by Robert Sanders, University of California – Berkeley Depiction of SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. The spike proteins are in red. More than 100 companies have rushed into vaccine development against COVID-19 as the U.S. government pushes for a vaccine rollout at “warp speed”—possibly by the end of the year—but the bar set for an...
by Tom Wilemon, Vanderbilt University Immune checkpoint therapy has revolutionized cancer therapy, leading to long-term remission for patients with advanced cancer. However, most cancer patients either do not respond or have only short-term responses to checkpoint therapy, which targets inhibitory receptors on T cells. A study published June 17 in Nature offers clues as to why blocking inhibitory receptors on tumor-infiltrating T cells may not always work....
A multi-institutional research team, led by investigators at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, has identified specific states of cytotoxic CD8 T cells that are associated with patient response to checkpoint immunotherapy for melanoma. Their report published in the journal Cell also identifies specific marker proteins associated with these...
Macrophages are white blood cells involved in a variety of biological functions, from destroying infectious pathogens to repairing damaged tissue. To carry out their different roles, macrophages must first be activated and transformed into different subtypes. However, the mechanisms that lead to macrophage activation are not fully understood. Now, researchers at Osaka University have identified a new...
New types of T cells seem to pop up in the scientific literature with increasing frequency. Just this June, for instance, University of Melbourne immunologist Angela Pizzolla and her colleagues described a type of tissue-resident memory T (Trm) cell in the nose that, unlike other Trm cells, can develop from “killer T cells” without antigen exposure or growth-factor stimulation....
Recombinant adeno-associated viruses (AAVs) are quickly becoming the preferred viral vector for viral gene delivery for the treatment of a wide variety of genetic disorders. However, since their use in a clinical trial targeting hemophilia B patients 10 years ago, immune responses to the AAV capsid appear to have hampered some of the early clinical...
Finding flows from researchers’ use of high-tech tools to deeply and efficiently characterize patient cells Rheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune condition in which the immune system attacks the joints, causing inflammation, pain, and eventually destruction of the tissues that make up this essential body part. A research team led by scientists from Brigham and Women’s...
