Koinonia

Spotlight FeatureThinking Globally in a Local Context, Jolene Cassellius Family and Balance, Shannon Schans Cultivating Philanthropy in the Co-Curriculum: An Alternative to the Narcissism of the iGeneration, Brian Powell InterviewThe Ministry of Reconciliation: A Conversation with Brenda Salter McNeil, Glen Kinoshita Thinking TheologicallyThought About Thinking Lately? How About Thinking Christianly?, Michael Santarosa Book ReviewHush: Moving From Silence to Healing After Childhood Sexual Abuse, reviewed by Carol Harding I\u27m the Teacher, You\u27re the Student: A Semester in the University Classroom, reviewed by Ryan K. Giffin Reconciliation Blues: A Black Evangelical\u27s Inside View of White Christianity, reviewed by Jesse Brown FeaturesThe President\u27s Corner Editor\u27s Desk Regional Updateshttps://pillars.taylor.edu/acsd_koinonia/1080/thumbnail.jp

31st Annual Meeting and Associated Programs of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC 2016) : part two

Background The immunological escape of tumors represents one of the main ob- stacles to the treatment of malignancies. The blockade of PD-1 or CTLA-4 receptors represented a milestone in the history of immunotherapy. However, immune checkpoint inhibitors seem to be effective in specific cohorts of patients. It has been proposed that their efficacy relies on the presence of an immunological response. Thus, we hypothesized that disruption of the PD-L1/PD-1 axis would synergize with our oncolytic vaccine platform PeptiCRAd. Methods We used murine B16OVA in vivo tumor models and flow cytometry analysis to investigate the immunological background. Results First, we found that high-burden B16OVA tumors were refractory to combination immunotherapy. However, with a more aggressive schedule, tumors with a lower burden were more susceptible to the combination of PeptiCRAd and PD-L1 blockade. The therapy signifi- cantly increased the median survival of mice (Fig. 7). Interestingly, the reduced growth of contralaterally injected B16F10 cells sug- gested the presence of a long lasting immunological memory also against non-targeted antigens. Concerning the functional state of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), we found that all the immune therapies would enhance the percentage of activated (PD-1pos TIM- 3neg) T lymphocytes and reduce the amount of exhausted (PD-1pos TIM-3pos) cells compared to placebo. As expected, we found that PeptiCRAd monotherapy could increase the number of antigen spe- cific CD8+ T cells compared to other treatments. However, only the combination with PD-L1 blockade could significantly increase the ra- tio between activated and exhausted pentamer positive cells (p= 0.0058), suggesting that by disrupting the PD-1/PD-L1 axis we could decrease the amount of dysfunctional antigen specific T cells. We ob- served that the anatomical location deeply influenced the state of CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes. In fact, TIM-3 expression was in- creased by 2 fold on TILs compared to splenic and lymphoid T cells. In the CD8+ compartment, the expression of PD-1 on the surface seemed to be restricted to the tumor micro-environment, while CD4 + T cells had a high expression of PD-1 also in lymphoid organs. Interestingly, we found that the levels of PD-1 were significantly higher on CD8+ T cells than on CD4+ T cells into the tumor micro- environment (p < 0.0001). Conclusions In conclusion, we demonstrated that the efficacy of immune check- point inhibitors might be strongly enhanced by their combination with cancer vaccines. PeptiCRAd was able to increase the number of antigen-specific T cells and PD-L1 blockade prevented their exhaus- tion, resulting in long-lasting immunological memory and increased median survival

The Validity of a Smartphone App (myrecovery©) to Serve as Proxy for Activity Level in Athletes

Background: When investigating the effectiveness of interventions to prevent recurrence of sports injuries, measuring exposure time (the time an athlete is at risk of injury) is crucial. The most accurate method of measuring exposure time involves hiring personnel to stand field side during practices and games to record minutes at risk. However, this does not capture other activities in which the athlete may take part that are not part of their formal sport that may put them at risk of re-injury. Another means to collect this data is to ask the athlete to self-report exposure. However, self-report diaries are often poorly adhered to. There are Smartphone apps that track step count, step intensity, and other activity parameters that may serve as a proxy for exposure time. Research Question: What is the magnitude of the association between activity parameters measured using the myrecovery© Smartphone app and detailed activity journals collected through self-report and interview data. Methods: We will purposefully select 60 athletes from the FKSMC. Athletes will be of various sex, age, sport, activity level (none, recreational, competitive, varsity/elite). Participants will agree to track their daily exposure to activity for 4 weeks and join the myrecovery© app for the same period of time. Athletes will be encouraged to carry their phone at all times unless it is not permitted by the rules of the game. We will use regression to estimate the predictive validity of the myrecovery© app for the self-reported data. Significance of the anticipated findings: Its possible that because athletes cannot carry their phone during games and possibly practices, that the app will be poorly correlated with exposure time. Its also possible that individuals who partake in a higher activity level are more active in general such that the association will be moderate to high. If we can identify a relatively low burden method to approximate exposure time, we anticipate huge uptake world wide by those needing to capture exposure time. Being able to capture exposure time with relatively low burden would mean that resources could be spent conducting larger, more impactful studies rather than smaller studies where exposure time data has to be collected at field side (resource intensive)