A Yale-designed nasal vaccine can help bolster immune responses to COVID-19 in previously vaccinated animals and reduce viral transmission, Yale researchers report Oct. 27 in the journal Science.
Viral DNA in human genomes, embedded there from ancient infections, serve as antivirals that protect human cells against certain present-day viruses, according to new research.
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center today announced that the Timken Foundation of Canton, Ohio, has made a $5 million commitment to support the James P. Allison Institute at MD Anderson. The gift will support the recruitment of top minds from around the world to help realize the Allison Institute’s goals. By establishing a diverse and inclusive environment of scientists from many fields, the Allison Institute will drive exceptional research that integrates immunobiology across disciplines to develop a comprehensive understanding of the immune system.
Two new studies from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis support development of a broadly applicable treatment for neurodegenerative diseases that targets a molecule that serves as the central executioner in the death of axons, the wiring of the nervous system.
A fault in cells that form a key part of the immune system can be repaired with a pioneering gene editing technique, finds new research demonstrated in human cells and mice, led by UCL scientists.
Cecilia Lindestam Arlehamn, Ph.D., aims to shed light on how sex-based immune system differences may affect the development and progression of these neurodegenerative diseases in men versus women.
UW Medicine researchers compared vaginal samples collected from 95 young women or adolescent study participants in Kenya before or after they began having sexual intercourse. They found a sharp increase in proteins that control the immune response, including IL-1β, IL-2, and CXCL8, during the first year after becoming sexually active.
A new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s VISION Network presents and analyzes some of the first real-world data on mRNA COVID vaccine effectiveness during Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 predominance for immunocompromised adults.
The Global Virus Network (GVN), representing 68 Centers of Excellence and 11 Affiliates in 39 countries comprising foremost experts in every class of virus causing disease in humans, and the Mahidol University in Thailand announced the addition of the Mahidol Virus Network as GVN’s newest Center of Excellence.
A subset of healthcare workers vaccinated against COVID-19 had unexpectedly low responses to the immunizations, according to Cedars-Sinai investigators. The findings of the new study are published in iScience, a Cell Press journal.
Researchers at the University of Illinois College of Veterinary Medicine have demonstrated in a mouse model that a specific type of T cell, one of the body’s potent immune defenses, produces cytokines that are necessary for the body to acquire immunity against fungal pathogens.
Researchers have found a small molecule enzyme inhibitor capable of manipulating an immune process that plays an important role in cancers and autoimmune diseases.
COUR Pharmaceuticals, a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing novel immune-modifying nanoparticles designed to reprogram the immune system for the treatment of autoimmune disorders (COUR NanoParticles or CNPs), today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has cleared an Investigational New Drug (IND) application to initiate a Phase 1b/2a proof-of-concept study of COUR's investigational therapy, CNP-106.
Cedars-Sinai and other hospitals nationwide are seeing a surge in cases of pediatric RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) that are showing up earlier than expected this year. Healthcare providers are worried about the onset of the virus combined with the additional threats of the flu and COVID-19 as we head into winter.
A new approach to cancer immunotherapy that uses one type of immune cell to kill another—rather than directly attacking the cancer—provokes a robust anti-tumor immune response that shrinks ovarian, lung, and pancreatic tumors in preclinical disease models, according to researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York. The findings were published October 11, 2022 in the journal Cancer Immunology Research [https://doi.org/10.1158/2326-6066.CIR-21-1075]. The study involved a twist on a type of therapy that uses immune cells known as CAR T cells. CAR T cells in current clinical use are engineered to recognize cancer cells directly and have successfully treated several blood cancers. But there have been challenges that prevent their effective use in many solid tumors.
Dysregulation of macrophages during SARS-CoV-2 infection and the over-exuberant production of pro-inflammatory cytokines by these macrophages has been hypothesized to contribute to severity of COVID-19 disease.
Researchers at University Hospitals (UH) Seidman Cancer Center in Cleveland, Ohio and a biotech start-up company have developed a streamlined way to manufacture CAR T-cells for immunotherapy treatment in just 24 hours – an improvement over the team’s previous benchmark of eight days and commercial suppliers that typically take three weeks. The team is one of the first in the country to test this manufacturing approach.
Researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center have found that the change in a single letter of the genetic code promotes, in a mouse model, the development of inflammation, high blood pressure and resulting kidney damage.
Preclinical studies in mice that model human COVID-19 suggest that an inexpensive, readily available amino acid might limit the effects of the disease and provide a new off-the-shelf therapeutic option for infections with SARS-CoV-2 variants and perhaps future novel coronaviruses.
The development of molecular biology and biotechnologies made it possible to create a lot of biosensors and diagnostic tests – from fast analyses on COVID-19 to express-tests on pathogens, striking agricultural plants. Scientists from The Federal Research Centre “Fundamentals of Biotechnology” of the Russian Academy of Sciences created a platform DIRECT2, that can give birth to new-generation express tests on the base of system CRISPR-Cas12, and demonstrated its work on the example of DNA Dickeya solani – a bacterium, that harms agricultural plants.
MD Anderson's James P. Allison institute today announced the establishment of its internal advisory council to provide scientific input and to align the work of the institute with the broader MD Anderson research enterprise.
A Ludwig Cancer Research study has developed a strategy to noninvasively track immune cells known as macrophages within brain and breast tumors in living mice.
Approximately 500 healthy volunteers with no history of cancer are being sought to contribute blood cells that may be used in the development of cancer clinical trials.
An international team of scientists who analyzed centuries-old DNA from victims and survivors of the Black Death pandemic has identified key genetic differences that determined who lived and who died, and how those aspects of our immune systems have continued to evolve since that time.
Eesearchers from Trinity College Dublin have developed a new, machine learning-based technique to accurately classify the state of macrophages, which are key immune cells.
A substantial proportion of ethnically diverse children from low-resource backgrounds with severe COVID-19 illness are reporting long-term complications from the virus, according to research from UTHealth Houston.
A vaccine that could protect against new variants of SARS-CoV-2 and also potentially protect against other coronaviruses is one step closer to reality thanks to College of Medicine researchers.
FAU researchers and collaborators provide the most updated guidance to health care providers and urge how widespread vaccination with these boosters can now avoid the specter of future and more lethal variants becoming a reality.
The National Academy of Medicine today announced the election of two UT Southwestern Medical Center faculty members – Lora Hooper, Ph.D., Chair of Immunology, and Zhijian “James” Chen, Ph.D., Professor of Molecular Biology and Director of the Center for Inflammation Research – one of the highest honors attainable in the fields of health and medicine.
New research published in the October 2022 issue of JNCCN—Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network confirms the safety of mRNA vaccines in people with cancer undergoing immunotherapy treatment.
A study at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden shows that the coronavirus variant BA.2.75.2, an Omicron sublineage, largely evades neutralizing antibodies in the blood and is resistant to several monoclonal antibody antiviral treatments.
The classic view of pain is that it protects by detecting and signaling the presence of harmful agents, but new research shows pain can shield the gut more directly.
Experiments in mice show that activated pain neurons induce intestinal cells to release mucus that coats and protects the intestine both under normal conditions and during inflammation.
The findings raise concerns about long-term use of certain medications that suppress protective pain signaling in conditions such as colitis and migraine.
A team led by Prof Kiavash Movahedi (VUB, VIB) has mapped in detail how the immune system acts against pathogens invading the brain. The findings shed new light on host-pathogen interactions and the long-term consequences of brain infections.
People living with HIV must be included in clinical trials for new tuberculosis vaccine candidates currently in the development pipeline, say experts on an international panel convened last year to address gaps in the current TB vaccine landscape. Their recommendations appear in a new paper published today in The Lancet HIV.
Treatments with PD-1/PD-L1 immuno-checkpoint inhibitors are potentially related to adverse events in patients with metastatic Non-Small-Cell-Lung Cancer (mNSCLC).
Researchers have identified a promising strategy for development of broad-spectrum antiviral therapies that centers around promoting a strong immune response capable of stopping a number of viruses in their infectious tracks.
Moffitt Cancer Center researchers wanted to determine how PERK activity impacts the clinical outcomes of patients with melanoma. Their results are published in a new article in Cancer Cell.
University of Maryland School of Medicine researchers have identified how multiple genes of SARS-CoV-2 affect disease severity, which could lead to new ways in how we develop future vaccines or develop newer treatments. The genes control the immune system of the host, contributing to how fiercely the body responds to a COVID-19 infection.
A meta-analysis of 32 studies showed that the immune system within the vagina ebbs and flows, depending on menstrual-cycle stage. The analysis identified 53 distinct messages that immune cells sent to one another.
A research team led by a University of Massachusetts Amherst scientist has made a significant genetic discovery that sheds light on the use of the drug caspofungin to treat a deadly fungal infection, Aspergillus fumigatus, which kills some 100,000 severely immunocompromised people each year.
Researchers from Johns Hopkins Medicine have discovered that the organization of different types of immune cells within pancreatic tumors is associated with how well patients with pancreatic cancer respond to treatment and how long they survive.