Although targeted therapy is generally applied to the use of small molecules that target specific genes or proteins of diseased cells, it is now possible to target immune cells against specific diseases through genetic modification. This provides desired antigen-specificity to powerful cell-mediated cytotoxicity effects. Small studies show impressive results both in blood cancers and viral infections refractory to other therapies. Toxicity and efficacy vary with the diseases being treated and the cell products used. In addition, new approaches to genetically-modify blood stem cells are being evaluated to prevent viral infection, i.e. HIV, or correct hematopoietic stem cell derivatives, and these approaches could cure diseases for which good treatments are not currently available.

Both preclinical and clinical studies are needed to identify optimal cell types and gene constructs, use of “universal” donors, and magnitude and durability of clinical effects. Effective infrastructure to provide the right cells at the right time is necessary to test clinical efficacy.

Much remains to be understood about immunotherapies in order to facilitate their broad use in the treatment of hematologic disorders. While studies to date have demonstrated significant potential applications, longer-term studies are necessary to further improve the profile of these therapies, including enhancing their overall efficacy while reducing associated toxicities. The efficacy of existing curative therapies can be enhanced by evaluating the mechanisms involved in producing cytokine release syndrome; a condition which has been observed in several patients receiving this therapy. Furthermore, a careful grading scheme to predict toxicity so as to guide the development of preventive and therapeutic strategies is also required. Target identification is another important issue to advance the field. While targeting CD19 appears to be promising, it results in loss of B-cell immunity and requires prolonged immunoglobulin replacement therapies and/or allo-transplantation and new immunologic targets need to be identified in both B cell and T cell malignancies as was as acute and chronic myeloid leukemias. Minimizing the off-tumor target-mediated toxicity of both CAR T-cell and checkpoint blockade therapies would help optimize their utility.

would open up opportunities for more patients to get cured of their sickle cell disease without co morbidity of the BMT process

Need to develop animal models and also newer marrow niche clearing agents.

Apheresis therapy in a clinical setting, both alone and in combination with conventional protocols, shows great potential to enhance treatment regimens, reduce dosage and side effects, improve drug deliver to target tissues, reduce long term treatment related morbidity and improve outcomes with significant benefits for patients with a broad range of cancer types and stages.

The need for well designed, randomized clinical trials would be readily feasible with the appropriate IND. Grant support will be needed for further development of this concept, as well as to develop columns with more optimized and specific capabilities, in addition to clinical trials demonstrating efficacy.

Apheresis is highly underutilized and underfunded in the US, while Apheresis research and development is much more advanced and widely utilized in Europe and Asia.

Substantially reduce the age-adjusted incidence and population burden of chronic heart failure.

The big data and omics revolutions have made it feasible to collect and analyze a variety of data in large numbers of persons within a relatively short time. A very large sample size provides excellent statistical power. Also, the public health and economic magnitude of the problem create the urgency needed to address the critical challenge expeditiously.
Chronic heart failure (HF) is easily the most common and growing cardiovascular cause of hospitalization and impaired functional status and quality of life in the U.S. and much of the world. This is the case despite improved pharmacologic and lifestyle treatment of HF, as well as improved control of blood pressure in the general population. While some HF in the very elderly may reflect the aging process, the epidemiology suggests that most incident cases could be prevented or postponed for years. Also, there are major ethnic and socioeconomic disparities in the incidence of HF.

Substantially reduce the age-adjusted incidence and population burden of chronic heart failure.

The big data and omics revolutions have made it feasible to collect and analyze a variety of data in large numbers of persons within a relatively short time. A very large sample size provides excellent statistical power. Also, the public health and economic magnitude of the problem create the urgency needed to address the critical challenge expeditiously.
Chronic heart failure (HF) is easily the most common and growing cardiovascular cause of hospitalization and impaired functional status and quality of life in the U.S. and much of the world. This is the case despite improved pharmacologic and lifestyle treatment of HF, as well as improved control of blood pressure in the general population. While some HF in the very elderly may reflect the aging process, the epidemiology suggests that most incident cases could be prevented or postponed for years. Also, there are major ethnic and socioeconomic disparities in the incidence of HF.

As the body of evidence continues to grow on the potential applications for advanced immunotherapies, next-generation research must focus on addressing the possible curative effects that checkpoint blockades or adoptive CAR T-cell strategies can have for blood diseases including hematologic cancers. This will require specific research programs to fully understand the optimal role for these therapies within the continuum of care. To optimize these strategies for treatment of hematologic diseases, studies are needed to decipher specific hematologic diseases and circumstances under which these checkpoint blockers and CAR T-cell therapies may be employed as frontline approaches. Furthermore, while the optimal approach for these therapies is unclear, advanced studies are needed to elucidate the potential benefit in combining these promising approaches and whether patients can be better identified a priori for these therapies.

Major depression causes considerable emotional distress and functional impairment. It follows a chronic or recurrent course in many cases, and untreated episodes can last for months or even years. When superimposed on chronic heart failure, major depression can accelerate functional decline, diminish quality of life, and increase the risks of hospitalization and mortality. Effective treatment of depression can, at minimum, improve quality of life. Treatment may also decrease the risk of adverse medical outcomes, but RCTs will be needed to evaluate the potential medical benefits of treating depression in HF.

Cognitive behavior therapy is the most promising approach tested so far, but there have been few trials of this intervention, any other psychotherapeutic treatment for depression, or antidepressant medications other than sertraline or escitalopram for major depression in HF. Additional phase II trials may be needed in order to identify the most promising approaches for testing in larger, multicenter RCTs.

Could restore lost or diminished organ function

Extensive research infrastructure already exists and durability and quality of beneficial effects has continued to increase over time, although incrementally. Field is poised for a breakthrough with the right spark funding.
Cell-based therapies, demonstrated with a wide range of cell types, have shown glimmers of promise in HLB applications, such as improved functional recovery, reduced scar formation, and beneficial effects up to 6 months. However, transplanted cells have poor retention, minimal long-term survival, and the mechanism-of-action is unclear.

The challenge is to stimulate new hypotheses on the mechanism-of-action in order to achieve long-term benefits, and then to support definitive confirmatory studies. Funding already exists, but the main spark might come from encouraging other disciplines to get involved.

Chemotherapy for breast cancer stages I-III is known to be associated with or induce cardiotoxicity. Over 35% of these women develop progressive fatigue and exercise intolerance, and heart failure limiting their daily activities and frequently interfering with their ability to return to work. CV disease are the leading cause of morbidity and mortality for those surviving beyond 5 to 8 years from their breast cancer diagnosis. The excess of CV morbidity and mortality in these patients threatens to offset reductions in cancer-related survival. Identifying breast cancer survivors at high risk for CV morbidity and mortality could allow targeting of cardiovascular disease reducing therapeutic interventions.

creating a multisite registry of women with Stage 1-3 breast cancer scheduled to receive chemotherapy and a control population women of similar demographic and CV risk profile without neoplasia, would allow to collect data at baseline and during/after cancer treatment related modern therapy, pre/post treatment functional status, including fatigue, behavioral and psychosocial risk factors and quality of life, and serum biomarkers indicative of myocardial injury, fibrosis, and heart failure.

AMI and heart failure continues to be a major cause of morbidity and mortality in the Western world.

Promising cardioprotective candidates are emerging. Additional pre-clinical and clinical research is needed to further investigate these new strategies, alone and in combination, to improve outcomes following AMI.
Numerous studies have implicated various pharmacological and interventional techniques (e.g., adenosine, cyclosporine, postconditioning, and remote ischemic per-conditioning) have been explored.

Successful gene therapy could restore or improve the condition of heart failure patients, especially when medications have been unsuccessful.

There have already been human trials of gene therapy in heart failure patients with positive outcomes.
Improvements in cardiac revascularization and medical therapies have significantly reduced cardiovascular-related deaths; however, the number of patients developing heart failure (HF) has steadily increased. One explanation is that surgery and medical therapies are palliative, but do not address the molecular pathogenesis of HF.