Immune System News and Research

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Recurring glioblastomas with very few mutations are far more vulnerable to immunotherapies

Glioblastoma brain tumors are especially perplexing. Inevitably lethal, the tumors occasionally respond to new immunotherapies after they've grown back, enabling up to 20% of patients to live well beyond predicted survival times.

13 Jan 2021

New technology could protect against different coronavirus variants

The SARS-CoV-2 virus that is causing the COVID-19 pandemic is just one of many different viruses in the coronavirus family.

13 Jan 2021

Scientists identify bacteria-based approach against cancer

The body's immune system is the first line of defense against infections like bacteria, viruses or cancers. Some cancers, however, have developed the art of molecular deception to avoid destruction by the body's immune system.

13 Jan 2021

Researchers develop novel antibody fragments against SARS coronavirus-2

An international research team led by the University of Bonn (Germany) has identified and further developed novel antibody fragments against the SARS coronavirus-2. These "nanobodies" are much smaller than the classic antibodies used to treat US President Donald Trump, for example.

13 Jan 2021

Daily circadian cycles may impact our ability to fight disease

An analysis of an exhaustive dataset on cells essential to the mammalian immune system shows that our ability to fight disease may rely more heavily on daily circadian cycles than previously assumed.

12 Jan 2021

Antigenic "supersite" could improve design of COVID-19 vaccines

Researchers in the United States have defined an antigenic “supersite” within the novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) that could have important implications for the design of vaccines to protect against coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

12 Jan 2021

Nanobodies have potential to be developed into a treatment for COVID-19

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have developed, in collaboration with researchers in Germany and the U.S., new small antibodies, also known as nanobodies, which prevent the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus from entering human cells.

12 Jan 2021

UTSW study uncovers a gene linked to growth of breast cancer

A team of UT Southwestern researchers has identified a gene involved in the growth of breast cancer, a finding that could lead to potential new targets for treatment.

12 Jan 2021

Could Vitamin D be an effective adjuvant to help mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic?

As the coronavirus pandemic continues to wreak havoc across the globe, there is a dire need for effective and safe therapeutics and vaccines. Overall, the pandemic has infected more than 90.87 million people and taken more 1.94 million lives.

12 Jan 2021

Boosting a natural cellular process could lower ventilator-related lung damage

An unfortunate truth about the use of mechanical ventilation to save the lives of patients in respiratory distress is that the pressure used to inflate the lungs is likely to cause further lung damage.

12 Jan 2021

Advanced humanized mouse model helps better understand immunotherapy resistance in melanoma

Scientists at The Wistar Institute have created an advanced humanized immune system mouse model that allows them to examine resistance to immune checkpoint blockade therapies in melanoma. It has revealed a central role for mast cells. These findings were published today in the journal Nature Communications.

12 Jan 2021

Headache as COVID-19 symptom could indicate milder disease, study finds

Researchers at the Hospital Universitario de La Princes in Madrid, Spain, found that patients with COVID-19 who developed headaches as an early symptom of infection had a milder illness and less risk of death.

12 Jan 2021

Study shows COVID-19 pneumonia is different from typical pneumonia

Bacteria or viruses like influenza that cause pneumonia can spread across large regions of the lung over the course of hours. In the modern intensive care unit, these bacteria or viruses are usually controlled either by antibiotics or by the body's immune system within the first few days of the illness.

12 Jan 2021

Researchers develop new technique to more efficiently isolate and identify rare T cells

Scientists from the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCLA have developed a technique that will enable researchers to more efficiently isolate and identify rare T cells that are capable of targeting viruses, cancer and other diseases.

12 Jan 2021

Researchers study the behavior of regulatory T cells to understand periodontal disease

In diseases characterized by bone loss -such as periodontitis, rheumatoid arthritis, and osteoporosis- there is a lot that scientists still don't understand. What is the role of the immune response in the process? What happens to the regulatory mechanisms that protect bone?

12 Jan 2021

Patient with hypertension or cardiovascular diseases experienced critical disease progression with COVID-19

COVID-19 patients who also suffer from high blood pressure are more likely to fall severely ill with the disease, which also leaves them at greater risk of death.

11 Jan 2021

Researchers develop a novel, patient-derived model of ulcerative colitis

As reported in Nature Communications, researchers from Cleveland Clinic's Lerner Research Institute have developed a novel, patient-derived model of ulcerative colitis, which will help advance studies into new treatments for the chronic inflammatory bowel disease.

11 Jan 2021

MDC researchers develop a potent weapon against lymphomas

MDC researchers have developed a new approach to CAR T-cell therapy. The team has shown in Nature Communications that the procedure is very effective, especially when it comes to fighting follicular lymphomas and chronic lymphocytic leukemia, the most common type of blood cancer in adults.

11 Jan 2021

Freiburg researchers receive ERC funding to develop and test immunostimulatory drug candidates

With the Proof of Concept funding line, the ERC grants recipients of ERC frontier research funds (Starting, Consolidator, Advanced or Synergy grants) with 150.000 Euro to develop promising ideas with commercial or societal potential to the proof of concept stage.

11 Jan 2021

Sustained immune response memory detected in recovered COVID-19 patients

A team of researchers at the University of Washington School of Medicine has found that people who had mild COVID-19 developed a multi-layered immune response against SARS-Cov-2. The researchers detected neutralizing antibodies against the virus for at least three months after recovering from the infection.

11 Jan 2021