Breaking News by tag «Immunology»

Researchers from the University of Missouri School of Medicine have discovered a specific combination immunotherapy that shows promise in the fight against liver cancer.

Researchers at the University of Cambridge have taken the first step towards developing a new form of treatment for type 1 diabetes which, if successful, could mean an end to the regular insulin injections endured by people affected by the disease, many of whom are children.

Like fingerprints, immune systems vary from person to person. And although we all inherit a unique set of genes that help us respond to infections, recent studies have found that our history and environment—like where and with whom we live—are responsible for 60% to 80% of the differences between individual immune systems, while genetics account for the rest. In a Review published September 29 in Trends in Immunology, three immunologists discuss the emerging science of what shapes our immune systems and how it might be applied.

New Jersey researchers have identified what is believed to be the first strain of Escherichia coli bacteria from a patient in the United States that harbored two mobile genes making it resistant to both broad spectrum carbapenem antibiotics as well as colistin, an older antibiotic increasingly used as a last resort for multidrug-resistant infections. Their report is published this week in mBio®, an online open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology.

A team of scientists from Oxford University has shown how the natural movement of bacteria could be harnessed to assemble and power microscopic ‘windfarms’ — or other man-made micromachines such as smartphone components.

By Morgan Kelly, Office of Communications Princeton University researchers have found that a family of proteins with important roles in the immune system may be responsible for fine-tuning a person’s motor control as they grow — and for their gradual loss of muscle function as they age. The research potentially reveals a biological cause of weakness and instability in older people, as well as a possible future treatment that would target the proteins specifically.

Mice lacking certain immune cells become overweight, even on a normal diet We tend to think of the immune system as guarding us against bacteria, viruses and assorted foreign invaders, but this system has some other surprising roles. Weizmann Institute researchers have now identified a small subtype of immune cells that appears to prevent metabolic syndrome: obesity, high blood pressure, and high levels of blood sugar and cholesterol.