Abstract: The present invention relates to a method and a system for determining the efficacy of treatment with a combination of drugs comprising a drug A and a drug B in a subject diagnosed with a disease, as well as to a method and a system for classifying the utility of drug combinations comprising a drug A and a drug B in treatment of a subject diagnosed with a disease. Also disclosed herein is a method for improving the accuracy in the estimation of synergism of a combination of drugs.

Abstract: The CAR-T cells described herein can provide highly effective therapies for diverse cancer types, e.g., solid cancers, hematological cancers, and metastatic forms thereof. Provided herein are methods of generating CAR-T cells, compositions comprising such CAR-T cells, methods of treatment using the cells, methods of identifying subjects susceptible to immune checkpoint immunotherapy treatment and methods of evaluating susceptibility of a subject to develop Cytokine-Release Syndrome.

Abstract: Generation and identification of highly effective immune effector cell in terms of target cell-killing activity can be enhanced by optimizing the proximity between a target cell and the immune effector cell. The cancer-killing T cells described herein can provide highly effective therapies for diverse cancer types, e.g., solid cancers, hematological cancers, and metastatic forms thereof. Provided herein are ex-vivo methods of generating cancer-killing T cells, compositions comprising such immune cells; methods of using the cells, methods of selecting optimal agents for enhancing the target cell killing activity, methods of selecting an optimized immune cell and methods of using this approach to evaluate patient responsiveness to other cancer therapies.

Abstract: The invention presented here relates to a method for producing an artificial environment of primary cell populations, particularly an artificial tumor environment of primary tumor cell populations and its use in an ex vivo method to test the cellular responsiveness of primary tumor cell populations to a drug or drugs. The method of the invention comprises incubation of the primary tumor cells with the artificial tumor environment and the drug or drugs and analyze the response of the primary tumor cell populations. The incubation of the primary tumor cells with the artificial tumor environment, enhances the viability of said tumor cells and/or induces greater levels of tumor cell proliferation and, consequently, increases the sensitivity and accuracy of the test with regard to the drug/s assayed.

Abstract: Described herein are methods, devices, and compositions for providing personalized medicine tests for hematological neoplasms. In some embodiments, the methods comprise measuring the efficacy of inducing apoptosis selectively in malignant cells using any number of potential alternative combination drug treatments. In some embodiments, the ex vivo testing is measured using a recently extracted patient hematological samples. In other embodiments, the efficacy is measured ex vivo using an automated flow cytometry platform. For example, by using an automated flow cytometry platform, the evaluation of hundreds, or even thousands of drugs and compositions, can be made ex vivo. Thus, alternative polytherapy treatments can be explored. Non-cytotoxic drugs surprisingly induce apoptosis selectively in malignant cells ex vivo. In some embodiments, the methods described herein comprise evaluating non-cytotoxic drugs.

Abstract: A compound of the formula 1: ##STR1## is produced via fermentation of a fungal isolate ATCC no. 74235. The organism is included herein, as well as a process for production of the compound, a pharmaceutical composition and a method of treatment.