Malaria-carrying mosquitos appear to be manipulated by the parasites they carry, but this manipulation may simply be part of the mosquitos' immune response, according to Penn State entomologists. "Normally, after a female mosquito ingests a blood meal, she matures her eggs and does not take...
The human gut is loaded with commensal bacteria - "good" microbes that, among other functions, help the body digest food. The gastrointestinal tract contains literally trillions of such cells, and yet the immune system seemingly turns a blind eye. However, in several chronic human diseases such...
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and University of Washington scientists have identified a class of immune cells that reside long-term in the genital skin and mucosa and are believed to be responsible for suppressing recurring outbreaks of genital herpes.
These immune cells also play a...
Researchers have discovered the mechanism behind one of the Ebola virus' most dangerous attributes: its ability to disarm the adaptive immune system. University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston scientists determined that Ebola short-circuits the immune system using proteins that work...
I'm kind of obsessive about immune boosters, especially at this time of year. Some people say they're just placebos, but regardless, I like to give my body some extra defenses when fighting off, colds, flu and the norovirus. Zinc is one of my faves (shoutout to Zicam!!) and today, there's new...
A small compound called an aptamer that specifically targets and stimulates a human immune cell can greatly increase the effectiveness of an immunotherapeutic drug designed to destroy malignant or virus-infected cells. The development of a novel apatamer that recognizes activated T-lymphocytes...
Scientists engineer the Schmallenberg virus genome to understand how to reduce disease caused by the virus. Researchers from the MRC Centre for Virus Research at the University of Glasgow in Scotland have developed methods to synthesize and change the genome of Schmallenberg virus (SBV). SBV is...
The human body contains immune cells programmed to fight cancer and viral infections, but they often have short lifespans and are not numerous enough to overcome attacks by particularly aggressive malignancies or invasions. Now researchers reporting in two separate papers in the January 4th...
Julien Diana and Yannick Simoni of the "Immune Mechanisms in Type 1 Diabetes" (Inserm/Universite Paris Descartes), directed by Agnes Lehuen, have just published the results of their work on type 1 diabetes in the Nature Medicine journal. This is a disease characterised by the self-destruction of...
Researchers from Queen Mary, University of London have discovered that two proteins which are believed to play a key role in controlling the body's immune response are found in lower levels in T lymphocytes from patients with multiple sclerosis (MS). The study found that MS patients' T...
Fighting cancer using the body's own defense system is a promising treatment approach. Immune therapies have even become clinical routine in treating a few cancers such as malignant melanoma and prostate cancer. Natural killer cells (or NK cells) are considered to be particularly suitable...
Now, scientists at the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) have looked into the origin of Tregs and uncovered a central role played by the protein IkBNS. Armed with this knowledge, the researchers hope to manipulate Tregs in order to either inhibit or activate the immune system...
DNA sequences obtained from a handful of patients with multiple sclerosis at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Medical Center have revealed the existence of an "immune exchange" that allows the disease-causing cells to move in and out of the brain. The cells in question...
An international research team including scientists from the University of Toronto's Faculty of Medicine has discovered a link between a mutation in an immune system gene and Alzheimer's disease. Using data from 25,000 people, researchers from the Faculty of Medicine and University College...
Researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center have discovered a unique immune gene signature that can predict the presence of microscopic lymph node-like structures in metastatic melanoma. The presence of these immune structures, the researchers said, appears to be associated with better survival and may...
To transport substances from the site of their production to their destination, the body needs a sophisticated transport and sorting system. Various receptors in and on the cells recognize certain molecules, pack them and ensure that they are transported to the right place. One of these...
A new scientific report from the International Scientific Forum on Home Hygiene (IFH) dismantles the myth that the epidemic rise in allergies in recent years has happened because we're living in sterile homes and overdoing hygiene. But far from saying microbial exposure is not important, the...
One of the deadliest pathogens on our planet is the Marburg virus, which can kill up to 9 out of 10 people it infects. Now scientists at The Scripps Research Institute in the US have discovered how this close cousin of the Ebola virus wraps a protein around its RNA to mask itself from the...
Pemphigus vulgaris (PV) is an autoimmune disease in which the body's immune system develops antibodies to two of its own proteins, the desmogleins DSG1 and DSG3 that help maintain the integrity of the skin. The immune attack causes painful blisters on the skin and mucus membranes that can lead...
UCLA researchers have discovered a type of cell that is the "missing link" between bone marrow stem cells and all the cells of the human immune system, a finding that will lead to a greater understanding of how a healthy immune system is produced and how disease can lead to poor immune function...