Rare cells predict GVHD

Rare cells predict GVHD.

GVHD protection? ThiNK iNKT cells.

In this issue of Blood, Rubio et al report that posttransplant invariant NKT (iNKT) cell recovery is inversely correlated with the risk of developing GVHD after stem cell transplantation.1 A llogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) remains the best curative therapy for many patients with hematologic malignancies and/or marrow failure states. While significant advances in transpl...

Gut-grabbing T cells trigger GVHD

Effector CD8 T cells that cling to the intestine trigger graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), according to El-Asady and colleagues on page 1647. By contrast, effector T cells that pass through the intestine but do not linger—due to a lack of the integrin CD103—fail to induce disease. GVHD is a serious complication of bone marrow transplantation in which donor-derived T cells infiltrate and attack ...

Learning to Predict Extremely Rare Events

This paper describes Timeweaver, a genetic-based machine learning system that predicts events by identifying temporal and sequential patterns in data. This paper then focuses on the issues related to predicting rare events and discusses how Timeweaver addresses these issues. In particular, we describe how the genetic algorithm’s fitness function is tailored to handle the prediction of rare even...

Paneth cells in gut GVHD: a Panglossian perspective.

In this issue of Blood, Levine et al present an intriguing analysis highlighting the potential clinical impact of Paneth cell loss in gastrointestinal (GI) acute graft-versus-host disease (GVHD).