International Research Chemistry Awards

  Cancer has long remained a leading cause of death worldwide and in Hong Kong, accounting for 30% of all disease-related deaths in the city in 2025. While chemotherapy remains a major treatment modality, its side effects and the risk of relapse challenges for patients. In recent years, Chimeric Antigen Receptor T-cell (CAR-T) therapy has emerged by integrating immunology, cell therapy and gene technology, but it shows limited effectiveness against solid tumors, carries the risk of excessive immune responses, and can cost several million Hong Kong dollars per treatment. DC therapy separates monocytes from a patient's blood, co-cultures them with tumor antigens in vitro to generate mature dendritic cells, and reinfuses them into the body to stimulate the immune system attack cancer cells. Although DC therapy has milder side effects, its clinical outcomes remain variable and the manufacturing process is laborious and expensive. To address these bottlenecks, the team led by Professor...

  Immune cells called B cells make antibodies that fight off invading bacteria , viruses and other foreign substances. During their preparation for this battle, B cells transiently revert to a more flexible, or plastic, stem-cell-like state in the lymph nodes, according to a new preclinical study from Weill Cornell Medicine investigators. The results could help explain how many lymphomas develop from mature B cells rather than from stem cells, as many other cancers do, and guide researchers in developing better treatments. The study, published Dec. 29 in Nature Cell Biology, reveals a paradox: as mature B cells get prepped to make antibodies, a highly specialized process, they temporarily gain plasticity, a feature normally reserved for unspecialized stem cells. They do this by partially erasing their B cell features and activating stem-like programs, which are normally silenced in mature, differentiated cells. These are epigenetic changes, meaning the packaging of DNA is adjusted ...

Every cell depends on proteins to function and stay healthy. These proteins are made inside the cell from amino acids but cannot simply accumulate inside the cell forever. Once they have done their job or become damaged, the cell needs to clear them out. Cells do this by breaking proteins down and recycling them, a process summarily referred to as "protein removal". But this ongoing and vital "dance" of protein making and protein removal takes energy and coordination, and the cell must constantly strike the right balance between the two. When resources such as amino acids or the cell's capacity to build proteins fluctuate-e.g. after eating, during stress, or in the presence of certain drugs-this balance can shift. And yet, cells still need to keep their overall protein levels within a safe range. This raises a simple question: how do cells adjust protein removal when protein production changes? Scientists have known the two processes, protein production and remo...

  A groundbreaking discovery led by the University of St. Andrews has found a way to turn ordinary household plastic waste into the building block for anti- cancer drugs. Household PET (polyethylene terephthalate) waste, such as plastic bottles and textiles, can be recycled in two main ways: mechanically or chemically. Chemical recycling breaks down PET's long polymer chains into individual units called monomers or into other valuable chemicals . Published today (Thursday 18 December) in Angewandte Chemie International Edition, researchers discovered that by using a ruthenium-catalysedsemi-hydrogenation process, PET waste could be depolymerised into a valuable chemical, ethyl-4-hydroxymethyl benzoate (EHMB). Remarkably, EHMB serves as a key intermediate for synthesising several important compounds, including the blockbuster anticancer drug Imatinib, Tranexamic acid, the base for medication that helps the blood to clot, and the insecticide Fenpyroximate. Currently these types of med...

  Researchers at the University of Sharjah are exploring a promising approach that could enhance the immune system's ability to fight cancer , potentially paving the way for new treatments. In a recent article published in the journal Cell Death & Disease, the team reviewed existing work on a protein called TIGIT, which prevents the immune system from effectively targeting and attacking cancer cells. TIGIT, an immune checkpoint protein, acts as a "double brake" on the immune system, stopping it from engaging cancerous cells. It suppresses immune cells directly and competes with an activating signal known as CD226. Following intensive research and in vitro tests, scientists succeeded in releasing the brake with a single drug in laboratory trials, but clinical trials have been less successful. The laboratory experiments the scientists successfully carried out "did not work well for most patients in real-world clinical trials," according to Mawieh Hamad, Profes...

  With 9.5% of its population estimated to be HIV-positive in 2019, Malawi has one of the highest rates of HIV prevalence in the world. While untreated HIV can lead to infection and death, antiretroviral therapy (ART)-a combination of medications that suppresses the virus, restores immune function, and reverses the progression of AIDS-is available to Malawian patients at no cost. But success depends on patients adhering to regular treatment, and tracing patients who have lapsed from care is expensive and time-consuming for clinics that are already understaffed. To address the challenge, the nonprofit Baobab Health Trust and Malawi's Ministry of Health, began migrating clinics from paper-based patient records to electronic medical records (EMRs) in 2005. In a recent study by Wharton School assistant professor Leandro "Leo" Pongeluppe and colleagues, researchers examined the impact of this change on patient outcomes in 106 HIV treatment clinics between 2007 and 2019. Their ...

  Chimeric antigen receptor T (CAR-T) cell therapy has revolutionized hematologic cancer treatment, but its efficacy in solid tumors remains limited by poor infiltration into the complex tumor microenvironment (TME). A new review published in Volume 138, Issue 19 of the Chinese Medical Journal on October 05, 2025, outlines breakthrough strategies to address this critical bottleneck. Solid tumors present multiple barriers: abnormal vasculature, dense extracellular matrix, disordered chemokine signals, and immunosuppressive stromal cells. These obstacles reduce CAR-T cell access to tumor cells, with circulating CAR-T levels in solid tumor patients 5–10 times lower than in hematologic cancer cases. To tackle this, researchers are targeting vascular normalization. Anti-VEGF drugs like bevacizumab, when combined with CAR-T cells, remodel abnormal tumor blood vessels, improving T cell penetration. In preclinical models, inhibiting pathways like PAK4 or endothelial cell metabolism further...

  Researchers have developed a new compact Raman imaging system that is sensitive enough to differentiate between tumor and normal tissue. The system offers a promising route to earlier cancer detection and to making molecular imaging more practical outside the lab. The new Raman system is designed to detect very faint signals from special surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) nanoparticles that bind to tumor markers. After the particles are applied to a sample or the area being examined, the imaging system reads their signal and automatically highlights spots that are likely to contain tumor tissue. In Optica, Optica Publishing Group's journal for high-impact research, Qiu and colleagues describe their new imaging system and show that it can distinguish cancerous from healthy cells while detecting Raman signals about four times weaker than a comparable commercial system. They achieved this sensitivity by combining a swept-source laser - which changes wavelength during analysis ...

  Reducing calorie intake in mouse tumour models improves anticancer immunity by enhancing metabolic and cytotoxic functions of specific immune cells, reports a new study published in the journal Nature Metabolism . Impaired T Cells and Tumor Progression An increased proliferation of cancer cells and reduced anticancer activity of the immune system collectively trigger tumor growth. Cytotoxic effector T cells are primary immune cells responsible for restricting tumor progression. Cancer immunotherapy with immune checkpoint inhibitors provides robust protection against various malignancies by promoting the expansion of these effector T cells. Although playing a key role in controlling tumor growth, cytotoxic effector T cells are often subjected to functional impairment due to chronic exposure to tumor antigens and inflammatory conditions in the tumor microenvironment. These functionally impaired T cells are termed terminally exhausted T cells, and their accumulation in tumors ultima...

  Advancements in HIV/AIDS research, drug development and clinical practice since the 1980s have made it possible for people living with HIV to lead long, productive lives and keep the virus in check at undetectable levels and nontransmissible as long as therapy is maintained. However, a cure - completely ridding the body of the virus - has only been documented in a handful of patients who underwent complex and high-risk bone marrow transplants for life-threatening blood cancers such as leukemia or lymphoma. In a paper published today in the Journal of Clinical Investigation (JCI), researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine report they may have taken an early step toward a more practical HIV cure. The researchers - in a study done largely with federal funding - focused on a patient undergoing cancer treatment and also living with HIV, who after receiving chemotherapy, had a significant reduction in the number of CD4+ T immune cells that contained an HIV provirus - a key player in HIV's ...

  In a recent study published in the Journal of Experimental Medicine, researchers identified a circadian neutrophil checkpoint that protects against inflammation. Neutrophils are the first responders to infections and trauma. However, their highly cytotoxic activity can cause irreversible damage to bystander host cells. This is particularly relevant in the context of sterile inflammation and infections, conditions in which the affected tissues recruit neutrophils that can increase the area of damage by secreting cellular components and chemicals and inducing the death of unaffected cells. These antagonistic effects of inflammatory injury and immune protection impede therapeutic development, as both properties are deemed inseparable features of neutrophils. However, recent studies report that neutrophils are not homogeneous across disease states, tissues, and diurnal time, suggesting that neutrophils may be targeted in a spatiotemporal manner. Myocardial Infarction as a Circadian M...