Listen as specialists from Merck discuss what they’re most excited about in researching potential treatments for neurologic disorders
July 11, 2023
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Our scientists are revolutionizing how we discover and develop treatments to address unmet medical needs in a number of areas, including neuroscience.
“It’s sort of like the final frontier,” said Joe Herring, scientific AVP, clinical research, in our new podcast. “You’re going off into space to try to figure out how to do very difficult things.”
For more, listen in as Herring sits down with Merck clinical research team senior principal scientists Yuki Mukai and Ari Merola as well as business development director Paige Lacatena to explore today’s breakthroughs and challenges in the field of neuroscience.
Over the past decade, immunotherapy has transformed our understanding of how the immune system can be used to help fight some types of cancer. However, for the last 50 years, scientists have been researching how we could potentially use vaccines to treat cancer — another investigational approach to harness the immune system to help recognize and destroy cancer cells — with little success.
Now we’re looking at a potential therapy that is building upon the learnings of immunotherapy trials from the past and incorporating that into an individualized cancer approach that’s specific to a patient’s own tumor. Researchers are currently exploring the potential of individualized neoantigen therapies to help fight cancer.
Cancer research is becoming more personalized
Cancer is a result of the body’s own cells undergoing mutations which create abnormal proteins in cancer cells, known as neoantigens, that are not usually seen in normal cells. These mutations are unique to each person’s tumor, so that’s one of the reasons why patients who have been diagnosed with the same type of cancer and who have received the same type of treatment may have different responses.
As the treatment of cancer continues to evolve and advance, researchers are focusing on more individualized approaches. This includes a new area of research into individualized neoantigen therapies that use information from a person’s tumor biopsy sample to help develop a therapy unique to their tumor’s mutations.
“This area of research has really captured our imagination of what’s possible in the development of cancer therapeutics.”
Dr. Jane Healy Vice president and head of oncology early development at Merck Research Laboratories
In collaboration with Moderna, we’re studying this area of research in an effort to advance more individualized approaches to help improve outcomes for people living with cancer.
Learn more about individualized neoantigen therapies
Proteins in space: taking our research to the final frontier
Merck Research Laboratories scientist Paul Reichert works with the International Space Station to drive innovation
June 29, 2022
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Merck Research Laboratories (MRL) is known for pushing the frontiers of science with its cutting-edge research. And MRL scientist Paul Reichert has taken that concept even further — to space!
Reichert was one of the first scientists in the pharmaceutical industry to propose studying protein crystallization under microgravity conditions, and his work continues today.
“We regularly use crystallization processes for our small molecule and small protein therapeutics. Our goal with these experiments is to identify crystallization processes for biologics for enhanced and simpler drug delivery,” explained Reichert.
Experimental conditions in microgravity are unique because without the force of Earth’s gravity, solutions have reduced convection currents, reduced sedimentation and reduced molecular motion, leading to higher-order crystals with higher purity and more uniform suspensions. Researchers have been able to apply this knowledge ‘on the ground’ by manipulating key variables to mimic those in microgravity, such as using rotational mixers to reduce sedimentation.
Paul Reichert (L) joins April Spinale and Raymond Polniak of the ISS National Laboratory, managed by the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space, Inc. (CASIS), to inspect the experiment
The latest MRL experiment blasted off to the International Space Station in December with astronaut Marc Vande Hei completing the experiment designed to study the effects of purity, mixing, diffusion and temperature on crystallization. Simultaneously, back on Earth, a research team was doing a control experiment in a laboratory for comparison. Reichert is now working alongside other MRL scientists to analyze and compare the results of the experiment run in space against the ground experiment done under the same conditions with gravity.
“I feel so fortunate to have been able to push the frontiers of science with amazing scientists here at Merck and at the ISS National Laboratory. It’s been the highlight of my career.”
Paul Reichert Associate principal scientist, structural chemistry
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