Mayo Clinic researchers develop test to measure effect of breast cancer gene variants

ROCHESTER, Minn. ? Researchers at Mayo Clinic have combined results from a functional test measuring the effect of inherited variants in the BRCA2 breast and ovarian cancer gene with clinical information from women who received genetic testing to determine the clinical importance of many BRCA2 variants of uncertain significance (VUS). The findings were published today…

Super-sensitive cancer blood test earns “Top 10” award from clinical research forum

Cancer biologists at Weill Cornell Medicine have been awarded a 2021 Top 10 Clinical Research Achievement Award from the Clinical Research Forum for their study last year describing a highly sensitive blood test for monitoring cancer progression and relapse. The findings, entitled “Genome-wide cell-free DNA mutational integration enables ultra-sensitive cancer monitoring,” were published June 1…

New review compiles immunogenicity data on leading SARS-CoV-2 vaccine candidates

In a new Review, P.J. Klasse and colleagues present an extensive overview of the immunogenicity profiles of several leading SARS-CoV-2 vaccine candidates, including several developed under the auspices of the U.S. Government’s “Operation Warp Speed” program, as well as leading candidates from China and Russia. Since the paper was submitted, two of these vaccines –…

The Lancet: 3-month interval between first and second dose of Oxford COVID-19 vaccine results in higher vaccine efficacy than 6-week interval

Exploratory analyses including 17,178 participants find that higher vaccine efficacy is obtained with a longer interval between the first and second standard dose (81% for 3-month interval vs 55% for up to 6-week interval). In addition, a single dose of vaccine is highly efficacious in the first 3 months (76% efficacy from 22 days after…