by Ana Gajic, St. Michael’s Hospital Scientists at the Keenan Research Centre for Biomedical Science (KRCBS) have uncovered a new potential approach to treat multiple types of autoimmune disease including arthritis in lab models. Two million Canadians live with autoimmune diseases, which are conditions such as arthritis or lupus that cause a body’s immune system...
Tag: <span>Immunity</span>
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Favorable five-year survival reported for patients with advanced cancer treated with the immunotherapy
JOHNS HOPKINS MEDICINE A research team led by experts at the Bloomberg~Kimmel Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center reports favorable five-year survival rates from the first multidose clinical trial of the immunotherapy drug nivolumab (anti-PD-1) as a treatment for patients whose previous therapies failed to stem their advanced melanoma, renal...
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Immune cell therapy shows early promise for patients with pancreatic cancer
by American Association for Cancer Research A non-engineered, multiantigen-specific T-cell therapy was safe, tolerable, and showed signs of clinical activity in patients who had pancreatic adenocarcinoma, according to preliminary results from a phase I clinical trial presented at the AACR special conference on Immune Cell Therapies for Cancer, held July 19–22. “Pancreatic adenocarcinoma is extremely...
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Traveling abroad? make sure your measles shot is up to date
But many globe-trotting Americans may not realize the problem is worldwide. Therefore, making sure your measles vaccination is up to date is paramount before jetting off. In fact, U.S. outbreaks of measles “are usually started by foreign travelers importing the virus to the U.S.,” according to Dr. Len Horovitz. He’s a specialist in pulmonary illnesses at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. “This is...
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Childhood vaccines: Tough questions, straight answers
by From Mayo Clinic News Network Do vaccines cause autism? Is it OK to skip certain vaccines? Get the facts on these and other common questions. Childhood vaccines protect children from a variety of serious or potentially fatal diseases, including diphtheria, measles, mumps, rubella, polio, tetanus, whooping cough (pertussis) and others. If these diseases seem uncommon—or even unheard of—it’s usually because these vaccines are doing their...
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B cells off the rails early in lupus
by Quinn Eastman, Emory University New research on the autoimmune disease systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) provides hints to the origins of the puzzling disorder. The results were published Monday in Nature Immunology. In people with SLE, their B cells—part of the immune system—are abnormally activated. That makes them produce antibodies that react against their own tissues, causing a variety of symptoms,...
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Patients with feared superbug shed large amounts of it from their skin, study says
By HELEN BRANSWELL @HelenBranswell New research on a frightening new superbug confirms what scientists have both suspected and feared: Some hospitalized patients who carry the fungus shed large amounts of it from their skin, contaminating the environment in which they are being treated and leaving enough of it to infect others later on. The bug, called Candida auris, is highly resistant to many existing antifungal drugs. It’s also...
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Pathogen engineered to self-destruct underlies cancer vaccine platform
by American Society for Microbiology A team of investigators has developed a cancer vaccine technology using live, attenuated pathogens as vectors. A feature of the vaccine causes these bacteria to self-destruct once they’ve done their job, making it safe for use in humans. The research is published in Infection and Immunity, a journal of the American Society for Microbiology. Unlike “prophylactic” vaccines that protect...
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One step closer to pain-free vaccinations
by Hilde Pracht, Leiden University Micro-needles are a promising tool for the painless administration of vaccines through the skin. But, are these minuscule needles really effective? Ph.D. student Pim Schipper of the Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research investigated various factors of vaccination via the skin and discovered, among other things, that the injection depth...
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Women caught in a pickle by their own immune systems
ASU scientists develop new hypothesis explaining sex differences in human diseases ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY Women get autoimmune diseases, such as multiple sclerosis, lupus and rheumatoid arthritis eight times more than men do. On the other hand, women have a smaller risk of getting non-reproductive cancers such as melanoma, colon, kidney and lung cancer. And while there are some...