Inflammation is a Catch-22: the body needs it to eliminate invasive organisms and foreign irritants, but excessive inflammation can harm healthy cells, contributing to aging and sometimes leading to organ failure and death. Researchers at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have discovered that a protein known as p62 acts as a molecular brake to keep inflammation in check and avoid collateral damage.
Immune cells that normally help us fight off bacterial and viral infections may play a far greater role in Alzheimer’s disease than originally thought, according to University of California, Irvine neurobiologists with the Sue & Bill Gross Stem Cell Research Center and the Institute for Memory Impairments and Neurological Disorders.
The research of two Montana State University microbiologists into how bacteria fend off attacks from viruses is included in a new paper published in the scientific journal Nature.
Scientists at the University of East Anglia are getting closer to solving the problem of antibiotic resistance.
Scientists from The Scripps Research Institute have identified a molecule that appears to be a cause of autoimmune diseases such as lupus. Elevated levels of the molecule allow self-reactive immune cells to escape into the blood stream and attack the body’s own tissues.
Small proteins that affect communication between cells play an important role in regulating inflammation that occurs during inflammatory bowel disease, according to researchers at Georgia State University, Emory University, the University of Michigan and Amgen, a biotechnology company.
A new optogenetic technology developed at UMass Medical School, called optogenetic immunomodulation, is capable of turning on immune cells to attack melanoma tumors in mice. Using near-infrared light, UMMS researchers have shown they can selectively activate an immune response by controlling the flow of calcium ions into the cell. This breakthrough could lead to less invasive, and more controlled and selective, immunotherapies for cancer treatment.
UNC School of Medicine scientists studying one of the world’s most virulent pathogens and a separate very common bacterium have discovered a new way that some bacteria can spread rapidly throughout the body – by hitchhiking on our own immune cells.
The 1,000 people in New Mexico fighting lung cancer may soon be able to breathe easier. The first of more than 10 new lung cancer clinical trials has just opened under the direction of Yanis Boumber, MD. The phase 3 clinical trial, called “Neptune,” opened January 28. It compares a combination of two immune drugs with standard chemotherapy.
Potential new approaches to treating eye diseases such as age-related macular degeneration (AMD) are described in a new study published in the February Journal of Experimental Medicine. Hongkang Xi, Menno van Lookeren Campagne, and colleagues discovered that a signaling protein, or cytokine, called IL-33, plays a key role in recruiting phagocytes to damaged retina and induces retinal degeneration. Blocking the IL-33 receptor inhibits this process and prevents injury-induced retinal degeneration.
People who have self-reported penicillin allergy may have a three times greater chance of suffering from chronic hives. And people who have chronic hives tend to self-report penicillin allergy at a three times greater rate than the general population. Authors of a new study think it's not coincidence.
For his research project to determine whether therapies can be designed to modulate the immune system to prevent vision loss and blindness in glaucoma patients, Stuart J. McKinnon, MD, PhD was awarded the 2016 Shaffer Prize for Innovative Glaucoma Research.
In a small pilot study, researchers at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai determined that a simple swab to transfer vaginal microbes from a mother to her C-section-delivered newborn can alter the baby's microbial makeup (microbiome) in a way that more closely resembles the microbiome of a vaginally delivered baby.
A new study finds that providing zinc supplements to older adults in nursing homes increased their serum zinc levels and improved their immune response, providing potential protection against infection. The research group’s previous work found that nursing home residents had low zinc levels.
University of Alabama at Birmingham researchers have found a previously unknown step in the pathway that leads to asthma, a discovery that may offer new therapeutic approaches to this incurable disease. Asthma affects more than 25 million people in the United States, including about 7 million children.
Researchers have begun to explore in earnest the concept of "mixed vascular dementia," but until recently there was no reliable animal model. When Donna Wilcock of the UK Sanders-Brown Center on Aging discovered that a special diet deficient in B vitamins induced cognitive impairment in mice, she gave science the animal model it needed, plus the potential for a modifiable biomarker for vascular cognitive impairment.
Treatment of multiple sclerosis (MS) and other inflammatory diseases may benefit by new findings from a study that identified potential therapeutic targets for a devastating disease striking some 2.3 million people worldwide.
Researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston (UTMB) reported today in the journal Cell that they have isolated human monoclonal antibodies from Ebola survivors which can neutralize multiple species of the virus.
Our ability to fight off recurrent infections, such as a colds or flu, may lie in the ‘immunological memory’ found in a newly discovered class of gene regulatory elements, according to research from the University of Birmingham, supported by the BBSRC and Bloodwise.
Search for new inflammatory disease drugs may be aided by detailed structure of distinct ubiquitin ligase complex
A new study led by scientists at The Scripps Research Institute shows how dangerous autoimmune responses, seen in diseases such as lupus and multiple sclerosis, might be “dialed down” without compromising the immune system’s ability to fight viruses and bacteria.
Plasma cells play a key role in our immune system. Now scientists at the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology (IMP) in Vienna, Austria, and at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute (WEHI) in Melbourne, Australia, succeeded in characterizing a central regulator of plasma cell function. The results of both teams are published in two back-to-back papers in “Nature Immunology” today.
The destructive ability of bacteria to organize an infection or block pathways such as intestines, medical stents and wastewater pipes relies on communication with one another.
A hormone that extends lifespan in mice by 40% is produced by specialized cells in the thymus gland, according to a new study by Yale School of Medicine researchers. The team also found that increasing the levels of this hormone, called FGF21, protects against the loss of immune function that comes with age.
Researchers found that the inherent flexibility of the immune system is even more complex than previously understood. Study reveals more about how memory cells arise after infections.
A UA researcher and clinician team has discovered that genetic mutations in a protein associated with asthma can affect a person’s susceptibility to a variety of lung diseases — and could lead to new treatments.
Financier and philanthropist Tom Gores and his wife Holly have made a $5 million commitment to establish a new pediatric allergy treatment center at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles.
The human gut harbors a teeming menagerie of over 100 trillion microorganisms, and researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder have discovered that exercising early in life can alter that microbial community for the better, promoting healthier brain and metabolic activity over the course of a lifetime.
A first-of-its-kind (anti-PD-1) immunotherapy was approved today by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration as first-line treatment for metastatic melanoma—allowing greater access to this therapy for patients without having to previously receive other prior treatments.
Scientists have shown for the first time that an enzyme crucial to keeping our immune system healthy “surfs” along the strands of DNA inside our cells.
new cellular structure responsible for previously unexplained rejection of organ transplants has been identified by researchers at the University of Montreal Hospital Research Centre (CRCHUM.) This discovery could one day revolutionize transplantation practice by modifying risk assessment of rejection in people who receive heart, lung, kidney, or liver transplants
In newly published research, scientists at The Wistar Institute show that continued semen exposure in sex workers sustains changes in the cervical and vaginal microenvironment that may actually increase HIV-1 resistance. This information may lead the way to better preventative strategies that block the transmission of the virus and improved designs for future HIV vaccine studies that can monitor the described changes when recruiting sex workers into vaccine trials.
Researchers from The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) School of Public Health, in collaboration with the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, have identified a molecule expressed by Trypanosoma cruzi (T. cruzi) that may facilitate the parasite’s evasion of the host’s immune system.
The holiday season may bring major stress. When this is added to winter colds and the flu your immune system is under attack. All Vitamin C products are not the same in terms of rates of absorption so check for Vitamin C with Fast-C.
UT Southwestern Medical Center and California researchers today provide the first report that an enzyme previously known solely for its role in cell division also acts as an on-off switch in the innate immune system ¬– the body’s first defense against infection.
Gene therapy can safely rebuild the immune systems of older children and young adults with X-linked severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID-X1), a rare inherited disorder that primarily affects males, scientists from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, have found. NIAID's Suk See De Ravin, M.D., Ph.D., is scheduled to describe the findings at the 57th American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting in Orlando, Florida.
Biomedical researchers have suspected that a specific set of immune cells are responsible for causing disease in late-stage lupus patients, but until now they haven’t known for sure. An immunologist has found that these cells do not, in fact, contribute to late-stage lupus in mice.
Radiotherapy and Immunotherapy in Combination Found to Enhance Tumor Response to Treatment
University of North Carolina School of Medicine collaborators uncovered an epigenetic mechanism that could be the cause of painful chronic ear infections that plague people with chromosomal and genetic conditions.
Scientists from Nanyang Technological University (NTU Singapore) have successfully used dead bacteria to kill colorectal cancer cells.
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.
RSS
Medicine keyboard_arrow_right
Sciencekeyboard_arrow_right
Life keyboard_arrow_right
Business keyboard_arrow_right
Journal News keyboard_arrow_right
By Location keyboard_arrow_right
Meetings, Grants, and Events keyboard_arrow_right