Leukocyte News and Research

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Oxygen-rich lifesaving efforts pose risk for respiratory infections

Each year, thousands of premature infants battle to breathe. Thanks to life-saving interventions developed in the past couple decades - steroids given to their mothers to stall pre-term labor, mechanical ventilation, air enriched with extra oxygen, and surfactant, a crucial wetting agent that makes breathing less work - most of these newborns survive with enough lung function to grow and go home.

11 Jun 2008

Why do Finnish children have type 1 diabetes and allergic symptoms approximately five times more often than children in Russian Karelia?

High living standards and the life style connected to them seem to promote the development of autoimmune diseases and allergic symptoms. This has lead to the assumption that the immune system begins to overreact to the organism's own structures or to exogenous non-infectious proteins, i.e. allergens, when it does not have to work hard enough to protect the individual from infections.

28 May 2008

New multi-million pound study to find the cause of Type 1 diabetes

Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) has awarded more than £3 million to fund a research centre that will investigate the causes of Type 1 diabetes - a condition that results from an immune attack on the body's insulin producing cells. The study, known as the JDRF Centre for Diabetes Genes, Autoimmunity and Prevention (D-GAP), aims to understand how and why Type 1 diabetes occurs, knowledge that may help develop future therapies with the aim of preventing the condition.

28 May 2008

Abnormal "editing" of gene messages may cause Lupus

Researchers at Wake Forest University have uncovered evidence that the abnormal "editing" of gene messages in a type of white blood cell may be behind the development of lupus. Scientists hope the finding will lead to earlier diagnosis, a way to monitor patients' response to therapy and possibly a new way to treat the disease.

19 May 2008

Minocycline may find new life as a stroke treatment

An old intravenous antibiotic may have new life as a stroke treatment, researchers say. Minocycline appears to reduce stroke damage in multiple ways - inhibiting white blood cells and enzymes that, at least acutely, can destroy brain tissue and blood vessels, respectively, says Dr. David Hess, chair of the Department of Neurology in the Medical College of Georgia School of Medicine.

19 May 2008

Blood test for lung cancer

A simple blood test may be able to detect lung cancer in its earliest stages with unprecedented accuracy, according to new research to be presented at American Thoracic Society's 2008 International Conference in Toronto on Tuesday, May 20.

19 May 2008

Spectral Modeling technology substantiated through creation of antipsychotic bank of drug candidates

LIUS Molecular Design is pleased to announce that it has successfully created two antipsychotic drug candidates with third party confirmation of predicted biological activities via in vitro testing.

19 May 2008

Study implicates 350 gene regions in cancer development in the mouse

A large genetic study in mice has identified hundreds of genes involved in the development of cancer by examining the DNA of more than 500 lymphomas to find the cancer causing mutations.

15 May 2008

Discovery of 250 new genes potentially involved in leukemia

Researchers have found over 250 new genes that are potentially involved in the development of leukemia. The research was performed in close collaboration between the Netherlands Cancer Institute - Antoni van Leeuwenhoek Hospital (Amsterdam, The Netherlands) and the Wellcome Trust Institute (Cambridge, UK) and will be published in the Friday May 16th issue of the scientific journal Cell.

15 May 2008

Study shows how T cell's machinery dials down autoimmunity

A St. Jude Children's Research Hospital study shows that T cells, the body's master immune regulators, do not use simple on/off switches to govern the cellular machinery that regulates their development and function. Rather, they possess sophisticated molecular controls that enable them to adjust their function with exquisite precision. Such subtle adjustment enables T cells to modulate their development and function, including avoiding autoimmunity

12 May 2008

Phase of clock gene expression in human leukocytes correlates with habitual sleep timing

The phase of clock gene expression in leukocytes, assessed in the absence of the masking effects of light-dark and sleep-wake cycles, correlates with habitual sleep timing, according to a study published in the May 1 issue of the journal SLEEP.

1 May 2008

Obesity and heart failure risk

Heart specialists at Johns Hopkins and elsewhere report what is believed to be the first wide-scale evidence linking severe overweight to prolonged inflammation of heart tissue and the subsequent damage leading to failure of the body's blood-pumping organ.

1 May 2008

Study explains why steroid therapy for sinusitis and asthma loses its punch over time

Scientists at Johns Hopkins have outlined a new path for potential therapies to combat inflammation associated with sinusitis and asthma based on a new understanding of the body's earliest immune response in the nose and sinus cavities.

29 Apr 2008

Yale scientists explain metastasis

Metastasis, the spread of cancer throughout the body, can be explained by the fusion of a cancer cell with a white blood cell in the original tumor, according to Yale School of Medicine researchers, who say that this single event can set the stage for cancer's migration to other parts of the body.

29 Apr 2008

Human protein may offer novel target for blocking HIV infection

A research group supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has uncovered a new route for attacking the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that may offer a way to circumvent problems with drug resistance. In findings published today in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers report that they have blocked HIV infection in the test tube by inactivating a human protein expressed in key immune cells.

29 Apr 2008

Aggregates of red and white blood cells may contribute to sickle cell disease

It's long been known that patients with sickle cell disease have malformed, "sickle-shaped" red blood cells - which are normally disc-shaped - that can cause sudden painful episodes when they block small blood vessels.

28 Apr 2008

New route discovered for attacking the human immunodeficiency virus

28 Apr 2008

Discovery of important markers of high risk of type 2 diabetes

Doctors are aware of a range of risk factors, mostly related to the patients' family history, overweight, and lifestyle, that contribute to the risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

26 Apr 2008

Regulatory T cells orchestrate reaction to a virus invasion

Just as fire engines arrive quickly at the scene to save people and property, the cells that fight viruses have to reach the site of an infection promptly to mount a protective response.

24 Apr 2008

FSU research may speed new malaria treatments, vaccines for children

April 25 is World Malaria Day 2008 and despite the grim statistics out of Africa there's cause for celebration. Florida State University biologists have discovered an autoimmune-like response in blood drawn from malaria-infected African children that helps to explain why existing DNA-based anti-malaria vaccines have repeatedly failed to protect them.

23 Apr 2008