Sebastian T. Balbach
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balbachlab.bsky.social
Sebastian T. Balbach
@balbachlab.bsky.social
Physician scientist, Pediatric leukemia and sarcoma, Epigenetics and Cancer stem cells, University Hospital Münster, Germany
Reposted by Sebastian T. Balbach
Donor-Derived T-Cell Redirection With Epcoritamab Achieving Complete Response After Early Post-Allo-HSCT Relapse of DLBCL
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....
December 1, 2025 at 12:02 PM
Reposted by Sebastian T. Balbach
Our award-winning, NYTimes Critics’ Pick film, HUMAN NATURE, is now free for K-12 classrooms! It explores the science, ethics, and human impact of #CRISPR.

Deemed “essential viewing” by Nobel laureate Jennifer Doudna.

▶️ bit.ly/humannatureedu

#ScienceEducation #STEMEd #K12Education
December 17, 2025 at 5:01 PM
Reposted by Sebastian T. Balbach
A major breakthrough! A world-first therapy - BE-CAR7 - is using base-edited immune cells to treat T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (T-ALL) - one of the most aggressive and hardest-to-treat types of leukaemia.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj38ymeyg4mo
Blood cancer therapy reverses incurable leukaemia in some patients
Seven out of 11 patients with incurable cancer who had the treatment appear to be cancer-free.
www.bbc.co.uk
December 9, 2025 at 11:12 AM
Reposted by Sebastian T. Balbach
A new study shows that aspirin enhances antimetastatic immunity by decreasing platelet activation, thereby releasing T cells from suppression by thromboxane A2. Learn more: nej.md/4pTzyaw

#MedSky @ucl.ac.uk
December 14, 2025 at 5:00 PM
Reposted by Sebastian T. Balbach
“Up ’till now, we couldn’t detect it, because we didn’t look at the garbage cans of cells.”

Yifat Merbl found a new trick of the immune system, and is part of Nature’s 10, a list of people who shaped science in 2025

go.nature.com/3XQWoUt
This scientist found a new trick of the immune system by digging through cellular rubbish
Yifat Merbl is part of Nature’s 10, a list of people who shaped science in 2025.
go.nature.com
December 11, 2025 at 5:48 PM
Reposted by Sebastian T. Balbach
29% weight loss, 71 pounds!
That what the triple receptor GLP-1 drug retatrutide achieved in a placebo-controlled trial
Plus 3-fold complete relief of knee osteoarthritis pain
www.nytimes.com/2025/12/11/h...
Major Weight Loss and Knee-Pain Relief Seen With New Eli Lilly Drug
www.nytimes.com
December 11, 2025 at 7:16 PM
Reposted by Sebastian T. Balbach
COVID-19 vaccines protect children from severe illness, a new report from (~checks notes~) CDC finds. Meanwhile, the administration no longer recommends COVID-19 shots for kids.
Effectiveness of 2024–2025 COVID-19 Vaccines in Children...
This report describes COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness among children ages 9 months to 17 years.
www.cdc.gov
December 11, 2025 at 8:26 PM
Reposted by Sebastian T. Balbach
An international team led by Dr Thilo von Groote and Prof Alexander Zarbock shows that a targeted preventive strategy after major surgery significantly reduces the risk of severe acute #kidney injury, published in @thelancet.com
Prevention reduces the incidence of severe acute kidney injury after major surgery
In an article published in the journal The Lancet, an international research team led by Dr Thilo von Groote and Prof Alexander Zarbock from the University of Münster has demonstrated that a targeted ...
www.uni-muenster.de
December 10, 2025 at 1:14 PM
Reposted by Sebastian T. Balbach
Join us for our annual christmas lecture on December 16th at 5 pm in the lecture hall C1. This year, Uwe Karst and Michael Holtkamp explore the fascination of light under the topic "Let there be light!". How do we perceive it? How can we make colorful light? And how does chemistry come into play?
November 18, 2025 at 9:47 AM
Reposted by Sebastian T. Balbach
A big advance, folks, for off-the-shelf, universal, engineered (base-edited) T cells achieving complete response vs incurable leukemia in several patients
www.nejm.org/doi/full/10....
December 8, 2025 at 10:10 PM
Reposted by Sebastian T. Balbach
In relapsed or refractory T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia, off-the-shelf allogeneic base-edited CAR7 T cells mediated responses in 11 patients, enabling stem-cell transplantation in 9 patients in deep remission. Full study results: nej.md/48wiyQL

#ASH25 | @ash.hematology.org
December 8, 2025 at 9:35 PM
Reposted by Sebastian T. Balbach
Every single person working today in every branch of cell and gene therapy - viral, nonviral, editing, transgenesis - owes a deep debt of gratitude to Dr. High.
“I had hemophilia for nearly five decades. I went to Philadelphia and had a 45-minute infusion, and my hemophilia was gone.”
Genes-> Medicine

nature.com/articles/s41...
November 21, 2025 at 10:23 PM
Reposted by Sebastian T. Balbach
“I had hemophilia for nearly five decades. I went to Philadelphia and had a 45-minute infusion, and my hemophilia was gone.”
Genes-> Medicine

nature.com/articles/s41...
November 21, 2025 at 9:45 PM
Reposted by Sebastian T. Balbach
Why is immune escape such a problem with SARS-CoV-2?
Analysis of >1,000 antibodies to the spike protein to help design a workaround plan
www.cell.com/cell-systems...
One thousand SARS-CoV-2 antibody structures reveal convergent binding and near-universal immune escape
Feng et al. analyze over 1,100 SARS-CoV-2 antibody structures, including all 13 clinical monoclonals, mapping 99% of the receptor-binding domain surface. Their study reveals convergent paratope archit...
www.cell.com
November 21, 2025 at 4:46 PM
Reposted by Sebastian T. Balbach
Holy mother of my personal lord Gregor Mendel.
We now have WHAT?!?
November 21, 2025 at 4:54 PM
Reposted by Sebastian T. Balbach
Take a 13 min break for an interesting discussion on the potential impact of COVID mRNA vaccines on cancer treatments & cancer patients.

Ira talks with Adam Grippin (@mdanderson.bsky.social) and @erictopol.bsky.social (The Scripps Research Inst.).

www.sciencefriday.com/segments/cov...
Study Finds COVID mRNA Vaccines Boost Cancer Treatment
New research found that mRNA vaccines for COVID-19 could enhance cancer treatments and help patients live longer.
www.sciencefriday.com
November 10, 2025 at 7:12 PM
Reposted by Sebastian T. Balbach
Announcing our new preprint! We built SPICE, a framework that combines large-scale experiments and generative AI to design RNA sequences that control cell type-specific gene expression using alternative splicing – a powerful, underexplored modality.

Preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
(1/10)
Generative Design of Cell Type-Specific RNA Splicing Elements for Programmable Gene Regulation
Programmable control of gene expression in specific cell types is essential for both basic discovery and therapeutic intervention, yet current strategies lack scalability across diverse cellular conte...
www.biorxiv.org
November 6, 2025 at 6:59 PM
Reposted by Sebastian T. Balbach
And the Abstract
November 5, 2025 at 1:08 AM
Reposted by Sebastian T. Balbach
Here's the graph
November 5, 2025 at 1:08 AM
Reposted by Sebastian T. Balbach
For children and teens, heart and blood vessel complications of Covid overshadow the very rare and short-term risk of vaccinations, a new report from nearly 14 million kids
www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...
November 5, 2025 at 12:48 AM
Reposted by Sebastian T. Balbach
“Ah, it's your first gastroenteritis. It gets easier.”

The latest video in our partnership with @glaucomflecken.bsky.social summarizes recent research on the effects of ondansetron after emergency visits in children with gastroenteritis-associated vomiting. 👉 nej.md/DrG29
November 4, 2025 at 8:03 PM
Reposted by Sebastian T. Balbach
Myelin damage in multiple sclerosis can be detected up to seven years before symptoms, with early immune pathway activation and a 21-protein panel showing promise for presymptomatic diagnosis, according to a paper in Nature Medicine. go.nature.com/4qqq47L #medsky 🧪
November 1, 2025 at 1:50 AM
Reposted by Sebastian T. Balbach
How do you change a cold, immune evasive tumor into a hot one?
erictopol.substack.com/p/how-mrna-v...
October 28, 2025 at 10:40 AM