproducing. "mAb43 in combination with insulin therapy may have the potential to gradually reduce insulin use while beta cells regenerate, ultimately eliminating the need to use insulin supplementation for glycemic control," says Kasinathan. The research team found that mAb43 specifically bound to beta cells, which make up about 1% or 2% of pancreas cells. Another monoclonal antibody drug, teplizumab, was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2022. Teplizumab binds to T cells, making them less harmful to insulin-producing beta cells. The drug has been shown to delay the onset of clinical (stage 3) type 1 diabetes by about two years, giving young children who get the disease time to mature and learn to manage lifelong insulin injections and dietary restrictions. "It's possible that mAb43 could be used for longer than teplizumab and delay diabetes onset for a much longer time, potentially for as long as it's administered," says Fu. "In an ongoing effort, we aim to develop a humanized version of the antibody and conduct clinical trials to test its ability to prevent type 1 diabetes, and to learn whether it has any off-target side effects," says Guo. Other scientists who contributed to the research include Dylan Sarver, G. William Wong and Maria Golson from Johns Hopkins; Shumei Yun from the University of Maryland, Aaron Michels and Liping Yu from the University of Colorado; and Chandan Sona and Matthew Poy from Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital. Funding for the research was provided, in part, by the National Institutes of Health (R01DK125746, P30DK116073, R01DK110183, R01 DK135688 and RO1DK084171).

Recent HIMSS Market Insights research found that 52% of healthcare leaders believe their organization lacks the data infrastructure necessary to fully realize the value of AI today. How can smaller healthcare organizations — and those with fewer resources — realize the promise of AI for gaining insights from their data? In Season 2, Episode 4 of the "Unlocking Big Data" podcast sponsored by Arcadia, Luis M. Ahumada, director of health data science and analytics at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital, and Jake Hochberg, VP of analytics and chief analytics officer at Arcadia, talk about how smaller healthcare organizations can build a strong data strategy, partner with a data analytics vendor to ensure they’re collecting high-quality data and prepare for eventual AI adoption. You'll learn about: Ensuring successful AI deployment for healthcare organizations, regardless of size or budget What larger organizations can teach smaller ones about using AI tools The role of a data analytics platform in enabling AI deployment Want to hear more about this topic? Watch our companion TV episode here .