Good news for public health: Bioengineering researchers from the EPFL in Lausanne, Switzerland, have developed and patented a nanoparticle that can deliver vaccines more effectively, with fewer side effects, and at a fraction of the cost of current vaccine technologies.
A human peptide that acts as a natural antibiotic against invading microbes can also bind to the body’s own DNA and trigger an immune response in the absence of an infection, a research team led by scientists at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center reports in an early online publication in Nature.
Feelings of social isolation are linked to alterations in the activity of genes that drive inflammation, the first response of the immune system, and causing higher mortality than people who are not feeling loneliness, revealed by UCLA researchers.
Immune system police are as good at recognizing bad guys, such as bacteria and viruses, as they are our own tissue, researchers say.
It’s already known that a person’s social environment can affect their health, with those who are socially isolated—that is, lonely suffering from higher mortality than people who are not.
Variations in a gene that influences the innate immune system?the part of the immune system that provides short-term protection against infection?may be associated with lung cancer survival.
HIV patients with declining platelet counts appear to be at increased risk for HIV?associated dementia, according to a report in the September issue of Archives of Neurology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
Individuals who take vitamin D supplements appear to have a lower risk of death from any cause over an average follow-up time of six-years, according to a meta-analysis of 18 previously published studies in the September 10 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
The number of serious adverse drug events reported to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) more than doubled between 1998 and 2005, as did deaths associated with adverse drug events, according to a report in the September 10 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
In work that could lead to safe and effective techniques for gene therapy, MIT researchers have found a way to fine-tune the ability of biodegradable polymers to deliver genes.