Immune System News and Research

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Study highlights neurological and psychiatric impacts of long COVID

Nearly three years after the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic was declared over, conservative estimates suggest that between 80 million and 400 million people worldwide have long COVID.

23 Mar 2026

Existing medication could improve the health of people living with HIV

HIV exhausts the body's immune system by overactivating it, despite effective antiviral treatment.

23 Mar 2026

Multiple sclerosis prevalence in England doubles due to better diagnosis

Multiple sclerosis (MS) has more than doubled in recorded prevalence in England from 2000 to 2020, increasing by 6% per year, largely due to improved diagnosis and longer life expectancy, finds a new study by University College London (UCL) and Imperial College London researchers.

23 Mar 2026

Fluorescent imaging enables real-time observation of Toxoplasma gondii's growth

It infects nearly one-third of the global population, yet its microscopic size makes the Toxoplasma gondii parasite difficult for scientists to study.

23 Mar 2026

Hepatitis C drug may prevent hepatitis E virus replication

A drug that is already in clinical trials against hepatitis C virus can also prevent hepatitis E virus from replicating.

22 Mar 2026

Brain lesions in Down syndrome show unexpected reversible changes

What has long been interpreted as permanent and irreversible vascular damage may not be exclusively so.

19 Mar 2026

New method uses biomarkers to determine a person's biological age

Aging is a highly individual process. An international consortium coordinated by researchers in Konstanz has developed a method that uses biomarkers to determine a person's biological age - a valuable tool for research on ageing and the development of new approaches in preventive medicine.

19 Mar 2026

Weaning reshapes gut microbes to strengthen lifelong immune defenses

According to a team of researchers at Baylor College of Medicine, Tongji University and collaborating institutions, weaning or switching from milk to solid food in early life doesn't just change what babies eat, it helps reprogram the gut's immune defenses to mount faster and stronger responses that can last into adulthood.

19 Mar 2026

Tiny gene mutations shape cancer behavior and immune response

Cancer is often thought of as a single disease. Yet even tumors that arise in the same organ can follow very different genetic paths.

19 Mar 2026

A healthier thymus predicts longer life and lower cancer and heart disease risk in adults

Imaging-based analysis of over 27,000 adults shows that better thymic health is strongly associated with lower all-cause mortality, reduced lung cancer risk, and improved cardiovascular outcomes. The findings suggest the thymus remains biologically relevant in adulthood, linking immune aging, inflammation, and chronic disease risk, although causality cannot be established.

19 Mar 2026

Blocking a single protein could make hidden HPV-positive tumors vulnerable to treatment

A team of scientists at Henry Ford Health + Michigan State University Health Sciences have uncovered a mechanism that allows certain head and neck cancers to hide from the immune system, a discovery that could change how some of the most treatment resistant tumors are approached.

18 Mar 2026

New pathway explains poor response to bladder cancer immunotherapy

Researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and the Mount Sinai Tisch Cancer Center have discovered a biological pathway that helps explain why some bladder cancers do not respond well to immunotherapy.

18 Mar 2026

Cancer cells rely on glutathione as fuel for growth

Researchers discovered an antioxidant, glutathione, that cancer cells appear to be "addicted to" as fuel, opening new pathways for investigation and a potential drug that can restrict the way tumors use this nutrient.

18 Mar 2026

Thymus health in adults linked to longer life and disease risk

Two new studies from investigators at Mass General Brigham challenge a decades-old assumption that the thymus, an organ best known for its role in establishing immune function in childhood, becomes irrelevant in adulthood.

18 Mar 2026

Protein targeted by cancer drugs may help the body fight influenza

A protein already targeted by FDA-approved cancer drugs may also help the body fight influenza, according to new research from The Jackson Laboratory (JAX).

18 Mar 2026

Muscle-repairing macrophages trigger heterotopic ossification in mice

We have identified a macrophage population "Mrep" that plays an essential role in muscle repair. However, in Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva (FOP), Mrep functions as a pathogenic cell that triggers heterotopic ossification.

18 Mar 2026

Combination therapy shows promise for leptomeningeal metastasis in breast cancer

Patients with leptomeningeal metastasis (LM) have historically had few treatment options. Now, researchers from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center have found a combination of targeted therapies, tucatinib and trastuzumab, plus the chemotherapy drug, capecitabine, may improve symptoms and extend survival in some breast cancer patients with LM.

18 Mar 2026

New nanoparticle therapy overcomes T cell exhaustion in solid tumors

Engineers at the University of Pennsylvania have developed a new type of lipid nanoparticle (LNP) that could one day serve as a universal immunotherapy for cancers that form solid tumors, including common variants such as cancers of the breast, liver and colon.

18 Mar 2026