Intratumoral injection of immune stimulants could potentially reverse the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment, but the injected drug rapidly washes out into the systemic circulation. This results in systemic toxicity, and reduced efficacy, potentially requiring daily injections to generate an antitumor immune response. To address this problem, we developed an extended-release hydrogel that retains the immunotherapy agent at the injection site, and releases it over several days, even in highly vascular liver tumors. The extended-release hydrogel is a composite material containing drug-loaded microspheres (for sustained, tunable drug release), embedded in a radiopaque cross-linked hydrogel (for local retention). Using these new intratumoral drug carriers, we demonstrate the ability to safely deliver a wide range of different immunotherapy agents (cytokines, oligonucleotides, small molecules) into pig liver tumors, with no acute systemic toxicity. The microsphere gel reduces burst release by 7.8x (compared to microspheres), and increases half-life by > 15x (compared to hydrogel). Thus, the immunotherapy-loaded microsphere gel enables sustained intratumoral delivery of immune stimulants from a single injection, with low systemic toxicity.

Background: Around 1 in 59 individuals is diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), according to CDS statistics. Conventionally, ASD has been diagnosed using functional brain regions, regions of interest, or multi-tissue-based training in artificial intelligence models. The objective of the exhibit study is to develop an efficient deep learning network for identifying ASD using structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) based brain scans. Methods: In this work, we developed a VGG-based deep learning network capable of diagnosing autism using whole brain gray matter (GM) tissues. We trained our deep network with 132 MRI T1 images from normal controls and 140 MRI T1 images from ASD patients sourced from the Autism Brain Imaging Data Exchange (ABIDE) dataset. Results: The number of participants in both ASD and normal control (CN) subject groups was not statistically different (p=0.23). The mean age of CN subject was 14.62 years( standard deviation : 4.34 ), and ASD group had mean age of 14.89 years (standard deviation : 4.29). Our deep learning model accomplished a training accuracy of 97% and a validation accuracy of 96% over 50 epochs without overfitting. Conclusions: To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to use GM tissue alone for diagnosing ASD.

Purpose: Systemic immunotherapy is less effective in patients with liver metastases. Immunoembolization could potentially overcome the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment, but the optimal immunotherapy agent, embolic, and release kinetics are unknown. Methods: A wide range of immunotherapy agents (cytokines, small molecules, and oligonucleotides) were loaded onto various embolics (stabilized lipiodol emulsions, microspheres-in-lipiodol, LC beads, and PLGA microspheres). Drug loading and release kinetics were evaluated in vitro. A pilot study of transarterial immunoembolization was performed in a pig liver tumor model, using extended release lipiodol/CpG-STAT3ASO formulations. CpG-STAT3ASO is a first-in-class dual-function immunotherapy agent that both stimulates the anti-tumor immune response, and counters immunosuppression in immunologically cold tumors. Safety, pharmacokinetics and efficacy were evaluated in pigs. Results: Immunotherapy-loaded embolics released drug with a half-life ranging from days to weeks in vitro, and up to four days in pig liver tumors (depending on the formulation). A stabilized lipiodol emulsion demonstrated 100% burst release (within five minutes after immunoembolization), compared to <1% burst release with microspheres-in-lipiodol. Immunoembolization using lipiodol/CpG-STAT3ASO resulted in decreased size of pig liver tumors, compared to bland embolization. No adverse events were seen, based on clinical, laboratory, and radiographic evaluation, but peritoneal adhesions were observed in association with immunoembolization using microspheres-in-lipiodol. Conclusions: Extended-release immunotherapy-loaded embolics generate sustained intratumoral delivery of immune stimulants. A pilot study of immunoembolization of pig liver tumors showed decreased tumor size, compared to bland embolization, with no autoimmune adverse events.

From the 2026 National Summit on Hematologic Cancers