Immune System News and Research

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New whooping cough vaccine needed to protect from emerging superbug strains

Australia needs a new whooping cough vaccine to ensure our most vulnerable are protected from the emergence of superbug strains, new UNSW research has shown.

16 Jan 2020

Study sheds light on the role of B cells in cancer immunotherapy

Cancer patients responded better to immunotherapy and had a better prognosis if their melanoma tumors contained specific clusters of B cells, according to new research from Lund University in Sweden.

16 Jan 2020

MDI Biological Laboratory will use African turquoise killifish model to study aging

The study of therapies and interventions to expand healthy human lifespan has been limited by a lack of animal models: traditional vertebrate models such as the mouse live too long to get rapid results, while the most popular model, a roundworm called C.elegans that lives for only three weeks, is rungs away from humans on the evolutionary ladder.

16 Jan 2020

Twice as many people as previously thought are dying from sepsis, says new report

A new analysis presented at the Critical Care Reviews annual meeting in Belfast, has found that the number of people dying from sepsis worldwide is twice as high as previously estimated.

16 Jan 2020

BPA activates immune response in mice that persists for at least three generations

Some plastic food and beverage containers still contain bisphenol A, which can mimic the hormone estrogen. Although experts say that small amounts of BPA detected in foods are unlikely to cause problems, some people worry that constant low-level exposures could have health effects, especially for developing fetuses, infants and children.

16 Jan 2020

B cell count tells how certain cancers will respond to immunotherapy

Some melanomas, sarcomas and renal cell carcinomas, but not all, have been found to respond dramatically to new drugs called immune checkpoint blockers, which exploit the body’s known capability to mount an immune response against the foreign antigen-bearing tumor cells.

15 Jan 2020

Miracle probiotics? Take claims with a pinch of salt, says study

A new study published in the journal Frontiers in Medicine cautions the public against believing and acting on information on probiotics online because most of the websites offering such information are not dependable and their sources are dubious

15 Jan 2020

Brain parasite makes rodents unafraid of cats, other predators

Cats have the power to control the minds of rodents, through a brain parasite called Toxoplasma gondii. The pathogen exerts a strange mind control on rodents that make them lose their fear of cats and become easier to catch.

15 Jan 2020

Immune system contribution to tumor heterogeneity may influence liver cancer growth

Researchers at Mount Sinai School of Medicine say the immune system might contribute to the tumor heterogeneity seen in liver cancer that can affect the rate of cancer growth.

15 Jan 2020

Overactivation of neuroimmune gene leads to schizophrenia-like changes in mice

Excessive activity of an immune system gene previously linked to schizophrenia reproduces neural and behavioral aspects of the disease in mice, according to a new study publishing on January 14 in the open-access journal PLOS Biology by Ashley Comer and Alberto Cruz-Martín of Boston University and colleagues.

14 Jan 2020

KU Leuven researchers develop new antibacterial strategy that weakens bacteria

Bioscience engineers from KU Leuven in Belgium have developed a new antibacterial strategy that weakens bacteria by preventing them from cooperating. Unlike with antibiotics, there is no resistance to this strategy, because the non-resistant bacteria outnumber resistant ones.

14 Jan 2020

Study reveals how clotting protein and blood platelets promote immune evasion, tumor progression

A new study led by researchers at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center - Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute reveals how a clotting protein and blood platelets can promote cancer progression and suppress immune responses to cancer.

14 Jan 2020

Biomaterial-based vaccine has potential to completely eliminate AML cells

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a deadly blood cancer that originates in the bone marrow and kills most of its victims within five years. Chemotherapy has been the standard AML treatment for over 40 years, and while it often causes the cancer to go into remission, it rarely completely eliminates the cancerous cells, which then lead to disease recurrence in nearly half of treated patients.

14 Jan 2020

Study shows how cancer-causing genes promote metastasis

Cancer-promoting genes MYC and TWIST1 co-opt immune system cells to enable cancer cells to spread, but blocking a key step in this process can help prevent the disease from developing.

14 Jan 2020

Study provides insights into how viral infection can continue to affect immunity

The strength of the immune system in response to respiratory infections is constantly changing, depending on the history of previous, unrelated infections, according to new research from the Crick.

From The Francis Crick Institute 14 Jan 2020

A New Discovery about MAIT Cells Sheds Light on Early-Phase HIV Infection

Researchers at the Karolinska Institutet, Sweden, have made an important discovery about a poorly understood group of immune cells (mucosa-associated invariant T [MAIT]cells) that could improve understanding of what happens during the initial stages of HIV infection.

14 Jan 2020

Study delineates the dynamic MAIT cell response during acute HIV infection

In a new study published in Nature Communications, researchers at Karolinska Institutet show that MAIT cells (mucosa-associated invariant T cells), part of the human immune system, respond with dynamic activity and reprogramming of gene expression during the initial phase of HIV infection.

14 Jan 2020