Exposure to ionizing radiation or agents that induce DNA double-stranded breaks (DSBs), which is one of the most damaging types of lesions in DNA, can result in damage to cells and/or tissues.  Thiscan lead to illness (i.e., Acute Radiation Syndrome, Cancer) or death.  Identifying the amount of exposure to a DNA DSB-causing agent can be useful in determining the need for further testing, avoidance or modification of certain medical procedures, and/or types of medical treatments.

Neuroblastoma is a rare pediatric cancer that affects one in every hundred thousand children under the age of fifteen in the United States. Current standards of care  are chemotherapy and surgery, followed by stem-cell treatments, radiation and anti-ganglioside antibody therapy, which yield an average three-year survival rate of 10-45%. This demonstrates a need for more effective therapies.

Immortalization of plasma cells leads to plasma cell malignancy diseases such as multiple myeloma (MM). B-cell maturation antigen (BCMA) is a protein that is preferentially expressed by malignant and normal B cells and plasma cells, butnot on other cells in the body. This limited expression profile suggests that BCMA is a promising target for anticancer therapeutics for cancers in which there is excess production of plasma cells and B cells. 

Adoptive Cell Therapy (ACT) is a promising technique that uses a patient's own T cells to treat cancer. The process requires removing and engineering a patient's T cells to express a chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) or T cell receptor (TCR) that targets a specific cancer antigen. When the modified T cells are reintroduced into the patient, the T cells attack and kill cancer cells that express the antigen, thereby treating the patient.

Adoptive cell therapy (ACT) is a breakthrough form of cancer immunotherapy that utilizes tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) or genetically engineered T cells to attack tumor cells through recognition of tumor-specific antigens. A major hurdle in the development of ACT is the identification and isolation of T cells that recognize antigens that are expressed by tumor cells but not by healthy tissues. Current methods to identify such T cells involve extracting autologous antigen presenting cells (APCs) from patients in an expensive, laborious, and time-consuming process.

Human papillomavirus (HPV) has been linked to many cancers including cervix, uterine, anus, vulva, vagina, and penis. Although HPV vaccines exist to prevent HPV-associated cancers, there are still more than 5,000 deaths caused by HPV-associated cancers each year in the US and cervical cancer continues to be the second leading cause of cancer death in women ages 20 to 39.

Tissues samples collected during medical procedures, such as biopsies, are used to diagnose a wide variety of diseases. Before diagnosis, patient samples are typically processed by fixation and paraffin embedding. This fixation/embedding process is used to preserve tissue morphology and histology for subsequent evaluation. Unfortunately, most fixative agents can damage or destroy nucleic acids (RNA and DNA) and damage proteins during the fixation process, thereby potentially impairing diagnostic assessment of tissue.

The thymus is an integral part of the adaptive immune system as it generates T cells. Its function diminishes rapidly as the body ages, leading to a compromise of the immune system in the elderly. Reconstitution of adaptive immunity through mass production of different T cell types is therefore a therapeutic need in immunocompromised populations. Furthermore, production of T cells with specific receptors targeting cancer cells is an important cancer immunotherapy approach.

In collaboration with surgery specialists from Johns Hopkins University, researchers at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) developed novel hydrogel compositions and methods of using them in the microsurgical suturing of blood vessels, which is particularly beneficial for surgeons in whole tissue transplant procedures. The lead candidate electropositive hydrogels, called APC1, was demonstrated in anastomosis mice models to be well tolerated, biocompatible, and non-toxic.

Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease that typically affects the lungs. Current therapies include a panel of antibiotics given over a range of 6-9 months. As a result of the expense of treatment, the extended timeframe needed for effective treatment, and the scarcity of medicines in some developing countries, patient compliance with TB treatment is very low and results in multi-drug resistant TB (MDR-TB). There remains a need for a faster, more effective treatment for TB.