• Molecules and Cells
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.247-254
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• 2007

Improvement in the pharmacokinetic properties of short interfering RNAs (siRNAs) is a prerequisite for the therapeutic application of RNA interference technology. When injected into mice as unmodified siRNAs complexed to DOTAP/Chol-based cationic liposomes, all 12 tested siRNA duplexes caused a strong induction of cytokines including interferon ${\alpha}$, indicating that the immune activation by siRNA duplexes is independent of sequence context. When modified by various combinations of 2'-OMe, 2'-F, and phosphorothioate substitutions, introduction of as little as three 2'-OMe substitutions into the sense strand was sufficient to suppress immune activation by siRNA duplexes, whereas the same modifications were much less efficient at inhibiting the immune response of single stranded siRNAs. It is unlikely that Toll-like receptor 3 (TLR3) signaling is involved in immune stimulation by siRNA/liposome complexes since potent immune activation by ds siRNAs was induced in TLR3 knockout mice. Together, our results indicate that chemical modification of siRNA provides an effective means to avoid unwanted immune activation by therapeutic siRNAs. This improvement in the in vivo properties of siRNAs should greatly facilitate successful development of siRNA therapeutics.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.14 no.6
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• pp.3587-3592
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• 2013

Aims: To study the CIK cell treatment effects on regulation of cellular immune function disorders in patients with lung cancer, and to analyze the time characteristics. Methods: Cellular immune function was assessed by FCM, and patients with functional disorders were randomly divided into two groups, one given CIK cell therapy within 18 months (5 courses) and the other the controls, which were followed up for 1 year with cellular immune functions tested once a month. Results: There were 5 types of cellular immunity, 4 of which are disorders; after CIK treatment, the improvement rate of the 4 groups were 79.1%, 70.8%, 76.0% and 70.0%, intergroup differences not being statistically significant (P=0.675), all significantly higher than in the control group (P=0.000). The median maintenance times for the 4 groups were 10.4 months (9.76-11.04), 8.4 months (7.86-8.94), 9.8 months (9.20-10.4) and 7.9 months (6.25-9.55), respectively. Conclusions: CIK cells were able to improve the immune functions of patients with lung cancer, the rate of improvement and maintenance time being related to the immune function before the treatment and CIK-cell-therapy courses.

• Journal of Digestive Cancer Research
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.22-30
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• 2022

Immune checkpoint inhibition has been established as a new treatment option for various types of carcinoma, and many clinical trials are being actively conducted as a treatment for advanced or metastatic gastric cancer, either as a monotherapy with an immune checkpoint inhibitor or as a combination therapy with standard chemotherapy. In the CheckMate-649 clinical trial to confirm the efficacy of the combination of nivolumab and chemotherapy (FP) in advanced gastric cancer and gastroesophageal junction cancer, nivolumab group showed improvement in overall survival in programmed death ligand 1-positive cancer patients compared with placebo group. Also, the combination therapy of pembrolizumab, trastuzumab and chemotherapy (FP) in first-line treatment was tested through the KEYNOTE-811 trial. The pembrolizumab group showed 22.7% of improvement in objective response rate compared with placebo group. Accordingly, the combination of nivolumab/pembrolizumab with standard chemotherapy was approved for the first-line treatment. In KEYNOTE-059 trials for patients with progressive disease after at least two lines of chemotherapy, pembrolizumab monotherapy showed improvement in objective response rate and overall survival, and the use of pembrolizumab was approved for the third-line or more treatment. In this article, we review the result of clinical trials related to immune checkpoint inhibitors that have been recently introduced in the treatment of gastric cancer.

• The Journal of Internal Korean Medicine
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.201-211
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• 2010

Objectives : Atopic dermatitis is a chronic inflammatory skin disease which is characterized by severe pruritis, erythema, edema, effusion and scabs. The aim of this study was to understand effects of Arctium lappa Linne, which is well known for its efficacy for various skin diseases, on atopic dermatitis Methods : We conducted this experiment using the DNFB-induced NC/Nga mice. After two weeks of applying DNFB to NC/Nga mice, severe symptoms of atopic dermatitis occurred. We divided the mice into three different groups: a control group which was given no treatment at all, a group treated with dexamethasone (1mg/kg), and another group treated with Arctium lappa Linne (300mg/kg). After one week of treatment, results were recorded according to their improvement on skin, itching behavior, IL-4, and INF-$\gamma$ measurement, which is a significant criterion for diagnosing atopic dermatitis. Results : Itching behavior showed significant improvement in the Arctium lappa Linne group. However Arctium lappa Linne failed to reduce IL-4 and INF-$\gamma$ count. Also there was no satisfying improvement on AD-like skin lesions on the rostral back of the NC/Nga mice treated with Arctium lappa Linne. Conclusions : Arctium lappa Linne showed improvement in itching behavior in NC/Nga mice induced by DNFB. Arctium lappa Linne showed neither significant improvement on skin lesions nor in IL-4 and INF-$\gamma$ measurement.

• Radioisotope journal
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.38-45
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• 2006

A new herbal composition. HemoHIM, was developed using irradiated animal models and was successfully applied as an immune-improving agent. In a view that the protection and recovery of immune, hematopoietic and self-renewal tissues are essential for radioprotective agents, HemoHIM was developed based on a novel combination of three edible herbs (Angelica Radix, Cnidii Rhizoma. Paeonin Radix) that meet all those requirements. HemoHIM significantly protected the immune and hematopoietic system and enhanced their recovery in y-irradiated mice. For the application of HemoHIM as a health functional food and a supplementary agent for the cancer patients, the efficacy of HemoHIM to improve the immune functions was further evaluated in immune-depressed animals and humans. Animal studies demonstrated that HemoHIM significantly improved the immune functions in cyclophosphamide-treated mice, aged mice, and dexamethasone-treated mice. In human studies, HemoHIM enhanced the immune activity and cytokine secretion in sub-healthy volunteers, and alleviated the severe leukocyre depression in cancer patients during radiation and chemotherapy. Based on these results, HemoHIM was approved by Korea FDA as a material of health functional food for immune function improvement and will be commercially available soon. This case of HemoHIM research and development suggested that irradiated animals can be good models for biological degenerations such as immune depression, self-renewal tissue damage, and aging for the development of biological modulators.

• The Journal of Internal Korean Medicine
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• v.41 no.5
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• pp.856-867
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• 2020

Objectives: The purpose of this case study was to report the effect of Korean Medicine treatment on a patient diagnosed with nontuberculous mycobacterial lung disease. Methods: A 61-year-old female patient with nontuberculous mycobacterial lung disease was admitted to the clinic from October 15th, 2018 to November 7th, 2018. The patient was treated using Korean medical treatments of Jinhae-tang-gami, Ssanghwa-tang-gami, Haeyeol-tang, Jinhae-tang plus Ssanghwa-tang-gami, and Jinhae-tang plus Bojungikgi-tang-gami. We evaluated the improvement of symptoms by a numeric rating scale (NRS) score, C-reactive protein (CRP) levels, erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), and body temperature. Results: After Korean medicine treatment, the patient's cough and sputum amounts were decreased as measured by the NRS score. CRP levels and ESR were also decreased and fever was relieved. Conclusion: This study suggested that Korean medicine treatment might be effective in treating patients diagnosed with nontuberculous mycobacterial lung disease.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2000.07d
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• pp.2572-2574
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• 2000

In this paper, cell-mediated immune algorithm(CMIA) controller was proposed and applied for the autonomous guided vehicle(AGV) driving. It was based on specific immune response of the biological immune system which is the cell-mediated immunity. To verify the performance of the designed CMIA controller, some experiments were performed for the control of steering and speed of AGV. And then the displacement and speed tracking error of the AGV was mainly investigated. As results, the capability of realization and reliableness were proved by comparing the response characteristics of the classical controller with the proposed CMIA controller.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.23 no.12
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• pp.1626-1631
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• 2010

An experiment was conducted to evaluate the effect of dietary replacement of normal maize (NM) with quality protein maize (QPM) on performance, immune response and carcass characteristics of broiler (Krishibro) chickens. Six experimental diets were prepared separately for starter and finisher phases. Diet 1 was a control diet formulated with NM and soybean meal. In diets 2-5, the NM was replaced with QPM at 25, 50, 75 and 100%, respectively. Diet 6 was the same as the control diet, but supplemented with synthetic lysine similar to the industry standard. Each test diet was fed to 8 replicates, each of 5 chicks, reared in stainless steel battery brooders. The AME content of QPM (3382 kcal/kg) was similar to that of NM (3,352 kcal/kg), but protein (9.91 vs. 8.94%), lysine (0.40 vs. 0.26%) and tryptophan (0.09 vs. 0.07%) contents of QPM were higher than NM. Dietary replacement of NM with 50% QPM significantly (p<0.05) improved body weight gain, feed conversion ratio, humoral immune response, relative bursa weight, and breast muscle yield and lowered abdominal fat content. No further improvement in these parameters was recorded by increasing the level of replacement of NM with QPM to either 75% or 100%. Further, the improvement noticed in the 50% QPM group was similar to the group fed the NM diet with lysine supplementation, and thus dietary replacement of NM with QPM at 50% did not need extra synthetic lysine supplementation. It is concluded that dietary replacement of NM with QPM at the 50% level resulted in optimum performance, higher breast muscle yield and higher immune response in broiler chickens.

• The Journal of Internal Korean Medicine
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• v.44 no.3
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• pp.366-386
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• 2023

Objective: In this study, a questionnaire survey was conducted for doctors and patients to obtain basic data necessary for the development of an integrated medical system for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF). Methods: Questionnaires were developed separately for doctors and patients through an expert group meeting. The survey subjects were recruited online and offline, and finally, responses from 231 doctors and 59 patients were used for statistical analysis. Results: The most important parts in the treatment of IPF for both doctors and patients were the "improvement of respiratory symptoms," "improvement of quality of life," and "prevention of disease progression." Antifibrotic agents were prescribed at a high rate, and 100% of the specialists in Western medicine (WM) and 45.8% of patients reported experiencing side effects. As for the additional payment costs that patients considered as affordable for an integrated medical system, "under 50,000 won (about 38$)" was reported the most in both doctor and patient groups. With regard to the reasons for their reluctance to recommend an integrated medical system for IPF, specialists in WM responded highly to "uncertain evidence for treatment effectiveness." Regarding complementary and alternative medicine therapies that can be beneficial in patients with IPF, "lifestyle management," "diet management," "herb," "relaxation therapy," and "psychotherapy" were ranked high in both doctor and patient groups. Conclusions: In this study, a questionnaire survey on IPF was conducted to review actual treatment status, analyze shortcomings, and identify considerations for the development of an integrated medical system for IPF in the future.

• Korean Journal of Medicinal Crop Science
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.134-139
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• 2014

This study was to investigate the improvement of immune activities of the extracts from Codonopsis lanceolata by stepwise steaming process and high pressure process. The phenol contents was $8.742{\mu}g/mg$ which was higher than that from conventional extraction using 70% ethyl alcohol at $80^{\circ}C$ for 24 hours. All of extracts at a concentration of $1.0mg/m{\ell}$ showed relatively low cytotoxicity on human normal kidney cell (HEK293) in range of 16 19%. The immune B and T cell growth was improved by extracts using the steamed and high pressure precess of C. lanceolata up to $180{\times}10^4cells/m{\ell}$ and $96{\times}10^4cells/m{\ell}$, respectively. The extract prepared also greatly increased the secretion of both IL-6 and TNF-${\alpha}$ from the stepwise steamed and high pressure process. This results can conclude that stepwise steamed and high pressure process effectively released active biomaterials which could important role in enhancing immune activity in the body.