Immunobiology News - SciTechDaily

Yale Scientists Uncover How the Immune System Can Alter Our Behavior

Yale University — Thu, 14 Sep 2023 03:18:49 +0000

The mere scent of seafood can severely sicken those allergic to it — and therefore they are more likely to avoid it. Similarly, individuals who experience food poisoning from a specific dish tend to avoid it afterward. For a long time, researchers have understood that our immune system plays a key role in our reactions [...]

Newly Discovered Memory in Our Bones: Keeping a Record of Previous Infections to Boost Immunity

TU Dresden — Sun, 15 Mar 2020 14:02:42 +0000

Blood Stem Cells Boost Immunity by Keeping a Record of Previous Infections These findings should have a significant impact on future vaccination strategies and pave the way for new treatments of an underperforming or over-reacting immune system. The results of this research are published in Cell Stem Cell on March 12, 2020. Stem cells in [...]

Biologists Reveal Previously Unrecognized Immune Cell Behavior

Ziba Kashef, Yale University — Sat, 22 Jun 2019 02:41:08 +0000

What makes healthy cells change and become dysfunctional to the point of causing disease? In addition to a disruption in genes that regulate cells, there is another factor in cell misbehavior that involves metabolism, say Yale researchers. The research team studied the metabolism of mitochondria, specialized structures in cells that turn nutrients into energy. The [...]

Biologists Close In On Cells That Drive Immune Response To Cancer

Jon Atherton, Yale University — Thu, 21 Mar 2019 01:05:42 +0000

Immunotherapy, using the body’s own immune system to target and destroy cancer cells, is one of the most promising frontiers in cancer research, but many patients do not respond to the therapies for reasons not fully understood. Scientists at the Yale Systems Biology Institute have taken a step closer to understanding how the genetic makeup [...]

Scientists Develop Modular Approach to Engineering Immune Cells

Bara Badwan, Yale University — Sat, 02 Mar 2019 15:33:35 +0000

Yale researchers have developed a new way to efficiently engineer immune cells, an advance that enhances the ability to fend off cancer and other diseases, they report in the February 25 issue of the journal Nature Methods. A number of new life-saving therapies rely on reconfiguring human immune cells to act as living drugs within [...]

Scientists Reveal How An Immune System Protein Helps Suppress HIV

Ziba Kashef, Yale University — Wed, 23 Jan 2019 02:00:34 +0000

Much of the research on HIV has focused on preventing infection but little is understood about how the body keeps the virus in check post-infection. A new study by Yale investigators reveals the role of a protein that serves to block HIV gene expression once it has entered human cells. The research team, led by [...]

Researchers Find New Pathway to Regulate Immune Response

Louisa Kellie, University of Texas — Sun, 11 Nov 2018 15:21:32 +0000

Researchers at The University of Texas at Arlington have found a potential new pathway to regulate immune response and potentially control inflammatory diseases of the central nervous system such as meningitis and sepsis. “We need to know what turns on the inflammatory response to bacterial infection to be able to modulate the process,” said Subhrangsu [...]

Researchers Discover How to Stop Cell Death Associated with Multiple Diseases

Ansley Gogol, Case Western Reserve University — Sun, 26 Aug 2018 14:20:01 +0000

Researchers from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine have discovered a way to stop immune cell death associated with multiple diseases, including sepsis, inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), and arthritis. The findings, published in the journal Science Immunology, identify a chemical that potently inhibits inflammatory cell death. Cells often perforate their own membranes in response [...]

MIT Scientists Discover New Antibiotic Candidates

Anne Trafton, Massachusetts Institute of Technology — Tue, 21 Aug 2018 13:19:53 +0000

The human body produces many antimicrobial peptides that help the immune system fend off infection. Scientists hoping to harness these peptides as potential antibiotics have now discovered that other peptides in the human body can also have potent antimicrobial effects, expanding the pool of new antibiotic candidates. In the new study, researchers from MIT and [...]

New HIV Therapy Boosts Immunity and Reduces Viral Replication

Ziba Kashef, Yale University — Fri, 17 Aug 2018 13:28:39 +0000

In a study, a new HIV drug reduced viral replication and increased immune cells in individuals with advanced, drug-resistant HIV infection. Used in combination with existing HIV medications, the drug is a promising strategy for patients who have run out of effective treatment options, the researchers said. The study, co-authored by Yale assistant professor of [...]

High Immune Function Linked to Stunted Childhood Growth

Jim Barlow, University of Oregon — Tue, 24 Apr 2018 16:12:26 +0000

An overactive immune system during childhood among young people in Ecuador’s indigenous Shuar population comes with a cost: stunted growth. That was the key finding of a UO-led study that followed 261 Shuar children, ages 4 to 11, over 20 months. Elevated immune function, tied to chronic exposure to soil-transmitted parasitic worms, was linked to [...]

Topical Antibiotic Triggers Resistance to Viral Infections

Ziba Kashef, Yale University — Tue, 10 Apr 2018 15:27:32 +0000

A Yale-led research team made a startling discovery while investigating the effect of bacteria on viral infections. When they applied a common topical antibiotic to mice before or shortly after infection with herpes and other viruses, they found that the antibiotic triggered an antiviral resistance in the animals, the researchers said. The study was published [...]

New Cell Dysfunction Discovery Sheds Light on HIV

Johnny Holden, University Of Texas — Sun, 08 Apr 2018 15:01:45 +0000

A team of chemical and biomedical engineers from the Cockrell School of Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin, in collaboration with researchers from the University of Pennsylvania, have discovered that HIV-infected patients experience a dysfunction in a certain type of immune cell: the follicular helper T (Tfh) cell. In a paper published today [...]

New Immunotherapy Agents Stimulate the Immune System to Attack Tumor Cells

Benjamin Boettner, Wyss Institute Communications — Wed, 04 Apr 2018 16:40:44 +0000

Unlike cell-based cancer immunotherapies that manipulate immune cells outside of the body and transfer them into patients, the implantable immuno-material approach activates endogenous immune cells inside a patient’s own body to launch an attack on his or her cancer. The novel technique was developed, incubated, and advanced at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering [...]

New Study Shows Absence of ANGPTL4 Protein Reduces Cholesterol and Inflammation

Ziba Kashef, Yale University — Fri, 23 Mar 2018 17:03:13 +0000

Diet-induced diabetes, obesity, and heart disease are the leading causes of death worldwide. In their search for novel therapies for these related chronic illnesses, Yale researchers investigated a protein called ANGPTL4. The protein plays an essential role in regulating the metabolism of lipoproteins, which transport fat and lipids in the bloodstream, and has been associated [...]

How Helicobacter Pylori Generates An Immune System Blind Spot

Dr. Rike Zietlow, Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology — Mon, 12 Mar 2018 18:04:17 +0000

The gastric bacterium H. pylori colonizes the stomachs of around half the human population and can lead to the development of gastric cancer. It is usually acquired in childhood and persists life-long, despite a strong inflammatory defence reaction in the gastric mucosa. Such inflammation is normally beneficial, as it kills invading pathogens and is then [...]

University Biologists Identify Key Step in Viral Replication

Andrea Kunicky, Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh — Mon, 12 Mar 2018 17:47:00 +0000

Viruses are intracellular parasites that cause disease by infecting the cells in the body and, in a study published today in Nature Microbiology, researchers at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC and the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine showed how a common virus hijacks a host cell’s protein to help assemble new viruses before [...]

New Vaccines Eradicate Large Tumors and Tumor Metastases

Benjamin Boettner, Wyss Institute Communications — Tue, 06 Mar 2018 15:51:47 +0000

As cancer cells continuously mutate their DNA, they also produce proteins that are altered from their normal counterparts by small changes in their peptide sequences. Just like every cell in our body presents part of its peptide repertoire to our immune system to identify itself as “self,” cancer cells present their faulty neopeptides (or neoantigens), [...]

Biologists Design Synthetic Molecules to Help Boost the Immune System

Jim Shelton, Yale University — Thu, 22 Feb 2018 15:07:02 +0000

Yale researchers have developed a set of synthetic molecules that may help boost the strength of a key, virus-fighting protein. The protein, RIG-I, is an important sensor in the immune system of humans and other animals. It recognizes and responds to viral RNA by surrounding it, latching onto it, and launching the immune system into [...]

Scientists Discover Biomarkers That Predict the Risk of Developing Asthma

Gina Kirchweger, La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology — Mon, 19 Feb 2018 01:48:44 +0000

Asthma is a chronic inflammatory disease driven by the interplay of genetics, environmental factors, and a diverse cast of immune cells. In their latest study, researchers at La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology (LJI) identified a subset of T cells, whose frequency serves as an early childhood immune signature that predicts the risk of [...]

New Antibody-Based Treatment Targets Colorectal Cancer

Ziba Kashef, Yale University — Tue, 13 Feb 2018 15:53:55 +0000

A Yale-led research team has developed an antibody that blocks tumors in animal models of colorectal cancer. If the finding is confirmed in clinical trials, the antibody-based treatment could become an effective weapon against colorectal cancer, and possibly other cancers, that resist current immunotherapies, the researchers said. The study is published in Nature Medicine. Certain [...]

Newly Discovered Molecular Mechanism May Be Key to Fighting Chronic Infections

Justin Dupuis, McGill University — Mon, 05 Feb 2018 17:53:43 +0000

How do viruses that cause chronic infections, such as HIV or hepatitis c virus, manage to outsmart their hosts’ immune systems? The answer to that question has long eluded scientists, but new research from McGill University has uncovered a molecular mechanism that may be a key piece of the puzzle. The discovery could provide new [...]

A Powerful New Tool for Studying Complex Biological Events

Katherine Fenz, The Rockefeller University — Tue, 30 Jan 2018 17:30:14 +0000

A new method for monitoring interactions between cells, dubbed LIPSTIC by its creators, is much more than a cosmetic improvement over existing techniques. The breakthrough, led by The Rockefeller University assistant professor Gabriel Victora, offers scientists in a wide range of disciplines a powerful new tool for studying complex biological events as they play out [...]

Scientists Discover How a Gene Mutation Affects T Cell Function and Successfully Fix It

Andrew R. Patterson, Cincinnati Children's Hospital — Tue, 30 Jan 2018 16:50:03 +0000

Scientists discovered how a gene mutation affects T cell function to promote immune disorders and then tested a treatment based on the discovery–successfully fixing donated immune cells from a 16-year-old boy with an abnormally low level of white blood cells called lymphopenia. Cincinnati Children’s researchers report their findings on January 30 in Nature Communications. The [...]