Immune System News and Research

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The COVID-19 vaccine pipeline

Researchers from Mayo Clinic, United States of America, have reviewed the immunity developed against the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) that causes COVID-19 disease.

14 Oct 2020

Researchers receive $11 million grant to study factors involved in multi-drug resistant infections

A study aimed at better understanding why some critically ill patients develop multidrug-resistant infections is underway by researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston.

14 Oct 2020

Research identifies antigen-specific peripheral T follicular helper cells in COVID-19 infected patients

Researchers have found peripheral T follicular helper cell responses to different structural proteins of SARS-CoV-2 and have studied how the response occurs over time.

14 Oct 2020

Researchers use single cell sequencing technology to characterize immune system of COVID-19 patients

In this study, which was published in the journal Frontiers in Immunology on September 30th, researchers used sequencing to characterize the immune system of patients who survive from COVID-19 infection from symptom onset through recovery.

14 Oct 2020

STAT3 deficiency reduces emotional reactivity, shows study

Numerous scientific studies indicate that inflammatory processes play a key role in the development of psychiatric disorders.

14 Oct 2020

Blood profile could help identify COVID-19 patients at greatest risk of deterioration

Southampton researchers have identified a blood profile that could help identify COVID-19 patients at greatest risk of deterioration and direct them towards trials of specific treatments that could modify their immune systems' responses.

14 Oct 2020

Study shows SARS-CoV-2 antibodies offer lasting immunity

One of the most significant questions about the novel coronavirus is whether people who are infected are immune from reinfection and, if so, for how long.

14 Oct 2020

Combining genetic and experimental data can enable more accurate prediction of influenza virus

Combining genetic and experimental data into models about the influenza virus can help predict more accurately which strains will be most common during the next winter, says a study published recently in eLife.

14 Oct 2020

NIH launches new study to streamline COVID-19 treatments for larger clinical studies

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, today launched a study designed to determine whether certain approved therapies or investigational drugs in late-stage clinical development show promise against COVID-19 and merit advancement into larger clinical trials.

14 Oct 2020

Researchers create multi-functional nano-vaccine to prevent toxoplasmosis

Fighting clever parasites requires smart vaccines that can trigger critical immune responses. A University of Chicago-based research team has found a novel way to do that.

14 Oct 2020

Pre-existing immunity to other coronaviruses may be poor

Brenda M. Westerhuis et al., in a recent medRxiv* preprint paper, investigate the antibody cross-reactivity - to explain the severe disease. COVID-19 is caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2).

13 Oct 2020

Cancer-killing T cells release chemicals to direct swarms towards tumors

When immune system T cells find and recognise a target, they release chemicals to attract more T cells which then swarm to help subdue the threat, shows a new study published today in eLife.

13 Oct 2020

Bacterial toxin stimulates tissue regeneration

Normally they are among the many harmless organisms found in and on the human body: one in four people have millions of Staphylococcus aureus bacteria on their skin and on the mucous membranes of the upper respiratory tract, without being aware of it.

13 Oct 2020

New computational approach improves characterization of cellular diversity

Researchers in the United States have developed a computational method called “weighted-nearest neighbor” (WNN) analysis that can significantly improve the ability to define cellular states across various biological contexts and data types.

13 Oct 2020

Molecular stilts help deadly parasites to invade host cells

In biological terms, gliding refers to the type of movement during which a cell moves along a surface without changing its shape. This form of movement is unique to parasites from the phylum Apicomplexa, such as Plasmodium and Toxoplasma.

13 Oct 2020

COVID-19 vaccine candidate shows potent immune response

A COVID-19 vaccine candidate that underwent extensive preclinical testing at the University of Alabama at Birmingham this spring and summer shows potent preclinical immune responses -; including several that distinguish it from other COVID-19 vaccine approaches -; according to a preprint deposited in the BioRxiv repository this week.

13 Oct 2020

Zinc deficiency linked to poor COVID-19 outcomes

A team of researchers from various universities and institutes in Spain recently published a paper on the preprint server medRxiv,* in which they hypothesize that serum zinc levels have a significant influence on COVID-19 progression and thus may be a useful biomarker in predicting severe disease in early stages of COVID-19 infection.

12 Oct 2020

Why blood type O might lower risk for SARS-CoV-2 infection

The author hypothesizes that people with non-O blood groups may have highest contact with the SARS-CoV-2 virus via the formation of in intermediate structure, resulting in possibly higher infection rates and more severe symptoms.

12 Oct 2020

Dynamic map reveals how cells fight microbes and preserve memory for future infections

Researchers have charted the activity of tens of thousands of genes in mouse immune cells over the course of an infection.

12 Oct 2020

Nasal spray COVID-19 vaccine shows promising results in mice

With promising vaccines comes a new candidate that has shown potent pre-clinical immune responses. The vaccine, developed by scientists at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), induced a potent T-cell response at the mucus layer of the lungs, including killer CD8+ T-cells, which can recognize and kill virally infected cells.

12 Oct 2020