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Archive for the ‘Genomic Testing: Methodology for Diagnosis’ Category

Article SELECTION from Collection of Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN Scientific Articles on PULSE on LinkedIn.com for Training Small Language Models (SLMs) in Domain-aware Content of Medical, Pharmaceutical, Life Sciences and Healthcare by 15 Subjects Matter

Article SELECTION from Collection of Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN Scientific Articles on PULSE on LinkedIn.com for Training Small Language Models (SLMs) in Domain-aware Content of Medical, Pharmaceutical, Life Sciences and Healthcare by 15 Subjects Matter

Article selection: Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN

 

#1 – February 20, 2016

Contributions to Personalized and Precision Medicine & Genomic Research

Author: Larry H. Bernstein, MD, FCAP

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/contributions-personalized-precision-medicine-genomic-aviva/?trackingId=IXDBMmp4SR6vVYaXKPmfqQ%3D%3D

http://pharmaceuticalintelligence.com/contributors-biographies/members-of-the-board/larry-bernstein/

 

#2 – March 31, 2016

Nutrition: Articles of Note @PharmaceuticalIntelligence.com

Author and Curators: Larry H. Bernstein, MD, FCAP and Curator: Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/nutrition-articles-note-pharmaceuticalintelligencecom-aviva/?trackingId=IXDBMmp4SR6vVYaXKPmfqQ%3D%3D

 

#3 – March 31, 2016

Epigenetics, Environment and Cancer: Articles of Note @PharmaceuticalIntelligence.com

Author and Curators: Larry H. Bernstein, MD, FCAP and Curator: Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/epigenetics-environment-cancer-articles-note-aviva-lev-ari-phd-rn/?trackingId=IXDBMmp4SR6vVYaXKPmfqQ%3D%3D

 

#4 – April 5, 2016

Alzheimer’s Disease: Novel Therapeutical Approaches — Articles of Note @PharmaceuticalIntelligence.com

Curators: Larry H. Bernstein, MD, FCAP and Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/alzheimers-disease-novel-therapeutical-approaches-lev-ari-phd-rn/?trackingId=IXDBMmp4SR6vVYaXKPmfqQ%3D%3D

http://pharmaceuticalintelligence.com/2016/04/05/alzheimers-disease-novel-therapeutical-approaches-articles-of-note-pharmaceuticalintelligence-com/

 

#5 – April 5, 2016

Prostate Cancer: Diagnosis and Novel Treatment – Articles of Note  @PharmaceuticalIntelligence.com

Curators: Larry H. Bernstein, MD, FCAP and Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/prostate-cancer-diagnosis-novel-treatment-articles-lev-ari-phd-rn/?trackingId=IXDBMmp4SR6vVYaXKPmfqQ%3D%3D

http://pharmaceuticalintelligence.com/2016/04/05/prostate-cancer-diagnosis-and-novel-treatment-articles-of-note-pharmaceuticalintelligence-com/ 

 

#6 – May 1, 2016

Immune System Stimulants: Articles of Note @pharmaceuticalintelligence.com

Curators: Larry H. Bernstein, MD, FCAP and Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/immune-system-stimulants-articles-note-aviva-lev-ari-phd-rn/?trackingId=IXDBMmp4SR6vVYaXKPmfqQ%3D%3D

 

#7 – May 26, 2016

Pancreatic Cancer: Articles of Note @PharmaceuticalIntelligence.com

Curator: Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/pancreatic-cancer-articles-note-aviva-lev-ari-phd-rn/?trackingId=0AT4eUwMQZiEXyEOqo58Ng%3D%3D

 

#8 – August 23, 2017

Proteomics, Metabolomics, Signaling Pathways, and Cell Regulation – Articles of Note, LPBI Group’s Scientists @ http://pharmaceuticalintelligence.com

Curators: Larry H. Bernstein, MD, FCAP and Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/proteomics-metabolomics-signaling-pathways-cell-lev-ari-phd-rn/?trackingId=0AT4eUwMQZiEXyEOqo58Ng%3D%3D

 

#9 – August 17, 2017

Articles of Note on Signaling and Metabolic Pathways published by the Team of LPBI Group in @pharmaceuticalintelligence.com

Curator: Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/articles-note-signaling-metabolic-pathways-published-aviva/?trackingId=0AT4eUwMQZiEXyEOqo58Ng%3D%3D

 

#10 – October 8, 2017

What do we know on Exosomes?

Curator: Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-do-we-know-exosomes-aviva-lev-ari-phd-rn/?trackingId=0AT4eUwMQZiEXyEOqo58Ng%3D%3D

 

#11 – September 1, 2017

Articles on Minimally Invasive Surgery (MIS) in Cardiovascular Diseases by the Team @Leaders in Pharmaceutical Business Intelligence (LPBI) Group

Curator: Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/articles-minimally-invasive-surgery-mis-diseases-team-aviva/?trackingId=CPyrP0SNQq2X9N4pSubFxQ%3D%3D

 

#12 – August 13, 2018

MedTech & Medical Devices for Cardiovascular Repair – Contributions by LPBI Team to Cardiac Imaging, Cardiothoracic Surgical Procedures and PCI

Curator: Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/medtech-medical-devices-cardiovascular-repair-lpbi-lev-ari-phd-rn/?trackingId=5EFVlg%2BQRLO5i%2FfGBEN2FQ%3D%3D

 

#13 – May 24, 2019

Resources on Artificial Intelligence in Health Care and in Medicine: Articles of Note at PharmaceuticalIntelligence.com @AVIVA1950 @pharma_BI

Curator: Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/resources-artificial-intelligence-health-care-note-lev-ari-phd-rn/?trackingId=5EFVlg%2BQRLO5i%2FfGBEN2FQ%3D%3D

 

#14 – December 19, 2025

AI in Health: The Voice of Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN

Curator: Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/ai-health-voice-aviva-lev-ari-phd-rn-aviva-lev-ari-phd-rn-xgqie/?trackingId=5EFVlg%2BQRLO5i%2FfGBEN2FQ%3D%3D

 

#15 – January 7, 2026

NEW Foundation Multimodal Model in Healthcare: LPBI Group’s Domain-aware Corpus for 2025 Grok 4.1 Causal Reasoning & Novel Biomedical Relationships

Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN, Founder of LPBI Group

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/new-foundation-multimodal-model-healthcare-lpbi-2025-aviva-40h1e/?trackingId=5EFVlg%2BQRLO5i%2FfGBEN2FQ%3D%3D

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Real Time Conference Coverage: Advancing Precision Medicine Conference, Late Morning Session Track 1 October 4 2025

Reporter: Stephen J. Williams, PhD

Leaders in Pharmaceutical Business Intellegence will be covering this conference LIVE over X.com at

@pharma_BI

@StephenJWillia2

@AVIVA1950

@AdvancingPM

using the following meeting hashtags

#AdvancingPM #precisionmedicine #WINSYMPO2025

SESSION 3

Advances in Precision Oncology:
From Genomics to Targeted Therapies

11:10-11:55

Breaking the Glass Ceiling: Targeting KRAS in Pancreatic Cancer

Razelle Kurzrock, MD
Razelle Kurzrock, MD

11:55-12:15

Charting the Future of Cancer Care: Precision Oncology and the Power of Genomics

Razelle Kurzrock, MD

12:15-12:35

Molecular Pathology as a Driver of Precision in Urological Cancers

Razelle Kurzrock, MD

12:30-12:40

Non – CME – dSTRIDE™-HR: A Functional Biomarker for In Situ, ‘real-time’ Detection and Quantification of Homologous Recombination Activity.

Magda Kordon-Kiszala, PhD

Magda Kordon-Kiszala, PhDCEO and co-founder, intoDNA

12:35-12:55

Epigenetic Plasticity and Tumor Evolution: Mechanisms of Resistance in Precision Oncology

Johnathan R. Whetstine, PhD

Johnathan R. Whetstine, PhDDirector, Cancer Epigenetics Institute, Director, Geonomics Resource, Fox Chase Cancer Center

  • Title: Epigenetic plasticity a gatekeeper to generating extrachromosomal DNA amplification and rearrangements
  • genetic events in cancer are actually controlled not random as he says
  • Fox Chase Cancer Center Epigenetics Institute; 5th year goal to understand epigenetic mechanisms to understand resistance and biomarker development; bring others and break down silos;  they are expanding and hiring and bringing into a network; March 5 2026 5th Annual Symposium Philadelphia Franklin Institute
  • DNA amplification is also chromosomal: integrated same locus or different regions or chromosomal duplication
  • KDM4A epigenetic demethylase controls transiet site specific DNA re-replication; can have focal control of DNA regions
  • you can control regional control of like EGFR amplification
  • can use Cy3 to find local regions
  • KDM3B inhibitor promotes transiet copy gains in KMT2A/MLL
  • EHMT2 is lysine demethylase is a driver of this copy amplification
  • this demethylase can change expression locally in one hour.. very fast
  • demethylases are very specific for their gene locus they control and so this demethylase only controls MLL gene
  • doxorubicin topoisomerase inhibitor can cause LOH in MLL locus and methylase inhibitor can reverse this
  • over twenty combinatorial regulators so this field is just budding

11:30-12:30

Companion Diagnostics in Hereditary and Chronic Diseases – Development, Regulatory Approval, and Commercialization – Non-CME Discussion

Huw Ricketts

Huw Ricketts PhDSenior Director, CLIA Business Development, QIAGEN

Tricia Carrigan

Tricia Carrigan, PhDBC Biosolutions

Arushi Agarwal

Arushi Agarwal, MS,  Partner, Health Advances

Melissa Reuter

Melissa Reuter, MS, MBADirector, Precision Medicine Program Strategy, GSK

  • This is a session panel Discussion on the current state of companion diagnostic development, not just in oncology.  Regulatory aspects will be discussed
  • Arushi: There are alot of opportunities in non-oncology areas for companion diagnostics, and time to development may be an obstacle
  • Huw Rickets:  From a development standpoint most people are not looking at the diagnostic side but more on the therapeutic side.
  • Tricia:  There needs to be a shift in oncology drug development world, and pharma sees developing diagnostic is too expensive.
  • Meliisa: They try to engage early with the agencies to understand the regulatory landscape; GSK is very strong in their oncology platform but there are gaps in diagnostics and non-oncology programs
  • Arushi: seems in Pharma oncology and non-oncology programs seems siloed
  • for non-oncology many of the biomarkers may be rare… well under 25% of population
  • Huw: Qiagen trying to develop diagnostics for Parkinson’s but those rare genetic diseases are easier to develop
  • Arushi: neurodegenerative, NASH, and immuno diseases are big areas where companies are looking to make companion diagnostics
  • Huw: kidney  disease is a big focus to develop companion diagnostics for

 

12:30-12:40

Non – CME – dSTRIDE™-HR: A Functional Biomarker for In Situ, ‘real-time’ Detection and Quantification of Homologous Recombination Activity.

Magda Kordon-Kiszala, PhD

Magda Kordon-Kiszala, PhDCEO and co-founder, intoDNA

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Real Time Coverage Morning Session on Precision Oncology: Advancing Precision Medicine Annual Conference, Philadelphia PA November 2 2024

Reporter: Stephen J. Williams, Ph.D.

9:20-9:50

How Can We Close the Clinical Practice Gaps in Precision Medicine?

Susanne Munksted, Diaceutics

Studies are showing that genetic tests are being ordered at a sufficient rate however it appears there are problems in interpretation and developing treatment plans based on omics testing results

 

  • 30 % of patients in past and now currently half of all patients are not being given the proper treatment based on genomic testing results (ASCO)
  • E.g. only 1.5% with NTRK fusions received a NTRK based therapy (this was > 4000 patients receiving wrong therapy)
  • A lung oncologist may only see one patient with NTRK fusion in three years

 

Precision Medicine Practice Gaps

48% of oncologist surveyed  agreed pathologist needs to be more informed and relevant in the decision making process with regard to tests needing to be ordered

95% said need to flip cost issues ; what does it cost not to get a test … i.e. what is the cost of the wrong therapy

We need a new commercialization model for therapeutic development for this new era of “n of one” patient

9:50-10:15

Implementation of a CLIA-based Reverse Phase Protein Array Assay for Precision Oncology Applications: Proteomics and Phosphoproteomics at the Bedside (CME Eligible)

Emanuel Petricoin, George Mason University

There are some tumor markers approved by FDA that cant just be measured by NGS and are correlated with a pathologic complete response

 

  • Many point mutations will have no actionable drug
  • Many alterations are post-genomic meaning there is a post translational component to many prognostic biomarkers
  • Prevalence of point mutation with no actionable mutation is a limit of NGS
  • It is important to look at phospho protein spectrum as a potential biomarker

 

Reverse phase protein proteomic analysis

  • Made into CLIA based array
  • They trained centers around the US on the technology and analysis
  • Basing proteomics or protein markers by traditional IHC requires much antibody validation so if the mass spectrometry field can catch up it would be very powerful
  • With multiple MRM.MS there is too low abundance of phosphoproteins to allow for good detection

 

They  conducted the I-SPY2 trial for breast cancer and determining if phosphoproteins could be a good biomarker panel

  • They found they could predict a HER2 response better than NGS
  • There were patients who were predicted HER2 negative that actually had an activated HER2 signaling pathway by proteomics so NGS must have had a series of false negatives
  • HER2 co phosphorylation predicts pathologic complete response and predicts therapy by herceptin
  • They found patients classified as HER2 negative by FISH were HER2 positive by proteomics and had HER2 activation

10:15-11:10

Liquid Biopsy MRD to Escalate or De-escalate Therapy (CME Eligible)

Adrian Lee

Adrian Lee, UPMC

Marija Balic, UPMC

Howard McLeod

Howard McLeod, Utah Tech University

Muhammed, Murtaza, University of Wisconsin-Madison

 

11:15-11:25  PRODUCT PRESENTATION  204A

SpaceIQ™ – Powering Next Generation Precision Therapeutics with AI-Driven Spatial Biomarkers

Dusty Majumdar, PredxBio 

Single Cell and Spatial Omics

 

  • Single cell transcriptomics technology have been scaled up very nicely over the past ten years
  • Spatial informatics field is lacking in innovations
  • Can get a terabyte worth of data from analysis of one slide

11:25-11:35  PRODUCT PRESENTATION  204C

10x Genomics

11:40-12:35

Transcriptomics and AI in Transforming Precision Diagnosis

Maher Albitar, Genomic Testing Cooperative

Transciptomica and AI:Transforming Precision diagnosis

-The Genomics Testing Coopererative at www.genomictestingcooperative.com

 

Advantages of transcriptomics

– mutation frequency and allele variant detection now at 80% (higher sensitivity in mutation detection)

 

– transcriptomics has good detection of chromosomal translocations

– great surrogate for IHC and detect splicing alterations

– can use AI to predict % of PDL1 in tumor cells versus immune cells

– they have developed a software UMAP (uniform manifold approximation and projection) to supervise cluster analysis

– the group has used AI to predict prognosis and survival using transcriptomics data

Marija Balic, UPMC

Andrew Pecora, Hackensack University Medical Center 

12:35-1:00

The Impact of Multi-Omics in the Context of the APOLLO-2 Moonshot Program (CME Eligible)

 

 

Read Full Post »

Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2024 to David Baker, Demis Hassabis and John M. Jumper

Reporter: Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN

 

UPDATED on 10/22/2024

ProteinMPNN, which is now available free on the open-source software repository GitHub, will give researchers the tools to make unlimited new designs. “The challenge, of course …  is what are you going to design?” Baker says.

 

Hallucinating symmetric protein assemblies

Authors Info & Affiliations

Science

15 Sep 2022

Vol 378, Issue 6615

  1. 56-61

DOI: 10.1126/science.add1964

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.add1964

 

Robust deep learning–based protein sequence design using ProteinMPNN

Authors Info & Affiliations

Science

15 Sep 2022

Vol 378, Issue 6615

  1. 49-56

DOI: 10.1126/science.add2187

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.add2187

 

UPDATED on 10/13/2024

In a second Nobel win for AI, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has awarded half the 2024 prize in chemistry to Demis Hassabis, the cofounder and CEO of Google DeepMind, and John M. Jumper, a director at the same company, for their work on using artificial intelligence to predict the structures of proteins. The other half goes to David Baker, a professor of biochemistry at the University of Washington, for his work on computational protein design. The winners will share a prize pot of 11 million Swedish kronor ($1 million).

The potential impact of this research is enormous. Proteins are fundamental to life, but understanding what they do involves figuring out their structure—a very hard puzzle that once took months or years to crack for each type of protein. By cutting down the time it takes to predict a protein’s structure, computational tools such as those developed by this year’s award winners are helping scientists gain a greater understanding of how proteins work and opening up new avenues of research and drug development. The technology could unlock more efficient vaccines, speed up research on cures for cancer, or lead to completely new materials.

Hassabis and Jumper created AlphaFold, which in 2020 solved a problem scientists have been wrestling with for decades: predicting the three-dimensional structure of a protein from a sequence of amino acids. The AI tool has since been used to predict the shapes of all proteins known to science.

Their latest model, AlphaFold 3, can predict the structures of DNA, RNA, and molecules like ligands, which are essential to drug discovery. DeepMind has also released the source code and database of its results to scientists for free.

“I’ve dedicated my career to advancing AI because of its unparalleled potential to improve the lives of billions of people,” said Demis Hassabis. “AlphaFold has already been used by more than two million researchers to advance critical work, from enzyme design to drug discovery. I hope we’ll look back on AlphaFold as the first proof point of AI’s incredible potential to accelerate scientific discovery,” he added.

Baker has created several AI tools for designing and predicting the structure of proteins, such as a family of programs called Rosetta. In 2022, his lab created an open-source AI tool called ProteinMPNN that could help researchers discover previously unknown proteins and design entirely new ones. It helps researchers who have an exact protein structure in mind find amino acid sequences that fold into that shape.

Most recently, in late September, Baker’s lab announced it had developed custom molecules that allow scientists to precisely target and eliminate proteins associated with diseases in living cells.

“[Proteins] evolved over the course of evolution to solve the problems that organisms faced during evolution. But we face new problems today, like covid. If we could design proteins that were as good at solving new problems as the ones that evolved during evolution are at solving old problems, it would be really, really powerful,” Baker told MIT Technology Review in 2022.

10/9/2024

David Baker “for computational protein design”

born 1962 in Seattle, WA, USA. PhD 1989 from University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA. Professor at University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA and Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, USA.

University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA
Howard Hughes Medical Institute, USA

Demis Hassabis “for protein structure prediction”

born 1976 in London, UK. PhD 2009 from University College London, UK. CEO of Google DeepMind, London, UK.

Google DeepMind, London, UK

John M. Jumper “for protein structure prediction”

born 1985 in Little Rock, AR, USA. PhD 2017 from Uni­versity of Chicago, IL, USA. Senior Research Scientist at Google DeepMind, London, UK.

Google DeepMind, London, UK

 

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2024 is about pro­teins, life’s ingenious chemical tools. David Baker has succeeded with the almost impossible feat of building entirely new kinds of proteins. Demis Hassabis and John Jumper have developed an AI model to solve a 50-year-old problem: predicting proteins’ complex structures. These discoveries hold enormous potential.

“One of the discoveries being recognised this year concerns the construction of spectacular proteins. The other is about fulfilling a 50-year-old dream: predicting protein structures from their amino acid sequences. Both of these discoveries open up vast possibilities,” says Heiner Linke, Chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry.

Proteins generally consist of 20 different amino acids, which can be described as life’s building blocks. In 2003, David Baker succeeded in using these blocks to design a new protein that was unlike any other protein. Since then, his research group has produced one imaginative protein creation after another, including proteins that can be used as pharmaceuticals, vaccines, nanomaterials and tiny sensors.

The second discovery concerns the prediction of protein structures. In proteins, amino acids are linked together in long strings that fold up to make a three-dimensional structure, which is decisive for the protein’s function. Since the 1970s, researchers had tried to predict protein structures from amino acid sequences, but this was notoriously difficult. However, four years ago, there was a stunning breakthrough.

In 2020, Demis Hassabis and John Jumper presented an AI model called AlphaFold2. With its help, they have been able to predict the structure of virtually all the 200 million proteins that researchers have identified. Since their breakthrough, AlphaFold2 has been used by more than two million people from 190 countries. Among a myriad of scientific applications, researchers can now better understand antibiotic resistance and create images of enzymes that can decompose plastic.

Life could not exist without proteins. That we can now predict protein structures and design our own proteins confers the greatest benefit to humankind.

@@@@

This year’s Nobel Prize laureates in chemistry Demis Hassabis and John Jumper have developed an AI model to solve a 50-year-old problem: predicting proteins’ complex structures.

In 2020, Hassabis and Jumper presented an AI model called AlphaFold2. With its help, they have been able to predict the structure of virtually all the 200 million proteins that researchers have identified. Since their breakthrough, AlphaFold2 has been used by more than two million people from 190 countries. Among a myriad of scientific applications, researchers can now better understand antibiotic resistance and create images of enzymes that can decompose plastic.

Read more about their story: https://bit.ly/4diKiJ2

No alternative text description for this image

SOURCE

https://www.linkedin.com/company/nobelprize/posts/?feedView=all

 

Reference

Popular science background: They have revealed proteins’ secrets through computing and artificial intelligence (pdf)

Scientific background: Computational protein design and protein structure prediction (pdf)

 

SOURCE

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/2024/press-release/

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Genomic data can predict miscarriage and IVF failure

Reporter and Curator: Dr. Sudipta Saha, Ph.D.

Infertility is a major reproductive health issue that affects about 12% of women of reproductive age in the United States. Aneuploidy in eggs accounts for a significant proportion of early miscarriage and in vitro fertilization failure. Recent studies have shown that genetic variants in several genes affect chromosome segregation fidelity and predispose women to a higher incidence of egg aneuploidy. However, the exact genetic causes of aneuploid egg production remain unclear, making it difficult to diagnose infertility based on individual genetic variants in mother’s genome. Although, age is a predictive factor for aneuploidy, it is not a highly accurate gauge because aneuploidy rates within individuals of the same age can vary dramatically.

Researchers described a technique combining genomic sequencing with machine-learning methods to predict the possibility a woman will undergo a miscarriage because of egg aneuploidy—a term describing a human egg with an abnormal number of chromosomes. The scientists were able to examine genetic samples of patients using a technique called “whole exome sequencing,” which allowed researchers to home in on the protein coding sections of the vast human genome. Then they created software using machine learning, an aspect of artificial intelligence in which programs can learn and make predictions without following specific instructions. To do so, the researchers developed algorithms and statistical models that analyzed and drew inferences from patterns in the genetic data.

As a result, the scientists were able to create a specific risk score based on a woman’s genome. The scientists also identified three genes—MCM5, FGGY and DDX60L—that when mutated and are highly associated with a risk of producing eggs with aneuploidy. So, the report demonstrated that sequencing data can be mined to predict patients’ aneuploidy risk thus improving clinical diagnosis. The candidate genes and pathways that were identified in the present study are promising targets for future aneuploidy studies. Identifying genetic variations with more predictive power will serve women and their treating clinicians with better information.

References:

https://medicalxpress-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/medicalxpress.com/news/2022-06-miscarriage-failure-vitro-fertilization-genomic.amp

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35347416/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31552087/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33193747/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33197264/

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Three Expert Opinions on “The alarming rise of complex genetic testing in human embryo selection”

Reporter: Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN

Based on this articles three expert opinions where formed by the following domain knowledge experts and are presented, below.

Expert Opinions on rise of complex genetic testing in human embryo selection

ttps://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00787-z

Domain Knowledge Experts:

Prof. Marc Feldman, Genetics, Stanford University

Dr. Shraga Rottem, MD, D.Sc., Fetal OB

Prof. Steven J. Williams, Biological Sciences, Temple University

 

First expert opinion by Prof. Marcus W. Feldman

The recent publication in Nature Medicine on genetic risk prediction in pre-implementation embryos(1) has already engendered heated discussion.(2,3) Kumar et al.(1) advocate the integration of polygenic risk scores (PRS) derived from pre-implantation genetic testing (PGT) with standard monogenic prediction. The paper focuses primarily on BRCA1 (and breast cancer) and APC (and colon cancer). Genetic tests for inherited disorders such as Tay-Sachs disease and breast cancers caused by BRCA1 and BRCA2 have been approved, but these are potentially devastating conditions with relatively simple inheritance; in most counseling situations the risks are straightforward to calculate.

The limitation on the amount and quality of DNA available from early embryo biopsies has made it difficult to produce genomic profiles of embryos in the IVF situation. Kumar et al. genotyped more than one-hundred embryos at hundreds of thousands of nucleotide sites and combined these genotype data with whole genome sequences of the prospective parents to produce reconstructed embryo genomes. These genomes were compared with those of ten born siblings and polygenic risk scores (PRS) were calculated for twelve conditions related to diseases. The PRS were claimed to be 97–99 percent accurate.

The primary market for this procedure would be couples seeking IVF, and Kumar and his colleagues, most of whom are employees of biotech companies, show that it is feasible to calculate a PRS for an embryo. The authors do present several caveats for the use of their procedure for PGT. For example, if a couple has a family history of a disease, they “may unintentionally prioritize” a mutant embryo for PGT-based only on PRS. They also acknowledge that results from research cohorts may not generalize to sibling embryos in IVF, which could limit the clinical utility of their approach. Kumar et al. also acknowledge the “portability” problem, namely PRSs have limited predictive accuracy in people with non-European ancestry(2,3) or of different ages or socioeconomic status.(4,5) They also mention the issue of unequal access to IVF technology in general.(2)

It is also important, However, to stress the limited predictive utility of PRS for common traits, not only diseases. There is increasing use of PRS among social scientists for characteristics such as years of education, which have heritabilities in the 10–15 percent range. Such studies, and potentially this one by Kumar et al., can lead to reduced emphasis on environmental and social associations with diseases or other traits. For omnigenic traits, such as height or body mass index (BMI), that have hundreds or thousands of associated nucleotide polymorphisms, and high heritability, the public might receive the mistaken impression that PGT or other genomic interventions can allow parents to choose their offspring’s phenotype.

For example, a recent study(6) of BMI in 881 subjects from Quebec found that PRS could explain only between 1.2 percent and 7.5 percent of the variance in BMI of these participants. Even when PRSs are statistically significant, their predictive value is too weak to be applied. The use of polygenic risk scores to select embryos, abbreviated ESPS for embryo selection based on polygenic scores, has been criticized before.(7) One of the important points raised by Turley et al.(7) concerns the environmental context of the children of IVG customers, which may be quite different from that of the sample of people from which the PRS was calculated. Because of gene-environment interactions, the predictive power of PRS for any complex trait is limited. As pointed out by Turley et al. (p. 79), “the predictive power of a polygenic score is maximized when the person is from the same environment as the research participants from whom the polygenic scores were derived. But this will never be the case in ESPS.”

PGT and ESPS raise ethical issues beyond IVG that more generally concern designer babies.(7,8) PRSs have been calculated for non-disease related traits such as educational attainment, income, or IQ, and it is conceivable that some prospective parents might regard these as important enough for intervention. There are also traits related to social constructs of race including skin pigmentation or facial features, and parental choice based on these phenotypes could enhance racial prejudices.

 

References

 

  1. Kumar, A., K. Im, M. Banjevic, P.C. Ng, T. Tunstall, G. Garcia, L. Galhardo, J. Sun,O.N. Schaedel, B. Levy, D. Hongo, D. Kijacic, M. Kiehl, N.D. Tran, P.C. Klatsky, and M. Rabinowitz. 2022. Whole-genome risk prediction of common diseases in human preimplantation embryos. Nature Medicine 28: 514–516. doi: 10.1038/s41591-022-01735-0.
  2. Johnston, J., and L.J. Matthews. 2022. Polygenic embryo testing: understated ethics, unclear utility. Nature Medicine 28: 445–451. doi: 10.1038/s41591-022-01743-0.
  3. Nature editorial. 2022. The alarming rise of complex genetic testing in human embryo testing. Nature 603: 549–550. doi: 10.1038/d41586-022-00787-z.
  4. Rosenberg, N., M. Edge, J. Pritchard, and M. Feldman. 2019. Interpreting polygenic scores, polygenic adaptation, and human phenotypic differences. Evol. Med. Public Health 2019: 26–34. doi: 10.1093/emph/eoy036.
  5. Duncan, L.E., H. Shen, B. Gelaye, J. Meijsen, K.J. Ressler, M.W. Feldman, R.E. Peterson, and B.W. Domingue. 2019. Analysis of polygenic score usage and performance in diverse human populations. Nat. Comm. 10: 3328. doi: 10.1038/s41467-019-11112-0.
  6. De Toro-Martin, J.E., F. Guenard, C. Bouchard, A. Tremblay, L. Perusse, and M.-C. Vohl. 2019. The challenge of stratifying obesity: attempts in the Quebec family study. Front. Genet. 10:994. doi: 10.3389/fgene.2019.00994.
  7. Turley, P., M.N. Meyer, N. Wang, D. Cesarini, E. Hammonds, A.R. Martin, B.M. Neale, H.L. Rehm, L. Wilkins-Haug, D.J. Benjamin, S. Hyman, D. Laibson, and P.M. Visscher. 2021. Problems with using polygenic scores to select embryos. N. Engl. J. Med 385(1): 78–86.
  8. Forzano, F., O. Antonova, A. Clarke, G. de Wert, S. Hentze, Y. Jamshidi, Y. Moreau, M. Perola, I. Prokopenko, A. Read, A. Reymond, V. Stefansdottir, C. van El, and M. Genuardi. 2021. The use of polygenic risk scores in pre-implantation genetic testing: an unproven, unethical practice. European Journal of Human Genetics. doi: 10.1038/s41431-021-01000-x.

 

 

Second expert opinion by Dr. Shraga Rottem, MD, D.Sc., Fetal OB

PENDING

Third expert opinion by Prof. Steven J. Williams, Biological Sciences, Temple University

There has been much opinion, either as commentary in literature, meeting proceedings, or communiques from professional societies warning that this type of “high-impact” genetic information should not be given directly to the consumer as consumers will not fully understand the information presented to them, be unable to make proper risk-based decisions, results could cause panic and inappropriate action such as prophylactic oophorectomy or unwarranted risk-reduction mastectomy, or false reassurance in case of negative result and reduced future cancer screening measures taken by the consumer.  However, there have been few studies to investigate these concerns. 

The article by Kumar The alarming rise of complex genetic testing in human embryo selection

discusses the common trend of DTC (direct to consumer) and other genetic consutancy groups to offer disease risk assesment based on genetic predispostion genetic information in preimplantation embryos upon in vitro fertilization.  Although this editorial discusses some caveats and potential ethical issues the opinion of this reviewer feels a certain number of key issues points have not been addressed (which will be discussed below) including:

  1. the underlying risk of disclosure of all parties involved in decision making based on genetic testing including other family members
  2. complicating ethical issues not addressed through proper guideline establishment and regulation as seen in countries that allow such advances to go without proper review board
  3. a lack of discussion of the health disparities which may result of this type of genetic information or “selection” where groups of people would be shut out of such services due to socioeconomic status

Although the editorial highlights the issue that most genome wide association studies, on which most of the genetic counseling is based upon is from cohorts of European descent (and misses a large cohort which is Asian or African descent), there is little attention given to the issue that most panels of these agreed upon risk associated variants have not been validated in larger GWAS studies or that these panels only focus on the most common variants. An example of this would be BRCA1/2 and assumed future breast cancer risk.

In the related article The uncertain science of preimplantation and prenatal genetic testing

Gleicher al state

PGS and PGT-A
diagnoses have been built on biologically
incorrect assumptions and on unvalidated
guidelines dating back to 2016. These
guidelines, which remain influential to this
day, were published without a description
of methods, without peer review, with no
author identification, and without any
references1
. The guidelines changed the
binary diagnosis of euploid and aneuploid
to normal, mosaic and aneuploid.

 

In fact most family risk assesment programs are more effective upon counseling of young women, not at the embryonic stage where genetic risk factors may not be evident or resulting from epigenetic changes or accumulated somatic mutation.

  1.  Lack of communication to all related and involved parties

     Many times it is women, who having undergone these testings, have problems in communicating these risk findings to their children and family members, resulting in familial strains.

For instance, some women who discover they have the BRCA gene mutation, which puts them at higher risk for breast cancer, choose to tell their children about it before the children are old enough to understand the significance or deal with it, a new study found.

“Parents with the BRCA mutation are discussing their genetic test results with their offspring often many years before the offspring would need to do anything,” said study author Dr. Angela Bradbury, director of the Fox Chase Cancer Center’s Family Risk Assessment Program, in Philadelphia.

According to Bradbury, more than half of parents she surveyed told their children about genetic test results. Some parents reported that their children didn’t seem to understand the significance of the information, and some had initial negative reactions to the news.

“A lot of genetic information is being shared within families and there hasn’t been a lot of guidance from health-care professionals,” Bradbury said. “While this genetic risk may be shared accurately, there is risk of inaccurate sharing.”

In the study, Bradbury’s team interviewed 42 women who had the BRCA mutation. The researchers found that 55 percent of parents discussed the finding and the risk of breast cancer with at least one of their children who was under 25.

Also, most of the women didn’t avail themselves of the services of a doctor or genetic counselor in helping to tell their children, Bradbury’s group found.

The identification of familial risk factors can have very stressful impacts on the affected and their family however an IVF selection might even augment that familial stress.  More research is needed on the psychological impact of such testing and a patient’s choice.

2. Lack of health disparity considerations in IVF selection research or guidelines

     Another major concern, which has been highlighted in multiple articles on this site, is the growing health disparities between those who can obtain access to quality health care and those who are left out in the void of the medical system, either for economic or sociological reasons.  This has been very apparent in the cancer treatment and personalized medicine world (for example the disparities of health care access for cancer treatment in the southern poorer rural parts of the US versus metropolitan areas and the gaping disparities seen between rich and poor countries in Africa).   These health disparities have been also apparant in the genetic testing market, and although the DTC market meant to make genetic  testing more affordable, interestingly these disparities still exist in this niche market.

3. Lack of proper establishment of Institutional Review Board oversight in countries allowing this technique have been problematic with regard to addressing bioethical concerns

The third concern is, of course, a bioethical concern on the use of advanced genetic technologies in the human and clinical setting.  It has come to many people’s attention at the speed at which countries that do not seem to have strong bioethical review boards readily allow this type of research to be carried out without regulatory oversight or consequence. A prime example of this included the shunned Chinese research carried out to produce cloned humans, which was rapidly condemmed in the biomedical world however this research was conducted nonetheless.  This lack of attention is addressed in Kumar’s article yet little guidance is given as to best practices to establish review boards overseeing such work and or research.

SOURCE

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00787-z

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@MIT Artificial intelligence system rapidly predicts how two proteins will attach: The model called Equidock, focuses on rigid body docking — which occurs when two proteins attach by rotating or translating in 3D space, but their shapes don’t squeeze or bend

Reporter: Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN

This paper introduces a novel SE(3) equivariant graph matching network, along with a keypoint discovery and alignment approach, for the problem of protein-protein docking, with a novel loss based on optimal transport. The overall consensus is that this is an impactful solution to an important problem, whereby competitive results are achieved without the need for templates, refinement, and are achieved with substantially faster run times.
28 Sept 2021 (modified: 18 Nov 2021)ICLR 2022 SpotlightReaders:  Everyone Show BibtexShow Revisions
 
Keywords:protein complexes, protein structure, rigid body docking, SE(3) equivariance, graph neural networks
AbstractProtein complex formation is a central problem in biology, being involved in most of the cell’s processes, and essential for applications such as drug design or protein engineering. We tackle rigid body protein-protein docking, i.e., computationally predicting the 3D structure of a protein-protein complex from the individual unbound structures, assuming no three-dimensional flexibility during binding. We design a novel pairwise-independent SE(3)-equivariant graph matching network to predict the rotation and translation to place one of the proteins at the right location and the right orientation relative to the second protein. We mathematically guarantee that the predicted complex is always identical regardless of the initial placements of the two structures, avoiding expensive data augmentation. Our model approximates the binding pocket and predicts the docking pose using keypoint matching and alignment through optimal transport and a differentiable Kabsch algorithm. Empirically, we achieve significant running time improvements over existing protein docking software and predict qualitatively plausible protein complex structures despite not using heavy sampling, structure refinement, or templates.
One-sentence SummaryWe perform rigid protein docking using a novel independent SE(3)-equivariant message passing mechanism that guarantees the same resulting protein complex independent of the initial placement of the two 3D structures.
 
SOURCE
 

MIT researchers created a machine-learning model that can directly predict the complex that will form when two proteins bind together. Their technique is between 80 and 500 times faster than state-of-the-art software methods, and often predicts protein structures that are closer to actual structures that have been observed experimentally.

This technique could help scientists better understand some biological processes that involve protein interactions, like DNA replication and repair; it could also speed up the process of developing new medicines.

Deep learning is very good at capturing interactions between different proteins that are otherwise difficult for chemists or biologists to write experimentally. Some of these interactions are very complicated, and people haven’t found good ways to express them. This deep-learning model can learn these types of interactions from data,” says Octavian-Eugen Ganea, a postdoc in the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and co-lead author of the paper.

Ganea’s co-lead author is Xinyuan Huang, a graduate student at ETH Zurich. MIT co-authors include Regina Barzilay, the School of Engineering Distinguished Professor for AI and Health in CSAIL, and Tommi Jaakkola, the Thomas Siebel Professor of Electrical Engineering in CSAIL and a member of the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society. The research will be presented at the International Conference on Learning Representations.

Significance of the Scientific Development by the @MIT Team

EquiDock wide applicability:

  • Our method can be integrated end-to-end to boost the quality of other models (see above discussion on runtime importance). Examples are predicting functions of protein complexes [3] or their binding affinity [5], de novo generation of proteins binding to specific targets (e.g., antibodies [6]), modeling back-bone and side-chain flexibility [4], or devising methods for non-binary multimers. See the updated discussion in the “Conclusion” section of our paper.

 

Advantages over previous methods:

  • Our method does not rely on templates or heavy candidate sampling [7], aiming at the ambitious goal of predicting the complex pose directly. This should be interpreted in terms of generalization (to unseen structures) and scalability capabilities of docking models, as well as their applicability to various other tasks (discussed above).

 

  • Our method obtains a competitive quality without explicitly using previous geometric (e.g., 3D Zernike descriptors [8]) or chemical (e.g., hydrophilic information) features [3]. Future EquiDock extensions would find creative ways to leverage these different signals and, thus, obtain more improvements.

   

Novelty of theory:

  • Our work is the first to formalize the notion of pairwise independent SE(3)-equivariance. Previous work (e.g., [9,10]) has incorporated only single object Euclidean-equivariances into deep learning models. For tasks such as docking and binding of biological objects, it is crucial that models understand the concept of multi-independent Euclidean equivariances.

  • All propositions in Section 3 are our novel theoretical contributions.

  • We have rewritten the Contribution and Related Work sections to clarify this aspect.

   


Footnote [a]: We have fixed an important bug in the cross-attention code. We have done a more extensive hyperparameter search and understood that layer normalization is crucial in layers used in Eqs. 5 and 9, but not on the h embeddings as it was originally shown in Eq. 10. We have seen benefits from training our models with a longer patience in the early stopping criteria (30 epochs for DIPS and 150 epochs for DB5). Increasing the learning rate to 2e-4 is important to speed-up training. Using an intersection loss weight of 10 leads to improved results compared to the default of 1.

 

Bibliography:

[1] Protein-ligand blind docking using QuickVina-W with inter-process spatio-temporal integration, Hassan et al., 2017

[2] GNINA 1.0: molecular docking with deep learning, McNutt et al., 2021

[3] Protein-protein and domain-domain interactions, Kangueane and Nilofer, 2018

[4] Side-chain Packing Using SE(3)-Transformer, Jindal et al., 2022

[5] Contacts-based prediction of binding affinity in protein–protein complexes, Vangone et al., 2015

[6] Iterative refinement graph neural network for antibody sequence-structure co-design, Jin et al., 2021

[7] Hierarchical, rotation-equivariant neural networks to select structural models of protein complexes, Eismann et al, 2020

[8] Protein-protein docking using region-based 3D Zernike descriptors, Venkatraman et al., 2009

[9] SE(3)-transformers: 3D roto-translation equivariant attention networks, Fuchs et al, 2020

[10] E(n) equivariant graph neural networks, Satorras et al., 2021

[11] Fast end-to-end learning on protein surfaces, Sverrisson et al., 2020

SOURCE

https://openreview.net/forum?id=GQjaI9mLet

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The Wide Variability in Reported COVID-19 Epidemiologic Data May Suggest That Personalized Omic Testing May Be Needed to Identify At-Risk Populations

Curator: Stephen J. Williams, PhD

I constantly check the Youtube uploads from Dr. John Campbell, who is a wonderful immunologist and gives daily reports on new findings on COVID-19 from the scientific literature.  His reporting is extremely insightful and easily understandable.  This is quite a feat as it seems the scientific field has been inundated with a plethora of papers, mostly reported clinical data from small retrospective studies, and many which are being put on preprint servers, and not peer reviewed.

It has become a challenge for many scientists, already inundated with expanding peer reviewed literature in their own fields, as well as the many requests to review papers, to keep up with all these COVID related literature.  Especially when it is up to the reader to do their own detailed peer review. So many thanks to people like Dr. Campbell who is an expert in his field for doing this.

However the other day he had posted a video which I found a bit disturbing, as a central theme of the video was that many expert committee could not find any reliable epidemiologic study concerning transmission or even incidence of the disease.  In all studies, as Dr. Campell alluded to, there is such a tremendous variability in the reported statistics, whether one is looking at percentage of people testing positive who are symptomatic, the percentage of asymptomatic which may be carriers, the transmission of the disease, and even the percentage of people who recover.

With all the studies being done it would appear that, even if a careful meta analysis were done using all available studies, and assuming their validity before peer review, that there would be a tighter consensus on some of these metrics of disease spread, incidence and prevalence.

Below is the video from Dr. Campbell and the topic is on percentage of asymptomatic carriers of the COVID-19 virus.  This was posted last week but later in this post there will be updated information and views by the WHO on this matter as well as other literature (which still shows to my point that this wide variability in reported data may be adding to the policy confusion with respect to asymptomatic versus symptomatic people and why genetic testing might be needed to further discriminate these cohorts of people.

 

Below is the video: 

From the Oxford Center for Evidence Based Medicine: COVID-19 Portal at https://www.cebm.net/oxford-covid-19-evidence-service/

“There is not a single reliable study to determine the number of asymptomatic infections”

And this is very troubling as this means there is no reliable testing resulting in any meaningful data.

As Dr. Campell says

” This is not good enough.  There needs to be some sort of coordinated research program it seems all ad hoc”

A few other notes from post and Oxford Center for Evidence Based Medicine:

  • Symptom based screening will miss a lot of asymptomatic and presymptomatic cases
  • Some asymptomatic cases will become symptomatic over next week (these people were technically presymptomatic but do we know the %?)
  • We need a population based antibody screening program
  • An Italian study of all 3,000 people in city of Vo’Euganeo revealed that 50-75% of those who tested positive were asymptomatic and authors concluded that asymptomatic represents “a formidable source of infection”; Dr. Campbell feels this was a reliable study
  • Another study from a Washington state nursing facility showed while 56% of positive cases were asymptomatic, 75% of these asymptomatic developed symptoms within a week. Symptom based screening missed half of cases.
  • Other studies do not follow-up on the positive cases to determine in presymptomatic
  • It also appears discrepancies between data from different agencies (like CDC, WHO) on who is shedding virus as different tests used (PCR vs antibody)

 

Recent Studies Conflict Concerning Asymptomatic, Presymtomatic and Viral Transmission

‘We don’t actually have that answer yet’: WHO clarifies comments on asymptomatic spread of Covid-19

From StatNews

A top World Health Organization official clarified on Tuesday that scientists have not determined yet how frequently people with asymptomatic cases of Covid-19 pass the disease on to others, a day after suggesting that such spread is “very rare.”

The clarification comes after the WHO’s original comments incited strong pushback from outside public health experts, who suggested the agency had erred, or at least miscommunicated, when it said people who didn’t show symptoms were unlikely to spread the virus.

Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s technical lead on the Covid-19 pandemic, made it very clear Tuesday that the actual rates of asymptomatic transmission aren’t yet known.

Some of the confusion boiled down to the details of what an asymptomatic infection actually is, and the different ways the term is used. While some cases of Covid-19 are fully asymptomatic, sometimes the word is also used to describe people who haven’t started showing symptoms yet, when they are presymptomatic. Research has shown that people become infectious before they start feeling sick, during that presymptomatic period.

At one of the WHO’s thrice-weekly press briefings Monday, Van Kerkhove noted that when health officials review cases that are initially reported to be asymptomatic, “we find out that many have really mild disease.” There are some infected people who are “truly asymptomatic,” she said, but countries that are doing detailed contact tracing are “not finding secondary transmission onward” from those cases. “It’s very rare,” she said.

Source: https://www.statnews.com/2020/06/09/who-comments-asymptomatic-spread-covid-19/

 

Therefore the problems have been in coordinating the testing results, which types of tests conducted, and the symptomology results.  As Dr. Campbell previously stated it appears more ‘ad hoc’ than coordinated research program.  In addition, defining the presymptomatic and measuring this group have been challenging.

However, an alternative explanation to the wide variability in the data may be we need to redefine the cohorts of patients we are evaluating and the retrospective data we are collecting.  It is feasible that sub groups, potentially defined by genetic background may be identified and data re-evaluated based on personalized omic data, in essence creating new cohorts based on biomarker data.

From a Perspective in The Lancet about a worldwide proteomic effort (COVID-19 MS Coalition) to discover biomarkers related to COVID19 infection risk, by identifying COVID-related antigens.

The COVID-19 MS Coalition is a collective mass spectrometry effort that will provide molecular level information on SARS-CoV-2 in the human host and reveal pathophysiological and structural information to treat and minimise COVID-19 infection. Collaboration with colleagues at pace involves sharing of optimised methods for sample collection and data generation, processing and formatting for maximal information gain. Open datasets will enable ready access to this valuable information by the computational community to help understand antigen response mechanisms, inform vaccine development, and enable antiviral drug design. As countries across the world increase widespread testing to confirm SARS-CoV-2 exposure and assess immunity, mass spectrometry has a significant role in fighting the disease. Through collaborative actions, and the collective efforts of the COVID-19 MS Coalition, a molecular level quantitative understanding of SARS-CoV-2 and its effect will benefit all.

 

In an ACS Perspective below, Morteza Mahmoudi suggests a few possible nanobased technologies (i.e., protein corona sensor array and magnetic levitation) that could discriminate COVID-19-infected people at high risk of death while still in the early stages of infection.

Emerging Biomolecular Testing to Assess the Risk of Mortality from COVID-19 Infection

Morteza Mahmoudi*

Publication Date:May 7, 2020

 

Please see other articles on COVID-19 on our Coronavirus Portal at

An Epidemiological Approach Stephen J. Williams, PhD and Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN Lead Curators – e–mail Contacts: sjwilliamspa@comcast.net and avivalev-ari@alum.berkeley.edu

https://pharmaceuticalintelligence.com/coronavirus-portal/an-epidemiological-approach-stephen-j-williams-phd-and-aviva-lev-ari-phd-rn-lead-curators-e-mail-contacts-sjwilliamspacomcast-net-and-avivalev-arialum-berkeley-edu/

and

https://pharmaceuticalintelligence.com/coronavirus-portal/

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Live Notes, Real Time Conference Coverage 2020 AACR Virtual Meeting April 28, 2020 Session on Evaluating Cancer Genomics from Normal Tissues Through Metastatic Disease 3:50 PM

Reporter: Stephen J. Williams, PhD

 Minisymposium: Evaluating Cancer Genomics from Normal Tissues through Evolution to Metastatic Disease

Oncologic therapy shapes the fitness landscape of clonal hematopoiesis

April 28, 2020, 4:10 PM – 4:20 PM

Presenter/Authors
Kelly L. Bolton, Ryan N. Ptashkin, Teng Gao, Lior Braunstein, Sean M. Devlin, Minal Patel, Antonin Berthon, Aijazuddin Syed, Mariko Yabe, Catherine Coombs, Nicole M. Caltabellotta, Mike Walsh, Ken Offit, Zsofia Stadler, Choonsik Lee, Paul Pharoah, Konrad H. Stopsack, Barbara Spitzer, Simon Mantha, James Fagin, Laura Boucai, Christopher J. Gibson, Benjamin Ebert, Andrew L. Young, Todd Druley, Koichi Takahashi, Nancy Gillis, Markus Ball, Eric Padron, David Hyman, Jose Baselga, Larry Norton, Stuart Gardos, Virginia Klimek, Howard Scher, Dean Bajorin, Eder Paraiso, Ryma Benayed, Maria Arcilla, Marc Ladanyi, David Solit, Michael Berger, Martin Tallman, Montserrat Garcia-Closas, Nilanjan Chatterjee, Luis Diaz, Ross Levine, Lindsay Morton, Ahmet Zehir, Elli Papaemmanuil. Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA, Washington University, St Louis, MO, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, Moffitt Cancer Center, Tampa, FL, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, MD

Abstract
Recent studies among healthy individuals show evidence of somatic mutations in leukemia-associated genes, referred to as clonal hematopoiesis (CH). To determine the relationship between CH and oncologic therapy we collected sequential blood samples from 525 cancer patients (median sampling interval time = 23 months, range: 6-53 months) of whom 61% received cytotoxic therapy or external beam radiation therapy and 39% received either targeted/immunotherapy or were untreated. Samples were sequenced using deep targeted capture-based platforms. To determine whether CH mutational features were associated with tMN risk, we performed Cox proportional hazards regression on 9,549 cancer patients exposed to oncologic therapy of whom 75 cases developed tMN (median time to transformation=26 months). To further compare the genetic and clonal relationships between tMN and the proceeding CH, we analyzed 35 cases for which paired samples were available. We compared the growth rate of the variant allele fraction (VAF) of CH clones across treatment modalities and in untreated patients. A significant increase in the growth rate of CH mutations was seen in DDR genes among those receiving cytotoxic (p=0.03) or radiation therapy (p=0.02) during the follow-up period compared to patients who did not receive therapy. Similar growth rates among treated and untreated patients were seen for non-DDR CH genes such as DNMT3A. Increasing cumulative exposure to cytotoxic therapy (p=0.01) and external beam radiation therapy (2×10-8) resulted in higher growth rates for DDR CH mutations. Among 34 subjects with at least two CH mutations in which one mutation was in a DDR gene and one in a non-DDR gene, we studied competing clonal dynamics for multiple gene mutations within the same patient. The risk of tMN was positively associated with CH in a known myeloid neoplasm driver mutation (HR=6.9, p<10-6), and increased with the total number of mutations and clone size. The strongest associations were observed for mutations in TP53 and for CH with mutations in spliceosome genes (SRSF2, U2AF1 and SF3B1). Lower hemoglobin, lower platelet counts, lower neutrophil counts, higher red cell distribution width and higher mean corpuscular volume were all positively associated with increased tMN risk. Among 35 cases for which paired samples were available, in 19 patients (59%), we found evidence of at least one of these mutations at the time of pre-tMN sequencing and in 13 (41%), we identified two or more in the pre-tMN sample. In all cases the dominant clone at tMN transformation was defined by a mutation seen at CH Our serial sampling data provide clear evidence that oncologic therapy strongly selects for clones with mutations in the DDR genes and that these clones have limited competitive fitness, in the absence of cytotoxic or radiation therapy. We further validate the relevance of CH as a predictor and precursor of tMN in cancer patients. We show that CH mutations detected prior to tMN diagnosis were consistently part of the dominant clone at tMN diagnosis and demonstrate that oncologic therapy directly promotes clones with mutations in genes associated with chemo-resistant disease such as TP53.

  • therapy resulted also in clonal evolution and saw changes in splice variants and spliceosome
  • therapy promotes current DDR mutations
  • clonal hematopoeisis due to selective pressures
  • mutations, variants number all predictive of myeloid disease
  • deferring adjuvant therapy for breast cancer patients with patients in highest MDS risk group based on biomarkers, greatly reduced their risk for MDS

5704 – Pan-cancer genomic characterization of patient-matched primary, extracranial, and brain metastases

Presenter/AuthorsOlivia W. Lee, Akash Mitra, Won-Chul Lee, Kazutaka Fukumura, Hannah Beird, Miles Andrews, Grant Fischer, John N. Weinstein, Michael A. Davies, Jason Huse, P. Andrew Futreal. The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, TX, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, TX, Olivia Newton-John Cancer Research Institute and School of Cancer Medicine, La Trobe University, AustraliaDisclosures O.W. Lee: None. A. Mitra: None. W. Lee: None. K. Fukumura: None. H. Beird: None. M. Andrews: ; Merck Sharp and Dohme. G. Fischer: None. J.N. Weinstein: None. M.A. Davies: ; Bristol-Myers Squibb. ; Novartis. ; Array BioPharma. ; Roche and Genentech. ; GlaxoSmithKline. ; Sanofi-Aventis. ; AstraZeneca. ; Myriad Genetics. ; Oncothyreon. J. Huse: None. P. Futreal: None.

Abstract: Brain metastases (BM) occur in 10-30% of patients with cancer. Approximately 200,000 new cases of brain metastases are diagnosed in the United States annually, with median survival after diagnosis ranging from 3 to 27 months. Recently, studies have identified significant genetic differences between BM and their corresponding primary tumors. It has been shown that BM harbor clinically actionable mutations that are distinct from those in the primary tumor samples. Additional genomic profiling of BM will provide deeper understanding of the pathogenesis of BM and suggest new therapeutic approaches.
We performed whole-exome sequencing of BM and matched tumors from 41 patients collected from renal cell carcinoma (RCC), breast cancer, lung cancer, and melanoma, which are known to be more likely to develop BM. We profiled total 126 fresh-frozen tumor samples and performed subsequent analyses of BM in comparison to paired primary tumor and extracranial metastases (ECM). We found that lung cancer shared the largest number of mutations between BM and matched tumors (83%), followed by melanoma (74%), RCC (51%), and Breast (26%), indicating that cancer type with high tumor mutational burden share more mutations with BM. Mutational signatures displayed limited differences, suggesting a lack of mutagenic processes specific to BM. However, point-mutation heterogeneity revealed that BM evolve separately into different subclones from their paired tumors regardless of cancer type, and some cancer driver genes were found in BM-specific subclones. These models and findings suggest that these driver genes may drive prometastatic subclones that lead to BM. 32 curated cancer gene mutations were detected and 71% of them were shared between BM and primary tumors or ECM. 29% of mutations were specific to BM, implying that BM often accumulate additional cancer gene mutations that are not present in primary tumors or ECM. Co-mutation analysis revealed a high frequency of TP53 nonsense mutation in BM, mostly in the DNA binding domain, suggesting TP53 nonsense mutation as a possible prerequisite for the development of BM. Copy number alteration analysis showed statistically significant differences between BM and their paired tumor samples in each cancer type (Wilcoxon test, p < 0.0385 for all). Both copy number gains and losses were consistently higher in BM for breast cancer (Wilcoxon test, p =1.307e-5) and lung cancer (Wilcoxon test, p =1.942e-5), implying greater genomic instability during the evolution of BM.
Our findings highlight that there are more unique mutations in BM, with significantly higher copy number alterations and tumor mutational burden. These genomic analyses could provide an opportunity for more reliable diagnostic decision-making, and these findings will be further tested with additional transcriptomic and epigenetic profiling for better characterization of BM-specific tumor microenvironments.

  • are there genomic signatures different in brain mets versus non metastatic or normal?
  • 32 genes from curated databases were different between brain mets and primary tumor
  • frequent nonsense mutations in TP53
  • divergent clonal evolution of drivers in BMets from primary
  • they were able to match BM with other mutational signatures like smokers and lung cancer signatures

5707 – A standard operating procedure for the interpretation of oncogenicity/pathogenicity of somatic mutations

Presenter/AuthorsPeter Horak, Malachi Griffith, Arpad Danos, Beth A. Pitel, Subha Madhavan, Xuelu Liu, Jennifer Lee, Gordana Raca, Shirley Li, Alex H. Wagner, Shashikant Kulkarni, Obi L. Griffith, Debyani Chakravarty, Dmitriy Sonkin. National Center for Tumor Diseases, Heidelberg, Germany, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, Georgetown University Medical Center, Washington, DC, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA, Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research, Rockville, MD, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, Sunquest, Boston, MA, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY, National Cancer Institute, Rockville, MDDisclosures P. Horak: None. M. Griffith: None. A. Danos: None. B.A. Pitel: None. S. Madhavan: ; Perthera Inc. X. Liu: None. J. Lee: None. G. Raca: None. S. Li: ; Sunquest Information Systems, Inc. A.H. Wagner: None. S. Kulkarni: ; Baylor Genetics. O.L. Griffith: None. D. Chakravarty: None. D. Sonkin: None.AbstractSomatic variants in cancer-relevant genes are interpreted from multiple partially overlapping perspectives. When considered in discovery and translational research endeavors, it is important to determine if a particular variant observed in a gene of interest is oncogenic/pathogenic or not, as such knowledge provides the foundation on which targeted cancer treatment research is based. In contrast, clinical applications are dominated by diagnostic, prognostic, or therapeutic interpretations which in part also depends on underlying variant oncogenicity/pathogenicity. The Association for Molecular Pathology, the American Society of Clinical Oncology, and the College of American Pathologists (AMP/ASCO/CAP) have published structured somatic variant clinical interpretation guidelines which specifically address diagnostic, prognostic, and therapeutic implications. These guidelines have been well-received by the oncology community. Many variant knowledgebases, clinical laboratories/centers have adopted or are in the process of adopting these guidelines. The AMP/ASCO/CAP guidelines also describe different data types which are used to determine oncogenicity/pathogenicity of a variant, such as: population frequency, functional data, computational predictions, segregation, and somatic frequency. A second collaborative effort created the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Scale for Clinical Actionability of molecular Targets to provide a harmonized vocabulary that provides an evidence-based ranking system of molecular targets that supports their value as clinical targets. However, neither of these clinical guideline systems provide systematic and comprehensive procedures for aggregating population frequency, functional data, computational predictions, segregation, and somatic frequency to consistently interpret variant oncogenicity/pathogenicity, as has been published in the ACMG/AMP guidelines for interpretation of pathogenicity of germline variants. In order to address this unmet need for somatic variant oncogenicity/pathogenicity interpretation procedures, the Variant Interpretation for Cancer Consortium (VICC, a GA4GH driver project) Knowledge Curation and Interpretation Standards (KCIS) working group (WG) has developed a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) with contributions from members of ClinGen Somatic Clinical Domain WG, and ClinGen Somatic/Germline variant curation WG using an approach similar to the ACMG/AMP germline pathogenicity guidelines to categorize evidence of oncogenicity/pathogenicity as very strong, strong, moderate or supporting. This SOP enables consistent and comprehensive assessment of oncogenicity/pathogenicity of somatic variants and latest version of an SOP can be found at https://cancervariants.org/wg/kcis/.

  • best to use this SOP for somatic mutations and not rearangements
  • variants based on oncogenicity as strong to weak
  • useful variant knowledge on pathogenicity curated from known databases
  • the recommendations would provide some guideline on curating unknown somatic variants versus known variants of hereditary diseases
  • they have not curated RB1 mutations or variants (or for other RBs like RB2? p130?)

 

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Reporter and Curator: Dr. Sudipta Saha, Ph.D.

 

In-vitro fertilisation (IVF) is now regarded as a huge clinical success which has benefitted an estimated 16 million parents, at the time the development not only sparked moral outrage but led to political and legislative constraints. Patients undergoing IVF may be presented with numerous assisted reproductive treatments purportedly increasing the chances of pregnancy. Such commercialised “IVF add-ons” often come at high costs without clinical evidence of validity. Additionally, long-term studies of children born through IVF have historically been scarce and inconsistent in their data collection. This has meant that potential genetic predispositions, such as increased body fat composition and blood pressure, as well as congenital abnormalities long associated with IVF births, lack proof of causality.

 

With Preimplantation genetic testing mutated embryos are automatically discarded, whereas CRISPR could correct mutations to increase the number of viable embryos for implantation. Moreover, in instances where all embryos in a given cycle are destined to develop with severe or lethal mutations, CRISPR could bring success for otherwise doomed IVF treatments. Genetic screening programs offered to couples in hot-spot areas of carrier frequency of monogenic disorders have had huge success in alleviating regional disease burdens. Carried out since the 1970s these programs have altered the course of natural evolution, but few would dispute their benefits in preventing heritable disease transmission.

 

Mutations are as inevitable as death and taxes. Whilst age is considered one of the largest factors in de-novo mutation generation, it appears that these are inherited primarily from the paternal line. Thus, the paternal age of conception predominantly determines the mutation frequency inherited by children. Whereas advanced maternal age is not associated with mutagenic allele frequency but chromosomal abnormalities. The risk of aneuploidy rises steadily in mothers over the age of 26. Although embryos are screened for aneuploidy prior to implantation, with so many other factors simultaneously being screened the probability of having enough embryos remaining to allow for 50% rate of blastocyte development in-vitro are often fairly low.

 

Despite IVF being used routinely for over 40 years now, it’s not abundantly clear if, or how often, IVF may introduce genomic alternations or off-target affects in embryos. Likewise, scientists and clinicians are often unable to scrutinise changes produced through natural cellular processes including recombination and aging. So, it may be OK to do controlled experiments on using CRISPR to try and prevent multi-generational suffering. But, there has to be a long term investigation on the side effects of germline genome editing. Science has advanced a lot but still there are lot of things that are yet to be described or discovered by science. Trying to reduce human suffering should not give rise to new bigger sufferings and care must be taken not to create a Frankenstein.

 

References:

 

http://www.frontlinegenomics.com/news/29321/opinion-piece-morally-is-germline-genome-editing-all-that-different-to-ivf/

 

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