Introducing certain bacteria into the digestive tracts of mice with melanoma can help their immune systems attack tumor cells. The gains were comparable to treatment with anti-cancer drugs known as checkpoint inhibitors. The combination of bacteria and anti-PD-L1 nearly abolished tumor outgrowth.
New research has uncovered an important mechanism in the drive to understand immunological processes that protect us against infection, allergy and cancer.
A new therapeutic vaccine, GTL001, developed by Genticel to clear HPV strains 16 and 18 – the types most likely to cause cancer – is being evaluated for safety in a Phase I clinical trial at the University of Louisville, along with Philadelphia and Columbus, Oh.
One virus creates a long-lived immune reaction in parts of our bodies that serve as our first line of defense against infections, making it a strong candidate for a variety of vaccines.
Proteins called cytokines are known to influence immune cell fate, but the process is complex. Researchers examined how a specific cytokine, interleukin-15, influences gene expression patterns in T helper cells.
The Weizmann Institute of Science’s Prof. Yair Reisner and team have identified a subtype of immune cells – perforin – that appears to prevent metabolic syndrome. Mice that lack perforin become obese and develop the syndrome, no matter how healthy their diet is. The study may also shed light on autoimmunity.
A study led by the University of Utah School of Medicine has identified molecular mechanisms that control an immune cell’s ability to remember. They found that in helper T cells, the proteins Oct1 and OCA-B work together to put immune response genes on standby so that they are easily activated when the body is re-exposed to a pathogen. The research, which could inform strategies for developing better vaccines, was performed in collaboration with scientists from The Broad Institute and University of Michigan, and published in The Journal of Experimental Medicine.
Animal science researchers at Iowa State University have identified a pair of genetic mutations that cause immune deficiencies in pigs that make them uniquely good models for testing potential medical therapies for people. The work advances previous ISU research on pigs with severe combined immunodeficiency.
The most severe strep infections are often the work of one strain known as M1T1, named for the type of tentacle-like M protein projecting from the bacterium’s surface. Researchers at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences have uncovered a new way M1 contributes to strep virulence — the protein’s ability to hold off antimicrobial peptides. The study is published October 14 by Cell Host & Microbe.
Research from Indiana University has found that sexual activity triggers physiological changes in the body that increase a woman's chances of getting pregnant, even outside the window of ovulation.
A study of influenza infection in animals broadens understanding of the immune response to flu virus, showing that the process is more dynamic than usually described. The findings may offer key insights for developing better vaccines.
For the first time, an immune checkpoint inhibitor has been proven to increase survival among patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC), a patient population for whom treatment options are currently limited.
Researchers have silenced genes within human cells to induce immunity to the parasite E. histolytica, demonstrating the effectiveness of a new approach to protecting people from infectious diseases.
Researchers from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and Princeton University have designed a new online tool that predicts the role of key proteins and genes in diseases of the human immune system.
Agent shows efficacy in inhibiting inflammation and preventing or delaying uterine contractions and premature delivery in murine models – without adversely affecting the fetus or the mother. This discovery is a giant step towards preventing prematurity, the world's leading cause of infant death.
Multi-institutional, multidisciplinary study looks past antibiotics and sanitation to a third strategy to control infectious disease: Adjusting the landscape of the human body to remove the mechanism that allows pathogens to cause disease.
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health researchers say they have discovered a new way that the most prevalent disease-causing fungus can thwart immune system attacks.
Investigating how the microbiome impacts human health, the labs of Dr. Eran Elinav and Prof. Eran Segal at the Weizmann Institute of Science took a fresh approach: measuring the growth rate of the bacteria. The findings led Dr. Elinav to say, “microbial growth rate reveals things about our health that cannot be seen with any other analysis method.”
In its first clinical trial, a breakthrough antibody therapy produced at least partial remissions in a third of patients with multiple myeloma who had exhausted multiple prior treatments, investigators at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and other organizations report.
Working with human cancer cell lines and mice, researchers at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center and elsewhere have found a way to trigger a type of immune system “virus alert” that may one day boost cancer patients’ response to immunotherapy drugs. An increasingly promising focus of cancer research, the drugs are designed to disarm cancer cells’ ability to avoid detection and destruction by the immune system.
In experiments with mouse tissue, UC San Francisco researchers have discovered that the adaptive immune system, generally associated with fighting infections, plays an active role in guiding the normal development of mammary glands, the only organs--in female humans as well as mice--that develop predominately after birth, beginning at puberty.
By teasing apart the structure of an enzyme vital to the parasites that cause toxoplasmosis and malaria, Whitehead Institute scientists have identified a potentially ‘drugable’ target that could prevent parasites from entering and exiting host cells.
Researchers who have revealed a highly efficient way that bacteria use toxins to interrupt the immune response say that until now, the trickery of these toxins has been underappreciated in science.
Scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute have shown how aging cripples the production of new immune cells, decreasing the immune system’s response to vaccines and putting the elderly at risk of infection.
Salk scientists unveil how a critical molecule turns on T cells.
Follicular helper Tcells (TFH cells), a rare type of immune cell that is essential for inducing a strong and lasting antibody response to viruses and other microbes, have garnered intense interest in recent years but the molecular signals that drive their differentiation had remained unclear. Now, a team of researchers at the La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology has identified a pair of master regulators that control the fate of TFH cells.
A recent HIV vaccine trial testing the HIV envelope as an immunogen was unsuccessful for protection against HIV infection. A new study has found that this vaccine selectively recruited antibodies reactive with both the HIV envelope and common intestinal microbes — a phenomenon previously reported by the same investigators to occur in the setting of acute HIV infection.
Health experts have warned for years that the overuse of antibiotics is creating “superbugs” able to resist drugs treating infection. Now scientists at Indiana University and elsewhere are finding evidence that an invisible war between microorganisms may also be catching humans in the crossfire.
"Immunotherapy: 5 Ways to Stop Cancer" features five 1-minute animated videos that provide a quick overview of the five most common immunotherapies in use: monoclonal antibodies, checkpoint inhibitors, cancer vaccines, adoptive cell therapy, and oncolytic viruses.
Learn the latest news in cancer immunotherapy for melanoma, lung cancer, leukemia, liver cancer, and other cancer types.
Doctors at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center want to remind parents about the importance of immunizing their children when preparing to send their children back to school.
Immune cells that hang around after parasitic skin infection help ward off secondary attack. These skin squatters may prove to be the key to successful anti-parasite vaccines.
Other topics include genetics to predict prostate cancer, Facebook and body image, bioengineered immune cell response, and more...
Individuals with new-onset type 1 diabetes who took two courses of alefacept (Amevive®, Astellas Pharma Inc.) soon after diagnosis show preserved beta cell function after two years compared to those who received a placebo.
In recent years, immunotherapy has emerged as a promising treatment for certain cancers. Now this strategy, which uses patients’ own immune cells, genetically engineered to target tumors, has shown significant success against multiple myeloma, a cancer of the plasma cells that is largely incurable. The results appeared in a study published online today in Nature Medicine.
In recent years, researchers have hotly pursued immunotherapy, a promising form of treatment that relies on harnessing and training the body’s own immune system to better fight cancer and infection. Now, results of a study led by Johns Hopkins investigators suggests that a device composed of a magnetic column paired with custom-made magnetic nanoparticles may hold a key to bringing immunotherapy into widespread and successful clinical use. A summary of the research, conducted in mouse and human cells, appears online July 14 in the journal ACS Nano.
Immune cells that creep across blood vessels trigger potentially fatal bleeding in platelet-deficient mice, according to a new report. If the same is true in humans, blocking the passage of these cells could prevent dangerous complications in patients undergoing transplants or chemotherapy.
Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s James Crowe, M.D., Ann Scott Carell Professor and director of the Vanderbilt Vaccine Center, and his team are reporting the first large panel of antibody treatments against the chikungunya virus in the current issue of Cell Host and Microbe.
Other topics include memories and protein, physics and gas mileage, agriculture and food safety, vaccine for Dengue, retinoblastoma proteins in cancer progression, and more.
For the first time, researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center have found that weight loss, in combination with vitamin D supplementation, has a greater effect on reducing chronic inflammation than weight loss alone. Chronic inflammation is known to contribute to the development and progression of several diseases, including some cancers.
Scientists at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital have discovered how an immune system protein, called AIM2 (Absent in Melanoma 2), plays a role in determining the aggressiveness of colon cancer. They found that AIM2 deficiency causes uncontrolled proliferation of intestinal cells.
New research led by scientists at The Scripps Research Institute, International AIDS Vaccine Initiative and The Rockefeller University shows in mice that an experimental vaccine candidate designed at TSRI can stimulate the immune system activity necessary to stop HIV infection.
Although critically important for shaping the immune response and maintaining self-tolerance, how regulatory T cells (Treg cells) hold on to their immune-suppressive powers had remained unclear. Now, for the first time, researchers at the La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology identified a molecular pathway that maintains the stability and function of Treg cells.
Cancer immunotherapies are agents that harness the power of the immune system to fight cancer. Unlike traditional cancer treatments that directly kill tumor cells (such as chemotherapy and radiation), immunotherapy operates through the intermediary of the immune system. Immunotherapies empower the immune system to specifically seek out and destroy cancer cells.
Cornell University engineers have created a functional, synthetic immune organ that produces antibodies and can be controlled in the lab, completely separate from a living organism. The engineered organ has implications for everything from rapid production of immune therapies to new frontiers in cancer or infectious disease research.
An unexpected finding by an international team of scientists based at The University of Manchester and National Institutes of Health in America has shed new light on how immune cells are programmed to either repair or protect the body.
Countering previously held beliefs, researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center have discovered that inhibiting the immune receptor protein TLR4 may not be a wise treatment strategy in all cancers.
When the T cells of your immune system are forced to deal over time with cancer or a chronic infection they become exhausted - less effective at attacking and destroying invaders. While the PD-1 protein pathway has long been implicated as a primary player in T cell exhaustion, a major question has been whether PD-1 actually directly causes exhaustion. A new paper seems to, at least partially, let PD-1 off the hook.
A study by researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center has identified how an enzyme involved in protecting the body from pathogens senses Mycobacterium tuberculosis (TB), a bacterial pathogen that infects millions of people worldwide and causes about 1.5 million deaths annually.
Trending news releases with the most views in a single day. Topics include: neurology, cancer, immunotherapy, Alan Alda present science award, genetics, vision, lung cancer, prostate cancer, environmental health.
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