immunity News and Research

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Metabolic imbalance in cancer patients associated with resistance to immune checkpoint blocker

A metabolic imbalance in some cancer patients following treatment with a checkpoint inhibitor drug, nivolumab, is associated with resistance to the immunotherapy agent and shorter survival, report scientists from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, in collaborative work with the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.

25 Sep 2019

Advancing towards 100% effective herpes vaccine

Genital herpes, caused by the herpes simplex virus 2 (HSV-2) is a very common sexually transmitted infection (STI). It affects 14% of Americans aged 15-49 years. There is no herpes vaccine at present. Many failed attempts at vaccine production have centered around HSV proteins.

23 Sep 2019

Scientists move one step closer to discovering the causes of immune diseases

Scientists are one step closer to discovering the causes of immune diseases such as asthma, multiple sclerosis and arthritis

23 Sep 2019

Conference reviews effects of tobacco products, underscores the importance of oral health

On September 14, 2018 AADR held the "Oral Health Effects of Tobacco Products: Science and Regulatory Policy" meeting in Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

23 Sep 2019

African bacterium resists almost all drugs

It looks like it’s time to pay the piper. The first extensively drug-resistant (XDR) strain of Salmonella typhimurium, called ST313 sublineage II.1, has cropped up in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). This fails to respond to any of the antibiotics that are commonly used in the DRC, except for ciprofloxacin. And to make things worse, one sample has been isolated that shows incomplete response even to this last drug.

22 Sep 2019

Penn researchers develop novel vaccine to protect against genital herpes

Researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania have developed a vaccine to protect against genital herpes.

20 Sep 2019

UMSOM receives landmark contract from NIAID for influenza research

Kathleen Neuzil, MD, MPH, Professor of Medicine and Pediatrics and Director of the Center for Vaccine Development and Global Health at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and Dean E. Albert Reece, MD, PhD, MBA, announced that CVD has been awarded a contract from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, with total funding up to more than $200 million over seven years if all contract options are exercised.

20 Sep 2019

A single dose of yellow fever vaccine does not offer long-term immunity to children

Yellow fever is a viral infection spread by various species of mosquito and is rife in 34 countries in Africa and 13 in Latin America.

20 Sep 2019

Authenticated mast cells successfully developed from hematopoietic stem cells

Mast cells are critically involved in immunity and immune disorders. However, they are rarely cultured ex vivo for experimental manipulation because of the difficulty in isolating useful numbers and limitations related to 2D culture.

20 Sep 2019

Salmonella responsible for bloodstream infections in sub-Saharan Africa exhibits extensive drug resistance

The first extensively drug-resistant strains of Salmonella Typhimurium, a pathogen which is responsible for millions of bloodstream infections per year in sub-Saharan Africa, have been identified in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

19 Sep 2019

DNA origami: creating DNA-based nanomachines

DNA-based nanomachines are being created by DNA origami in several ways to create mechanical force at the scale of picoNewtons.

19 Sep 2019

Ticks now carrying multiple diseases, says new study

A new study published in the journal mBio reports that ticks carry many more disease-causing agents than just those responsible for causing Lyme disease.

17 Sep 2019

Mutant live attenuated Ebola virus elicits protective immunity in monkeys

Inoculation with an Ebola virus that has mutations in a protein called VP35 does not cause disease and elicits protection in monkeys, researchers show September 17 in the journal Cell Reports.

17 Sep 2019

Clinically undetectable Plasmodium relapse infections may still pose a threat

Nonhuman primates with clinically undetectable Plasmodium relapse infections still harbor parasitic gametocytes that may be infectious to mosquitoes, according to a study published September 19 in the open-access journal PLOS Pathogens by F. Eun-Hyung Lee and Mary R. Galinski of Emory University, Tracey J. Lamb of the University of Utah, and colleagues.

From PLOS ONE 17 Sep 2019

No more tears: immunization without needles

A new study published in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology reports a novel skin vaccine patch which could help effective and safe immunization by disrupting the permeability of the skin, providing a convenient and non-invasive alternative to immunization shots. This innovative technique now needs to be tested in humans.

17 Sep 2019

New biomarkers help predict response to treatment in common brain tumor

Many scientists have noted that there is a link between inflammation or the immune response, and patient survival. One such possible relationship is the association of blood markers and the prognosis in the brain tumor called medulloblastoma.

16 Sep 2019

Uncovering new T cell regulatory processes could help treat autoimmune disease

One of the important cells involved in the immune response is the T follicular helper (Tfh) cell. These are important in the normal process of antibody production following immunization, for instance. However, they are also abnormally increased in number in patients with autoimmune disease, such as systemic lupus erythematosus.

16 Sep 2019