The Immune System

One of the many deteriorative effects of aging in humans is a decline in immune system function. But scientists may have uncovered a way to reverse this trend by transplanting a type of white blood cell from the young into the old.

MRSA is a common and quite dangerous hospital infection that’s resistant to many drugs. Now researchers have developed a new treatment path that targets not the bacteria itself, but the toxins they produce. Tests on mice have proved promising so far.

A new study has solved a long-standing mystery of how acute stress seems to amplify inflammatory disease, despite the fact many stress hormones actually suppress the immune system. It found a specific immune cell is released by fat cells when stressed.

Immunotherapy is a promising treatment for cancer, but it still has its problems. Now researchers have identified a “jamming signal” that cancer uses to hide from the immune system, and engineered a synthetic immune cell that can fight back.

New data has found the cheap steroid dexamethasone significantly reduces deaths when administered to COVID-19 patients in intensive care. The treatment has been described as “the first major breakthrough in the therapeutics of COVID-19 infection”.

A study has found antibody levels in recovered COVID-19 patients dropped significantly two months after hospital discharge. The study does not suggest patients can rapidly be reinfected but does question how long immunity may last after one recovers.

Building on the growing link between poor oral health and gastrointestinal disease, research from the University of Michigan has homed in on the possible mechanisms by which periodontitis can exacerbate the gut inflammation seen in patients with IBD.

A study from Stanford University has delivered the most thorough investigation into a human body’s molecular response to exercise ever conducted. The research points to a future blood test that could objectively measure a person’s general fitness.

In organ transplants, rejection by the recipient's immune system is a risk. Now researchers at Yale have discovered a molecule that plays a role in triggering a slow-acting type of rejection, which could be blocked to give patients a better outlook.

The immune system is one of the most powerful tools we have in the fight against cancer, but sometimes it needs a little extra help. In a new study, researchers have developed a new way to summon a wider variety of immune cells to target tumors.

A study has homed in on the sex-specific activity of a gene that both increases risk of developing schizophrenia and decreases the risk of developing lupus, offering novel insights into how some diseases appear in different rates in men and women.

Eating whatever we want and staying slim is many people’s dream come true – and new research may have brought it a step closer. By blocking a gene in certain immune cells, scientists have prevented mice from becoming obese, even on a high-fat diet.