National Institute of Health, Islamabad

Cervical cancer is the fourth most common cancer among women worldwide, caused by the human papillomavirus (HPV). HPV16 /18 are strongly associated with the development of cervical cancer. HPV vaccines are not widely available in economically underdeveloped areas. They also have limited efficacy against pre-existing HPV infections and cervical lesions. Therefore, the study aims to computationally design a vaccine that induces both prophylactic and therapeutic immunity against cervical cancer. Using computational approaches, we designed a multi-epitope vaccine incorporating 62 cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) epitopes, 7 helper T lymphocyte (HTL) epitopes, and 3 linear B-cell epitopes from conserved regions of HPV16/18 E6, E7, and L2 proteins. To increase immunogenicity, the adjuvant RS-09 (APPHALS) was added to the N-terminal of the vaccine. The chosen CTL and HTL epitopes have the potential to achieve 100

This study investigated the dose-dependent effects of dietary olive leaf powder (OLP) on growth performance, carcass traits, hematobiochemical parameters, antioxidant capacity, immune response, cecal microbiota, and economic efficiency in growing Japanese quail. A total of 400 one-day-old quails were randomly assigned to five dietary treatments, including a basal diet without supplementation (control) and four diets supplemented with OLP at levels of 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, or 4.0 g/kg feed for six weeks. Quails receiving 3.0 and 4.0 g/kg OLP exhibited significantly higher live body weight (LBW), body weight gain (BWG), and improved feed conversion ratio (FCR) compared with the control group. Carcass yield and dressing percentage were favorably enhanced in quails fed 2.0 and 4.0 g/kg OLP. Dietary OLP supplementation positively modulated hematological and biochemical indices, as evidenced by increased hemoglobin concentration, erythrocyte and leukocyte counts, and globulin levels, along with reduced heterophil-to-lymphocyte (H/L) ratio, alanine aminotransferase (ALT) activity, triglycerides, total cholesterol, very-low-density lipoprotein (VLDL), and low-density lipoprotein (LDL) levels. Antioxidant status was markedly improved in OLP-supplemented groups, as indicated by elevated superoxide dismutase (SOD) and glutathione (GSH) levels and decreased malondialdehyde (MDA) concentration. Immune response was enhanced through increased circulating immunoglobulin levels. Furthermore, dietary OLP favorably altered cecal microbial populations by reducing total bacterial count, coliforms, and Escherichia coli, while increasing lactic acid bacteria in a dose-dependent manner. From an economic perspective, OLP inclusion improved productive efficiency and maximized economic returns. Overall, olive leaf powder can be considered a promising natural feed additive for improving growth performance, health status, gut microbial balance, and economic efficiency in growing Japanese quail.

Air pollution influences climate change and contributes to respiratory allergies, yet interactions between these factors are less understood. The escalation of air pollutants and temperature increases can influence pollen concentrations, shifts in pollen seasons, and an increase in seasonal allergies. This study investigates trends of Broussonetia papyrifera, Pinus, Cannabis sativa, and grasses (Poaceae) pollen in Pakistan over the past 16 years, as well as their correlations with air pollutants and meteorological parameters. Minute-based data of 10 air pollutants were recorded using a HAZ-6000 scanner in Islamabad during 2022-23. Datasets on meteorological parameters (such as precipitation, temperature, wind speed, and relative humidity) and pollen concentrations (2008-2023) were retrieved from the Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD). Both datasets were normalized, and monthly averages were calculated. Spearman correlation of pollen concentrations with air pollutants and meteorological factors was performed. Mean monthly pollen concentrations, meteorological parameters, and air pollutants were plotted utilizing the NCAR Command Language (NCL). Interestingly, O3, CO2, and NO2 showed a positive correlation, whereas SO2, NO, and CO showed a negative correlation with daily pollen concentrations/m3. Pollen season trends comparative analysis indicated a shift in seasonal pollen integral (SPIn), start date, and duration. This is the first study from Pakistan to suggest that increasing temperature and air pollutants correlate with higher pollen concentrations and extended pollen season. This research provides a baseline system for examining allergenic pollen season shifts over time, indicating an increase in pollen allergy abundance with climate change in South Asia.

Neoadjuvant therapy is central to breast cancer treatment, yet response rates vary widely, and robust biomarkers to predict pathological complete response (pCR) are lacking. While expression-based signatures such as Oncotype DX and MammaPrint routinely guide adjuvant treatment decisions, no tools are approved for the neoadjuvant setting. Although some predictive markers have been explored for HR-positive and HER2-positive disease, triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) lacks reliable predictors despite its aggressive nature and unmet clinical need. Recent single-cell transcriptomic studies reveal that multiple molecular subtypes can coexist within individual tumors, challenging the conventional one-subtype-per-patient paradigm. We hypothesized that modeling tumors as compositions of intra-tumoral subtypes would improve neoadjuvant therapy response prediction. We developed BRIDGE (Breast Intratumoral Deconvolution of Gene Expression), the first computational framework that deconvolves bulk breast cancer transcriptomes to quantify the relative abundance of malignant subtype populations within each tumor and predict neo-adjuvant therapy response. BRIDGE involves three key steps. (I) Subtype Deconvolution : We constructed a reference matrix of ‘pure’ molecular subtype profiles from an integrated single-cell RNA-seq compendium and applied support vector regression to infer subtype abundances per tumor. (II) Response prediction from bulk expression: We trained logistic regression models to predict pCR taking as input subtype compositions using 33 datasets from 17 independent neoadjuvant cohorts. These included 11 HR-positive, 10 TNBC chemotherapy, and 12 anti-HER2 datasets. For each treatment, models were trained on the three largest datasets and validated on the remaining 24. (III) Response prediction from histopathology: we integrated BRIDGE with Path2Omics, a deep learning framework that infers gene expression from histopathology slides, enabling transcriptome-free prediction in six datasets with available image data. BRIDGE accurately estimated subtype composition, achieving a mean Spearman correlation of 0.80 on simulated pseudo-bulk data. For HR-positive chemotherapy response prediction, BRIDGE achieved a mean ROC-AUC of 0.78 and an odds ratio (OR) of 7.8 - outperforming existing biomarkers. For anti-HER2 therapy, BRIDGE reached a mean ROC-AUC of 0.77 and OR of 7.75, substantially outperforming the use of HER2-enriched subtype classification alone (OR = 3.1). For TNBC chemotherapy-treated cohorts, BRIDGE achieved a mean ROC-AUC of 0.71 and an OR of 4.7, addressing a major clinical gap due to the lack of established predictors. When applied to AI-inferred transcriptomes from H&E slides, BRIDGE maintained high accuracy (AUC > 0.85 for chemotherapy and > 0.70 for anti-HER2), with response scores highly concordant with those derived from true transcriptomic data (correlation > 0.7). BRIDGE is the first robust and interpretable framework for deconvolving malignant subtypes to predict neoadjuvant therapy response across diverse breast cancer subtypes. By modeling intra-tumoral heterogeneity and leveraging histopathology images, BRIDGE bridges the gap between expression-based profiling and routine pathology. Its low-cost, image-based approach supports personalized, subtype-informed treatment strategies and helps democratize precision oncology in the neoadjuvant setting. T. Cantore, D. Hoang, L. R. Pal, A. Stemmer, S. Dhruba, T. Chang1, S. Sammut, S. Lipkowitz, R. S. Padma1, C. Caldas, N. Ulhas Nair, E. Ruppin. Robust prediction of patients’ response to neoadjuvant therapy across breast cancer subtypes using transcriptomics and histopathology [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium 2025; 2025 Dec 9-12; San Antonio, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Clin Cancer Res 2026;32(4 Suppl):Abstract nr PS3-04-12.

Pediococcus acidilactici is widely recognized for its health-beneficial aspects and has gained increasing interest for use in livestock industry. It shows strong probiotic efficacy, antimicrobial activity, cholesterol-lowering potential, immune modulation, and other therapeutic attributes. The novel strain from indigenous habitats mainly depicted potent probiotic efficacy and high adaptability. In this study, we evaluated the probiotic characteristics and genomic features of strain BC-7 obtained from a Nili - Ravi buffalo calf raised under domestic conditions using phenotypic assessment, genomic analysis and in vivo studies. The strain BC-7 exhibited key probiotic traits i.e., gut tolerance (70.43