Immune cell serves as an essential communications link for migrating cells
Scientists at the University of Washington have discovered that a common type of cell in the vertebrate immune system plays a unique role in communication between other cells. It turns out that these...
View ArticleFirst breath shapes the lung's immune system
The lung is an important interface between the body and the outside environment: with each breath, a surface of roughly 100 square meters exchanges oxygen for carbon dioxide. More than 10,000 liters of...
View ArticleAsthma drugs could prevent prevent deadly form of pneumonia, research suggests
Two drugs used to treat asthma and allergies may offer a way to prevent a form of pneumonia that can kill up to 40 percent of people who contract it, researchers at the University of Virginia School of...
View ArticleCell therapy approach could lead to novel treatments for asthma
The incidence of asthma is increasing steadily, especially in developed countries. One of the reasons given for this rise is excessive levels of hygiene. Epidemiological studies have, indeed, shown...
View ArticleNewfound signal helps pancreatic cancer cells hide from immune system
Researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center and its Perlmutter Cancer Center have uncovered a critical pathway by which pancreatic cancer cells turn off the immune system charged with attacking them. The...
View ArticleResearchers identify a new HIV reservoir
HIV cure research to date has focused on clearing the virus from T cells, a type of white blood cell that is an essential part of the immune system. Yet investigators in the Division of Infectious...
View ArticleMacrophages shown to be essential to a healthy heart rhythm
A Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH)-led research team has identified a surprising new role for macrophages, the white blood cells primarily known for removing pathogens, cellular debris and other...
View ArticleNew chlamydia drug targets discovered using CRISPR and stem cells
Scientists at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and their collaborators at the University of British Columbia have created an innovative technique for studying how chlamydia interacts with the human...
View ArticleCell 'canibalism' educates our defenses
Phagocytosis is a biological mechanism whereby specialized cells ingest and degrade old, dead, or damaged cells to prevent tissue damage due to their accumulation. But phagocytosis appears to also have...
View ArticleImmune cells localized near pancreatic cancer cells have altered metabolism,...
A diagnosis of pancreatic cancer is a virtual death sentence, with only 3 to 5 per cent of patients surviving beyond five years. A key reason that it has the lowest survival rate of all major cancers...
View ArticleMacrophages need two signals to begin healing process
In the immune system, macrophages act not only as soldiers responding to invading pathogens but also help rebuild the injured tissue once the infection is defeated. A new study by Yale Medical School...
View ArticleUK researchers identify macrophages as key factor for regeneration in mammals
A team of University of Kentucky researchers has discovered that macrophages, a type of immune cell that clears debris at injury sites during normal wound healing and helps produce scar tissue, are...
View ArticleCancer immunotherapy may work in unexpected way
Antibodies to the proteins PD-1 and PD-L1 have been shown to fight cancer by unleashing the body's T cells, a type of immune cell. Now, researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have...
View ArticleRadiation therapy, macrophages improve efficacy of nanoparticle-delivered...
A Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) research team has identified a surprising new role for the immune cells called macrophages—improving the effectiveness of nanoparticle-delivered cancer therapies....
View ArticleIdentifying underlying causes of immune deficiencies that increase shingles risk
Early life infections with varicella zoster virus cause chickenpox, but the virus can remain dormant in the nervous system for decades and reactivate to cause herpes zoster, commonly known as shingles....
View ArticleNew study reveals new drug target for gout and other inflammatory diseases
Particle-driven diseases sound exotic and include things like silicosis and asbestos, but actually also include much more common diseases like Alzheimer's, gout and even atherosclerosis. A new report...
View ArticleMacrophages as drivers of an opportunistic infection
The opportunistic bacterium Burkholderia cenocepacia is feared by cystic fibrosis patients and is emerging in hospital-acquired infections. An international study sheds new light on the infection...
View ArticleTargeting 'broken' metabolism in immune cells reduces inflammatory disease
The team, led by researchers at Imperial College London, Queen Mary University of London and Ergon Pharmaceuticals, believes the approach could offer new hope in the treatment of inflammatory...
View ArticleResearchers discover indicator of lung transplant rejection
Research by scientists at Dignity Health St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center's Norton Thoracic Institute was published in the July 12, 2017 issue of Science Translational Medicine titled "Zbtb7a...
View ArticleResearchers engineer macrophages to engulf cancer cells in solid tumors
One reason cancer is so difficult to treat is that it avoids detection by the body. Agents of the immune system are constantly checking the surfaces of cells for chemical signals that say they belong,...
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