UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA De’Broski Herbert has a philosophy that’s guided his career researching helminths, or parasitic worms, and their interaction with their hosts’ immune systems: “Follow the worm.” “The mantra of my lab since its inception has been that parasitic worms manipulate their hosts in very interesting ways to maintain their survival,” says Herbert, an...
Tag: <span>parasitic worms</span>
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How parasitic worms could help us with everything from obesity to asthma
This parasitic worm, Heligmosomoides polygyrus, has been found to reduce incidences of obesity in mouse experiments A growing body of research is suggesting that parasitic worms could in fact have a positive effect on our immune system. A new study is bolstering that hypothesis, finding in animal experiments that a certain type of helminth infection can...