08/24/2026 | Transmissão Política

https://transmissaopolitica.com.br/cidades/2026/08/24/harvard-mayo-clinic-caso-lito/ 

These institutions have come up in discussions due to experimental studies linked to prion diseases, though potential access depends on medical review and technical criteria.

Harvard and the Mayo Clinic have gained prominence in Lito’s case due to the search for experimental alternatives to treat Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

Both institutions appeared on the radar after debates regarding potential treatments highlighted centers and research initiatives based in the United States.

Connection to Harvard
In Harvard’s case, the link is through the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.

The institution is conducting the PRiSM study, a Phase 1 clinical trial testing an siRNA-based therapy in humans for the first time.

This strategy aims to reduce the prion protein, which is considered a key target in prion diseases.

According to information released by the Broad Institute, researchers developed PRiSM primarily to evaluate the safety, tolerability, and dosage of the experimental treatment.

Therefore, the research is still in an early stage.

Furthermore, the study does not yet represent an approved therapy or a proven cure for the disease.

Why the Mayo Clinic is mentioned
The Mayo Clinic appears in this context because it is one of the U.S. reference centers involved in evaluating and caring for patients participating in such studies.

Consequently, the institution has begun to be mentioned alongside other organizations involved in clinical research on prion diseases.

Thus, Harvard and the Mayo Clinic represent different avenues in the search for experimental alternatives.

Participation depends…

08/24/2026 | Bernardo Yoneshigue | O Globo

https://oglobo.globo.com/saude/noticia/2026/08/24/lito-sousa-como-agem-os-dois-tratamentos-experimentais-para-doenca-de-creutzfeldt-jakob.ghtml 

Influencer seeks access to clinical trials evaluating the two most promising drugs for a condition that currently has no therapeutic alternative.

Pilot and influencer Lito Sousa is seeking inclusion in two clinical trials evaluating experimental treatments for Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease—a rare, incurable, neurodegenerative condition that leads to the deterioration of mental and motor functions. According to Lito's wife, Mila Seidl, the trials are not currently accepting new participants, sparking a wave of appeals on social media for those in charge to consider the Brazilian's case.

Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is one of the so-called prion diseases, a class of neurodegenerative disorders caused by the accumulation of abnormal proteins in the brain known as prions. Currently, these conditions are generally fatal within months or years of symptom onset.

Although there are no available treatments, some drugs have made unprecedented progress toward clinical trials—the human testing stage, divided into three phases, which is necessary to prove the efficacy and safety of a new drug before potential approval for use by regulatory agencies.

IONS Study
The first treatment for the disease to reach the human testing stage is ION717, developed by Ionis Pharmaceuticals. The drug consists of a short segment of synthetic DNA called an antisense oligonucleotide (ASO). This molecule is used to identify and destroy the messenger RNA (mRNA) responsible for acting as an instruction manual within the cell for prion production. Thus, the goal…

08/24/2026  |  Fred Hutch  |  Cancer Health

https://www.cancerhealth.com/article/clinical-trials-matter-patients-say 

From triple-negative breast cancer to sarcoma, Fred Hutch patients tout access to innovations, longer survival and the opportunity to help shape cancer care.

A clinical trial is a research study involving a select group of people — either healthy individuals or patients dealing with a disease — who have volunteered to try a new intervention under close medical monitoring.

Clinical trials are crucial for people dealing with cancer, propelling new treatment options and potential cures forward.

Once completed, clinical trials — which are organized into four different phases — answer researchers’ questions about the safety and/or effectiveness of the intervention, such as a new drug, therapy or technology that may save future lives.

Fred Hutch Cancer Center has been running clinical trials to provide better outcomes for patients since its founding. Our physicians know how important these trials are for moving treatment improvements forward.

“Clinical trials are vital to develop new and improved treatments for patients, especially those who have conditions where current treatments don’t have the best outcomes,” said radiation oncologist Lia Halasz, MD, who treats brain and central nervous system cancers at Fred Hutch - Proton Therapy. “Clinical trials have led to the great innovations in oncology that we’ve seen at Fred Hutch over the past decades.”

Yolanda Tseng, MD, MPhil, who leads the clinical trials program for the Radiation Oncology Division at Fred Hutch and the University of Washington, stressed the importance of trials for reducing the toxicity of cancer treatment.

"Clinical trials are…

08/24/2026  |  Annabel Kartal Allen  |  Clinical Trials Arena

https://www.clinicaltrialsarena.com/news/industry-federally-backed-cancer-trials-analysis/ 

While the purpose of industry and federally backed cancer research differs, researchers say they play a complementary role in improving patient outcomes.

ew analysis has revealed that there are several distinctions between the goals of federal and industry-supported oncology clinical trials, which researchers of the study say highlights their complementary role in optimising cancer care.

Published in JAMA Oncology, the comparative study analysed data from thousands of studies from 2008 to 2024 within the ClinicalTrials.gov database, finding that a little over 80% of listed cancer trials were industry sponsored, with 90% focused on treatment.

When comparing industry and federally backed studies, researchers uncovered that industry sponsors were generally more likely to look at single-agent treatments in their studies, while the latter placed a greater focus on non-treatment interventions such as health services research, prevention, screening, supportive care or diagnostics.

Federally backed trials were also more likely to investigate the potential of treatment de-escalation strategies – focusing on if a drug or other intervention can be taken either at a lower dose, less frequently or for less time without impacting patient outcomes – as well as regimens incorporating multiple therapeutic modalities, such as drug treatment followed by radiation therapy.

Researchers add that government-funded research was considerably more likely to look into interventions for childhood or rare cancers over industry-backed efforts, though they caveat that they observed a closing of this gap throughout the study range.

On…

08/24/2026  |  David J. Benjamin  |  Targeted Oncology

https://www.targetedonc.com/view/more-cancer-clinical-trials-include-women-but-inclusion-isn-t-enough- 

Cancer trials enroll more women but rarely compare outcomes by sex, leaving safety gaps and urging equity-focused study design.

A woman facing an innovative cancer treatment may ask her doctor, “Will this treatment affect me differently because I'm a woman?” Unfortunately, too often her doctor has to answer, “I don't know.”

Over the past decade, cancer research has made real progress getting more women into clinical trials for new cancer drugs. That's genuine progress. But counting women in a trial isn't the same as understanding how a treatment affects them differently than it affects men. Inclusion is not enough.

A Data Gap
Women and their doctors deserve to know what to expect in cancer care, but few trials explore whether a cancer treatment works differently, or causes different side effects, in women versus men. A study in Nature Communications reviewed more than 89,000 oncology trials and found that only 0.5% reported comparing outcomes by sex.1

This oversight can have significant effects on women. A Journal of Clinical Oncology analysis spanning 30 years and more than 23,000 patients found that women had a 34% higher risk of severe adverse effects than men, and 49% higher among women receiving immunotherapy.2

My colleagues and I discussed this research gap in a recent article in Nature Reviews Urology.3 We found cancer trials are doing a better job of enrolling more women, but they are still not routinely studying how treatment affects women differently once they're enrolled.

Biological Differences
Men…