The materials discovery process can be significantly expedited and simplified if we can learn effectively from available knowledge and data. In the present contribution, we show that efficient and accurate prediction of a diverse set of properties of material systems is possible by employing machine (or statistical) learning methods trained on quantum mechanical computations in combination with the notions of chemical similarity. Using a family of one-dimensional chain systems, we present a general formalism that allows us to discover decision rules that establish a mapping between easily accessible attributes of a system and its properties. It is shown that fingerprints based on either chemo-structural (compositional and configurational information) or the electronic charge density distribution can be used to make ultra-fast, yet accurate, property predictions. Harnessing such learning paradigms extends recent efforts to systematically explore and mine vast chemical spaces, and can significantly accelerate the discovery of new application-specific materials.

The outlook for T-cell malignancies remain poor due to the lack of effective therapeutic options. Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) immunotherapy has recently shown promise in clinical trials for B-cell malignancies, however, designing CARs for T-cell based disease remain a challenge due to the shared surface antigen pool between normal and malignant T-cells. Normal T-cells express CD5 but NK (natural killer) cells do not, positioning NK cells as attractive cytotoxicity cells for CD5CAR design. Additionally, CD5 is highly expressed in T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) and peripheral T-cell lymphomas (PTCLs). Here, we report a robust anti-CD5 CAR (CD5CAR) transduced into a human NK cell line NK-92 that can undergo stable expansion ex vivo. We found that CD5CAR NK-92 cells possessed consistent, specific, and potent anti-tumor activity against a variety of T-cell leukemia and lymphoma cell lines as well as primary tumor cells. Furthermore, we were able to demonstrate significant inhibition and control of disease progression in xenograft mouse models of T-ALL. The data suggest that CAR redirected targeting for T-cell malignancies using NK cells may be a viable method for new and complementary therapeutic approaches that could improve the current outcome for patients.

Peripheral T-cell lymphomas (PTCLS) comprise a diverse group of difficult totreat, very aggressive non-Hodgkin's lymphomas (NHLS) with poor prognoses and dismal patient outlook. Despite the fact that PTCLs comprise the majority of T-cell malignancies, the standard of care is poorly established. Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) immunotherapy has shown in B-cell malignancies to be an effective curative option and this extends promise into treating T-cell malignancies. Because PTCLS frequently develop from mature T-cells, CD3 is similarly strongly and uniformly expressed in many PTCL malignancies, with expression specific to the hematological compartment thus making it an attractive target for CAR design. We engineered a robust 3 rd generation anti-CD3 CAR construct (CD3CAR) into an NK cell line (NK-92). We found that CD3CAR NK-92 cells specifically and potently lysed diverse CD3 + human PTCL primary samples as well as T-cell leukemia cells lines ex vivo. Furthermore, CD3CAR NK-92 cells effectively controlled and suppressed Jurkat tumor cell growth in vivo and significantly prolonged survival. In this study, we present the CAR directed targeting of a novel target -CD3 using CAR modified NK-92 cells with an emphasis on efficacy, specificity, and potential for new therapeutic approaches that could improve the current standard of care for PTCLs.

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) bears heterogeneous cells that can consequently offset killing by single-CAR-based therapy, which results in disease relapse. Leukemic stem cells (LSCs) associated with CD123 expression comprise a rare population that also plays an important role in disease progression and relapse. Here, we report on the robust anti-tumor activity of a compound CAR (cCAR) T-cell possessing discrete scFv domains targeting two different AML antigens, CD123, and CD33, simultaneously. We determined that the resulting cCAR T-cells possessed consistent, potent, and directed cytotoxicity against each target antigen population. Using four leukemia mouse models, we found superior in vivo survival after cCAR treatment. We also designed an alemtuzumab safety-switch that allowed for rapid cCAR therapy termination in vivo. These findings indicate that targeting both CD123 and CD33 on AML cells may be an effective strategy for eliminating both AML bulk disease and LSCs, and potentially prevent relapse due to antigen escape or LSC persistence.

Peripheral T-cell lymphomas (PTCLs) are a group of very aggressive non-Hodgkin's lymphomas (NHLs) with poor prognoses and account for a majority of T-cell malignancies. Overall, the standard of care for patients with T-cell malignancies is poorly established, and there is an urgent clinical need for a new approach. As demonstrated in B-cell malignancies, chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) immunotherapy provides great hope as a curative treatment regimen. Because PTCLs develop from mature T-cells, these NHLs are commonly CD4+, and CD4 is highly and uniformly expressed. Therefore, CD4 is an ideal target for PTCL CAR immunotherapy. To that effect, we created a robust third-generation anti-CD4 CAR construct (CD4CAR) and introduced it into clonal NK cells (NK-92). CD4CAR NK-92 cells specifically and robustly eliminated diverse CD4+ human T-cell leukemia and lymphoma cell lines (KARPAS-299, CCRF-CEM, and HL60) and patient samples ex vivo. Furthermore, CD4CAR NK-92 cells effectively targeted KARPAS-299 cells in vivo that modeled difficult-to-access lymphoma nodules, significantly prolonging survival. In our study, we present novel targeting of CD4 using CAR-modified NK cells, and demonstrate efficacy. Combined, our data support CD4CAR NK cell immunotherapy as a potential new avenue for the treatment of PTCLs and CD4+ T-cell malignancies.

Peripheral T-cell lymphomas (PTCLs) are aggressive lymphomas with no effective upfront standard treatment and ineffective options in relapsed disease, resulting in poorer clinical outcomes as compared with B-cell lymphomas. The adoptive transfer of T cells engineered to express chimeric antigen receptors (CARs) is a promising new approach for treatment of hematological malignancies. However, preclinical reports of targeting T-cell lymphoma with CARs are almost non-existent. Here we have designed a CAR, CD4CAR, which redirects the antigen specificity of CD8+ cytotoxic T cells to CD4-expressing cells. CD4CAR T cells derived from human peripheral blood mononuclear cells and cord blood effectively redirected T-cell specificity against CD4+ cells in vitro. CD4CAR T cells efficiently eliminated a CD4+ leukemic cell line and primary CD4+ PTCL patient samples in co-culture assays. Notably, CD4CAR T cells maintained a central memory stem cell-like phenotype (CD8+CD45RO+CD62L+) under standard culture conditions. Furthermore, in aggressive orthotropic T-cell lymphoma models, CD4CAR T cells efficiently suppressed the growth of lymphoma cells while also significantly prolonging mouse survival. Combined, these studies demonstrate that CD4CAR-expressing CD8+ T cells are efficacious in ablating malignant CD4+ populations, with potential use as a bridge to transplant or stand-alone therapy for the treatment of PTCLs.

Current clinical outcomes using chimeric-antigen receptors (CARs) against multiple myeloma show promise in the eradication of bulk disease. However, these anti-BCMA (CD269) CARs observe relapse as a common phenomenon after treatment due to the reemergence of either antigen-positive or -negative cells. Hence, the development of improvements in CAR design to target antigen loss and increase effector cell persistency represents a critical need. Here, we report on the anti-tumor activity of a CAR T-cell possessing two complete and independent CAR receptors against the multiple myeloma antigens BCMA and CS1. We determined that the resulting compound CAR (cCAR) T-cell possesses consistent, potent and directed cytotoxicity against each target antigen population. Using multiple mouse models of myeloma and mixed cell populations, we are further able to show superior in vivo survival by directed cytotoxicity against multiple populations compared to a single-expressing CAR T-cell. These findings indicate that compound targeting of BCMA and CS1 on myeloma cells can potentially be an effective strategy for augmenting the response against myeloma bulk disease and for initiation of broader coverage CAR therapy.

This reprint differs from the original in pagination and typographic detail. 1 2 X. JIANG ET AL.specific environmental conditions associated with a site. In this study we investigate the processes of community assembly in a well-defined clade, the genus Protea in the Cape Floristic Region (CFR) of southwestern Africa. The response variable, the number of co-occurrences of a certain pair of Protea species, arises naturally as a binomial variable when we define cooccurrence as the number of sites in which two species co-occur within naturally nested watersheds. We take into consideration the spatial association among the co-occurrence of Protea species since it is natural to suspect areas close by would tend to have similar number of co-occurrences as a result of a latent spatial effect. Our primary interest in this study is to build a comprehensive model that could identify important factors influencing the assembly of Protea communities, while adjusting for both spatial association and prevalence of Protea in CFR.The usual way to model the binomial response is to use a Generalized Linear Model (GLM), where we model the latent probability of "success" by a linear function of covariates through a link function [McCullagh and Nelder (1989)]. The logit, probit and Student t link functions are three of the common links used in GLM. However, the link functions mentioned above are "symmetric" links in the sense that they assume that the latent probability of a given binomial response approaches 0 with the same rate as it approaches 1. Equivalently, the probability density function (p.d.f.) that corresponds to the inverse cumulative distribution function (c.d.f.) of the link function is symmetric. However, this may not be a reasonable assumption in many cases. A commonly adopted asymmetric link function is the complementary loglog (cloglog) link function. However, the cloglog link has a fixed negative skewness. As a result, it lacks both the flexibility to let the data tell how much skewness should be incorporated and the ability to allow for positive skewness. In short, binomial data might often be better modeled with flexible link functions that allow for both positive and negative skew and that allow the data to determine the amount of skewness required.Much work has been done to introduce flexibility into the link functions. Aranda-Ordaz (1981) proposed two separate one-parameter models for additional flexibility in the logistic model. Guerrero and Johnson (1982) used Box-Cox transformation on the odds ratio to form a more flexible class of model. Jones (2004) proposed a family of flexible distributions based on the distribution of order statistics. Stukel (1988) proposed a two-parameter class of generalized logistic models. Stukel's model approximates many standard symmetric and asymmetric link functions quite well, but in a Bayesian framework, it may result in improper posteriors when the usual improper uniform prior is used in regressions [Chen, Dey and Shao (1999)]. Kim, Chen and Dey (2008) proposed a class of ge...