Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T–cell immunotherapy reprograms a patient’s immune cells to target a cancer-specific cell surface protein. CAR T cells have been effective against blood cancers, but do not work as well in solid and brain tumors because cancer cells do not uniformly express the same cell surface proteins, allowing cancer cells to escape treatment and regrow the tumor. 

Researchers have identified a promising new strategy for treating alcohol use disorder (AUD). A novel study found that the dopamine-boosting drug tolcapone increases activity in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) during self-control tasks. Greater activation of the inferior frontal gyrus, part of the PFC, was associated with better behavioral control and reduced alcohol consumption. The findings from this new study in Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging, published by Elsevier, indicate that medications with a similar mechanism could one day be used to treat AUD.

A transdisciplinary team of University of Pittsburgh and Kenyan researchers has developed a discrete event simulation (DES), a computer-based model, that reveals gaps in the blood transfusion continuum to help optimize the “vein-to-vein” process from collection to storage to delivery and transfusion in Kenya. The research, which provides the first quantitative model of the blood continuum in a low- to middle-income country (LMIC), is published in the article “Simulating the blood transfusion system in Kenya: Modelling methods and exploratory analyses” (DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgph.0004587) in PLOS Global Public Health. I