Scanning electron micrograph of a human T lymphocyte (also called a T cell) from the immune system of a healthy donor. Cancer immunotherapy drugs only work for a minority of patients, but a generic drug now used to increase blood flow may be able to improve those odds, a study by Columbia University Medical...
Category: <span>Immunology</span>
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Doctors thought she was psychotic, but her body was attacking her brain
(CNN)Emily Gavigan was convinced that a nearby truck was following her. Someone was after her. She was a sophomore at the University of Scranton in January 2009 when the “bizarre” behavior began, said her father, Bill. Her parents noticed that she had been rambling, not making any sense. At one point, she called her family...
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Scientists discover the ‘adrenaline’ of the immune system
Innate lymphocytes (in green) surround the gut (in red). Scientists at the Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown and the Instituto de Medicina Molecular, in Lisbon, Portugal, have discovered that neurons located at mucosal tissues can immediately detect an infection in the organism, promptly producing a substance that acts as an “adrenaline rush” for immune...
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Immune system may mount an attack in Parkinson’s disease
A new study suggests that T cells, which help the body’s immune system recognize friend from foe, may play an important role in Parkinson’s disease (PD). The study, published in the journal Nature, was supported by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), part of the National Institutes of Health. “This collaboration between...
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Blunting CRISPR’s ‘scissors’ gives new insight into autoimmune disorders
Each one of our cells has the same 22,000 or so genes in its genome, but each uses different combinations of those same genes, turning them on and off as their role and situation demand. It is these patterns of expressed and repressed genes that determine what kind of cell—kidney, brain, skin, heart—each will become....
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Hit-and-run programming of therapeutic cytoreagents using mRNA nanocarriers
Abstract Therapies based on immune cells have been applied for diseases ranging from cancer to diabetes. However, the viral and electroporation methods used to create cytoreagents are complex and expensive. Consequently, we develop targeted mRNA nanocarriers that are simply mixed with cells to reprogram them via transient expression. Here, we describe three examples to establish...
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Researchers discover new immunotherapy combination effective at killing cancer cells
Immunotherapy is an emerging field in the global fight against cancer, even though scientists and clinicians have been working for decades to find ways to help the body’s immune system detect and attack cancerous cells. Doug Mahoney’s lab at the University of Calgary recently discovered an immunotherapy that uses existing cancer drugs in a whole...
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Bacterial cell wall mopping agents could treat chronic inflammatory diseases like type 2 diabetes
Bacteria may be responsible for more than we suspect. Especially when it comes to inflammatory diseases such as type 2 diabetes. Prof. Resia Pretorius from Stellenbosch University (SU) in South Africa and Prof. Douglas Kell from The University of Manchester have conducted a series of studies that are drastically changing the way scientists think about...
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Researchers makes ‘natural born killer’ cell discovery
An unexpected role for a white blood cell called the Natural Killer (NK) cell – a critical cell for ridding the body of infection and cancer, has been discovered by researchers at New Zealand’s University of Otago. The NK cell is a “vigilante” killer – a white blood cell that destroys invaders and cancer cells through a...
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Gene therapy with BMP4 protects against weight gain and insulin resistance in mice
“By increasing BMP4, we can increase the metabolic rate, but we only see this in initially lean mice. Overweight mice proved to have a BMP4 resistance, which is also an important finding,” says Jenny Hoffmann, first author of the article and active at the Lundberg Laboratory for Diabetes Research. She recently earned her PhD in...