Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy, a type of immunotherapy that leverages the immune system to combat diseases, is a powerful treatment option for certain cancers. The treatment relies on genetically modified T cells—a type of immune cell—…
A research team from POSTECH and ImmunoBiome in Korea, led by Professor Sin-Hyeog Im, has uncovered a new mechanism showing how butyrate—a short-chain fatty acid produced by gut commensal bacteria—enhances T follicular helper (Tfh) cell activity to pro…
Our immune system implements an array of strategies to combat threatening infections. White blood cells called cytotoxic T lymphocytes or “CD8 T cells” are soldiers of the immune system, serving as defensive agents that fight invading pathogens. Their …
Researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) have discovered that a gene long known for shaping the skin’s physical barrier also plays a crucial role in building and maintaining the skin’s immune defense. The findings, published in Cell Repo…
Conventional wisdom has held for some time that children who grow up in environments rich with biodiversity—farms, homes with pets, rural settings in general—are less likely to have allergies. The thing nobody has ever completely understood is why? Yal…
Antibodies are the immune system’s precision tools for recognizing and neutralizing viruses, bacteria and other foreign substances that can make us ill. These proteins circulate in the bloodstream and are built from chains of amino acids. Yet pinning d…
The immune system must maintain a delicate balance to defend against harmful threats while avoiding excessive inflammation. When this balance is disrupted, immune responses can contribute to autoimmune diseases and cancer. A research team jointly led b…
When our body fights an infection, the immune system must quickly activate defenses and trigger a beneficial inflammatory response. But it is just as important to resolve that inflammation and return to homeostasis. Macrophages play a key role in this …
The COVID-19 pandemic gave us tremendous perspective on how wildly symptoms and outcomes can vary between patients experiencing the same infection. How can two people infected by the same pathogen have such different responses? It largely comes down to…
People who commonly experience everyday discrimination are more likely to have higher levels of “exhausted” white blood cells, suggesting that the chronic stress of discrimination may hamper the immune system, according to a new study by NYU School of …
