Immunology News and Research

Latest Immunology News and Research

Prostate cancer vaccines found to be more effective with hormone therapy

Among patients with castration-resistant prostate cancer, the addition of hormone therapy following vaccine treatment improved overall survival compared with either treatment alone or when the vaccine followed hormone treatment, according to recent data published in the July 15 Clinical Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

10 Jul 2008

More aggressive treatment of childhood eczema could help prevent asthma

More aggressive treatment of childhood eczema may be an important step in preventing asthma, says a new Australian study.

6 Jul 2008

Mouse embryonic stem cells used to build heart parts

Researchers have shown that they can put mouse embryonic stem cells to work building the heart, potentially moving medical science a significant step closer to a new generation of heart disease treatments that use human stem cells.

2 Jul 2008

Bacteriophages treat deadly bacterial infections in mice

By the time antibiotics made their clinical debut 70 years ago, bacteria had long evolved strategies to shield themselves. For billions of years, bacteria hurled toxic molecules at each other in the struggle to prosper, and those that withstood the chemical onslaught marched on.

2 Jul 2008

Asthma risk increases in children treated for HIV

Children whose immune systems rebound after treatment with potent anti-viral drugs for HIV infection face an increased risk of developing asthma, said a federally funded consortium of researchers led by those from Baylor College of Medicine in a report that appears online in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.

1 Jul 2008

Cancer cells revert to normal at specific signal threshold

Cancer starts when key cellular signals run amok, driving uncontrolled cell growth. But scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine report that lowering levels of one cancer signal under a specific threshold reverses this process in mice, returning tumor cells to their normal, healthy state. The finding could help target cancer chemotherapy to tumors while minimizing side effects for the body's healthy cells.

1 Jul 2008

Zinc finger technology brings personalized HIV therapy a step closer

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and collaborators are using minute, naturally occurring proteins called zinc fingers to engineer T cells to one day treat AIDS in humans.

30 Jun 2008

NIAID announces grants to stimulate food allergy research

Twelve investigators have received grants totaling $5 million over two years to lead high-impact, innovative studies of food allergy, a significant public health concern.

30 Jun 2008

New approach to HIV vaccine research taps Rochester expertise

A new national effort to create a vaccine against HIV will include work by a University of Rochester Medical Center rheumatologist who is an expert on a portion of the immune system that has sometimes gotten short shrift in the fight against HIV.

30 Jun 2008

NIAID creates HIV vaccine discovery branch

To accelerate the translation of basic discoveries about HIV into advances in vaccine design and evaluation, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has formed a new Vaccine Discovery Branch within the Vaccine Research Program in the Division of AIDS (DAIDS).

25 Jun 2008

Discovery of an important factor in the development of B-cell lymphomas

Researchers at National Jewish Medical and Research Center have discovered an important factor in the development of B-cell lymphomas, one of the fastest growing forms of cancer. The B-cell receptor on the surface of B cells can cooperate with the MYC oncogene to accelerate the development of lymphomas.

24 Jun 2008

Neglected infections of poverty in the U.S. are disabling hundreds of thousands of Americans every year

An analysis published June 25th in the open-access journal PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases highlights that diseases very similar to those plaguing Africa, Asia, and Latin America are also occurring frequently among the poorest people in the United States, especially women and children. These diseases - the "neglected infections of poverty" - are caused by chronic and debilitating parasitic, bacterial, and congenital infections.

24 Jun 2008

Discovery of possible new way to block inflammation in autoimmune disease

Researchers from the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS), a part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), have identified a promising new target for autoimmune disease treatment - a cell-surface receptor called DR3.

23 Jun 2008

Looking into our bodies with state-of-the-art equipment

The University of Bristol is already world-famous for its biomedical research, but following a £2.3 million investment in newly refurbished labs, it will be able to advance techniques that look in even greater detail at what's going on in our bodies.

23 Jun 2008

Link between soy milk and peanut allergies dispelled

The suspicion that drinking soy milk or soy-based formula is a factor in children developing a peanut allergy has been dispelled by Australian scientists.

19 Jun 2008

Radioimmunotherapy targeting viral antigens shows potential to treat or prevent viral cancers

A new study, presented at the Society of Nuclear Medicine's 55th Annual Meeting, shows that radioimmunotherapy (RIT) targeting viral antigens offers a novel option to treat-or even prevent-many viral cancers by targeting cancer cells expressing viral antigens or infected cells before they convert into malignancy.

16 Jun 2008

Misoprostol off-label use may have led to deaths

Preliminary U-M studies indicate that oral use of RU-486's companion drug misoprostol is safe, but vaginal use may undermine body's immune responses

16 Jun 2008

European researchers take lid off the genome

European researchers have made significant progress unravelling how genes are governed and why this sometimes goes wrong in disease.

15 Jun 2008

Mycobacterium tuberculosis can grow in surface-level bacteria clusters known as biofilms

University of Pittsburgh-led researchers discovered that the primary bacteria behind tuberculosis can grow on surfaces and that drug-tolerant strains flourish in these bacterial communities, the research team recently reported in Molecular Microbiology.

11 Jun 2008