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Anti-inflammatory treatments, particularly those used in the context of viral infection, have been shown to greatly inhibit the overall immune response, which can result in poor immunity and failure to control or clear the infection. Novel alternatives that can effectively attenuate inflammation without the more serious side effects of steroid medications (e.g., global immune suppression, muscle weakness, etc.) may have substantial use across a wide range of disease areas.

Despite four decades of intensive research, a safe and effective HIV-1 vaccine remains elusive due to the extreme difficulty in eliciting broadly neutralizing antibodies (bNAbs), which recognize and block HIV-1 from entering healthy cells. Only rare natural HIV-1 envelopes (Envs) promote the activation and expansion of naive B cells expressing unmutated germline antibodies of various bNAb lineages, but they typically do so for a single lineage for the same neutralization site.

This technology includes six human monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) that target tumor antigens derived from the CT-RCC HERV-E (human endogenous retrovirus type E) to generate Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR) T cells to treat patients with advanced clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC). These mAbs were identified from Adagene Inc’s human antibody phage library, and data show that majority of these mAbs only bind to CT-RCC HERV-E+ ccRCC cells, which express TM but not CT-RCC HERV-E non-expressing ccRCC cells nor non-RCC cells.

This technology includes a generated polyclonal antibody in rabbit that detects the mitochondrial uniporter (MCU) protein. This antibody was created by immunizing rabbits with a synthesized sequence of the MCU protein and can be used to identify and quantify MCU protein in various tissues. The polyclonal nature of the antibody ensures it recognizes multiple epitopes on the MCU, enhancing detection reliability. This technology is crucial for understanding MCU's role in mitochondrial function and mammalian physiology.

This technology includes antibodies for TMC1 protein as a treatment for hearing loss. TMC1 is one of the common genes causing hereditary hearing loss. Our laboratory used synthetic peptides corresponding to the TMC1 protein to immunize rabbits. The resulting antisera were shown to bind to TMC1 protein expressed in heterologous expression systems. TMC1 protein is required for the transduction of sound into electrical impulses in inner ear sensory cells.

This technology includes a microscopy method that reduces the speed penalty at least 1000-fold, while retaining resolution improvement. A Digital mirror device (DMD) or sweptfield confocal unit is used to create hundreds to thousands of excitation foci that are imaged to a sample mounted in a conventional microscope and record the resulting emissions on an array detector. Detection of each confocal spot is done in our proprietary software, as is the processing and deconvolution that is used for a 2x resolution enhancement.

This technology includes rhesus macaque induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) lines from multiple animals and various types of cells to establish this pre-clinical model. iPSCs are a type of pluripotent stem cell that can be generated from adult somatic cells. The iPSC technology holds great potential for regenerative medicine. Before clinical application, it is critical to evaluate safety and efficacy in a clinically-relevant animal model. We propose that non-human primate models are particularly relevant to test iPSC-based cell therapies.

This technology includes a new class of nanoparticles in the carbon family, fluorescent nanodiamonds (FNDs), exhibiting superb physical and chemical properties for diagnostic imaging applications. We have developed a simple, fast, and robust method to encapsulate FNDs in polydopamine that can be further functionalized. By integrating anatomical and molecular based imaging capabilities, multimodal nanoparticle probes are becoming important in the paradigm shift from conventional to future imaging technologies.