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Genetic variations linked with persistence of immunity after routine childhood vaccination

A genome-wide search in thousands of children in the UK and Netherlands has revealed genetic variants associated with differing levels of protective antibodies produced after routine childhood immunizations.

12 Jun 2019

Study: Smoking does not shorten the length of telomeres

A new study has surprised the medical world, finding that smoking does not shorten the length of telomeres - a marker at the end of our chromosomes that is widely accepted as an indicator of aging.

6 Jun 2019

Racism is toxic to humans, study shows

A new study indicates that racism is toxic to humans. A team of USC and UCLA scientists found that racist experiences appear to increase inflammation in African American individuals, raising their risk of chronic illness, according to the study published in the journal Psychoneuroendocrinology on April 18.

31 May 2019

UAB study reveals how enzyme lipoxygenase drives heart failure after heart attacks

Heart failure after a heart attack is a global epidemic leading to chronic heart failure pathology. About 6 million people in the United States and 23 million worldwide suffer from this end-stage disease that involves dysfunction of the heart, a change that clinicians call cardiac remodeling.

31 May 2019

Immune system discovery may lead to new models for diagnosing inflammatory diseases

A unique discovery about the nature of neutrophils -- the most numerous white blood cells in the body -- may lead to new models for diagnosing and tracking inflammatory diseases such as cancer and osteoarthritis.

30 May 2019

Researchers discuss how time of day affects the severity of illness

In a review published May 17 in the journal Trends in Immunology, researchers discuss how time of day affects the severity of afflictions ranging from allergies to heart attacks.

21 May 2019

KAIST research team finds cause of sepsis-induced lung injury

A KAIST research team succeeded in visualizing pulmonary microcirculation and circulating cells in vivo with a custom-built 3D intravital lung microscopic imaging system.

7 May 2019

UAB receives $17 million grant to explore immune cells in inaccessible tissues of the human body

University of Alabama at Birmingham researchers will receive $17.8 million in federal funding to attack a key "knowledge gap" in human immunology -- how the B cells and antibody-secreting cells that reside in tissues and organs differ from those found in blood.

23 Apr 2019

Long-awaited structure offers new insights into rejection of transplanted organs

Rejection of any kind is always hard to deal with, but when one's body rejects a precious organ transplant, the consequences can be devastating. Professor A. Vathsala, Co-director of the National University Centre for Organ Transplantation at the National University Hospital and Professor of Medicine, shared that between 30% to 40% of kidney transplants are lost over time to rejection.

15 Mar 2019

Deadly inherited blood disorders cured with bone marrow transplant

Doubling the low amount of total body radiation delivered to patients undergoing bone marrow transplants with donor cells that are only "half-matched" increased the rate of engraftment from only about 50 percent to nearly 100 percent, according to a new study by Johns Hopkins researchers.

15 Mar 2019

Researchers identify gene that increases risk of antibiotic reaction

Researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and colleagues have identified a gene that increases the risk for a severe and potentially life-threatening reaction to the commonly prescribed antibiotic vancomycin.

11 Mar 2019

Using TGS technology to make the perfect match even better for stem cell transplant recipients

At Anthony Nolan we save the lives of people with blood cancers and blood disorders that need a stem cell transplant.

4 Mar 2019

Aging and high-fat diet disrupt gut microbiome to cause inflammation in heart failure

Growing older and a high-fat diet enriched with omega 6 fatty acids are major contributors to health risks ranging from diabetes to heart failure. How these two factors regulate the immune response is not well-understood.

1 Mar 2019

Immunotherapeutic antibody therapy to kill cancer has now progressed to patient testing

Developed by researchers at the University of Turku in Finland, an immunotherapeutic antibody therapy re-educates macrophages to activate passivated cytotoxic T cells to kill cancer. The antibody therapy prevented the growth of tumors in several mouse models.

20 Feb 2019

Powerful immune molecule silences barrel to protect transplanted organs from rejection

A powerful immune molecule helps protect transplanted organs from rejection by putting a silencer on two other immune molecules that converge to take a direct shot at the organ, scientists report.

5 Feb 2019

Researchers harness immune system to reveal new clues to produce HIV vaccine

The immune system is the body's best defense in fighting diseases like HIV and cancer. Now, an international team of researchers is harnessing the immune system to reveal new clues that may help in efforts to produce an HIV vaccine.

4 Feb 2019

Big data opens door for characterizing immunity-related genome in Japanese population

Although different genes are distributed widely across chromosomes, many genes related to the immune system are clustered together on human chromosome 6, in a segment called the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) region.

29 Jan 2019

Scientists discover cellular mechanism that triggers pneumonia in humans

The situation is relatively common, especially in winter. You come down with the flu, which lasts longer than usual. A few days later, you discover you have pneumonia.

10 Dec 2018

Acutely injured deceased-donor kidneys are suitable for transplant, study suggests

Organ procurement teams are sometimes leery of accepting kidneys from deceased donors with acute kidney injury, fearing they will harm the recipients. However, a national study chaired by a Johns Hopkins kidney specialist suggests these fears may be unfounded.

7 Dec 2018

Maryland researchers receive grant to study the brain-to-gut connection in schizophrenia

Researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine's Maryland Psychiatric Center and Institute for Genome Sciences, along with researchers at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy, have been awarded a collaborative five-year $1.78 million grant to study the brain-to-gut connection in schizophrenia.

5 Dec 2018