This microscopy image shows a cytotoxic T cell (blue) attacking a cancer cell (green) by releasing toxic chemicals (red).
Alex Ritter and Jennifer Lippincott Schwartz and Gillian Griffiths/National Institutes of Health via Flickr
T cells recognize and kill cancer cells but quickly lose their effectiveness. This fast dysfunction may help explain why immunotherapy doesn’t lead to long-term remission for many patients.
Genetics may play a role in COVID-19 disease severity.
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Gregory Allen, University of California, San Francisco
Immunotherapy has the potential to eliminate tumors, but works best for select patients. Engineering T cells to bypass cancer’s defenses could help expand treatment eligibility to more patients.
Insect bites or stings, like the one on this person’s hand, are a manifestation of inflammation.
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Inflammation is a complicated and important part of how the immune system responds to threats to the body. But when the inflammatory response goes awry, it can lead to serious problems.
Actor and singer Selena Gomez had a kidney transplant due to damage from lupus.
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Evidence is growing there are changes to your immune system that may put you at risk of other infectious diseases.
Stem cell transplants involve completely eliminating and then replacing the immune system of a patient, often by transplanting the bone marrow.
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Patients with blood cancer undergoing stem cell transplantation have a high risk of complications. The bacteria in their gut, however, can help their immune system recover and fight infections.
Immunosenescence, or immune aging, can lead to less effective responses to vaccines and greater vulnerability to invading pathogens.
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While the immune system naturally gets weaker with age, social stressors like trauma and discrimination can hasten immunosenescence.
Dendritic cells (green) produce cytokines like IL-12, which can train T cells (pink) to attack tumors.
Victor Segura Ibarra and Rita Serda/National Cancer Institute via Flickr
Aslan Mansurov, University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering
One promising cancer treatment has been in the works for decades, but severe side effects have kept it out of the clinic. A reengineered version may offer a way to safely harness its potent effects.
Some of the omicron variant’s unique properties – such as its ability to spread rapidly while causing milder COVID-19 infections – could usher in a new phase of the pandemic.
Nucleic acid vaccines use mRNA to give cells instructions on how to produce a desired protein.
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DNA and mRNA vaccines produce a different kind of immune response than traditional vaccines, allowing researchers to tackle some previously unsolvable problems in medicine.
People with HIV need to take daily medication to keep the virus at bay. A study has found that a new treatment combination could boost immunity and control virus levels even after stopping medication.
It’s unclear whether the patients were already predisposed to these diseases, or the infection unmasked a process that had already begun. Or perhaps the infection triggered a completely new illness.