LA JOLLA, CA--A powerful arm of the immune system is production of antibodies that circulate through the blood and neutralize invading pathogens. Although B cells actually manufacture antibody proteins, the process is aided by neighboring T cells, which shower B cells with cytokines to make them churn out high-quality antibody proteins--and remember how to do so. Given the essential function of "helper" T cells, researchers have long sought to define biological signals that encourage their development. Until now, the best candidates had only minor effects on human immune cells.
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While immune therapy has proven effective in treating certain types of cancer, especially lung cancer and melanoma, tumors of the pancreas remain among the most difficult to treat and, so far, are impervious to immune-based therapies. Now, a new study in mice has shown that immunotherapy against pancreatic cancer can be effective when given in conjunction with drugs that break up the fibrous tissue in these tumors.
The study, from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, appears July 4 in Nature Medicine.
ANN ARBOR--Is honesty really the best policy? Isn't it more beneficial to cheat, if you can get away with it?
A study from the insect world provides a new perspective on honest communication by showing that paper wasps that send dishonest signals are aggressively punished, and the drubbing can have long-term impacts.
Mice are one of the most commonly used laboratory organisms, widely used to study everything from autism to infectious diseases. Yet genomic studies in mice have lagged behind those in humans.
CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Cells contain thousands of messenger RNA molecules, which carry copies of DNA's genetic instructions to the rest of the cell. MIT engineers have now developed a way to visualize these molecules in higher resolution than previously possible in intact tissues, allowing researchers to precisely map the location of RNA throughout cells.
Key to the new technique is expanding the tissue before imaging it. By making the sample physically larger, it can be imaged with very high resolution using ordinary microscopes commonly found in research labs.
CAMBRIDGE, MA -- MIT engineers have developed a new type of easily customizable vaccine that can be manufactured in one week, allowing it to be rapidly deployed in response to disease outbreaks. So far, they have designed vaccines against Ebola, H1N1 influenza, and Toxoplasma gondii (a relative of the parasite that causes malaria), which were 100 percent effective in tests in mice.
Still no strong evidence that adjunctive treatment with human growth hormone in IVF improves results
Helsinki, July 4, 2016: Despite its occasional use as an adjunct in IVF, human growth hormone appears of little benefit to women having difficulty conceiving. Indeed, in an Australian/New Zealand collaborative placebo-controlled randomised trial presented here at the Annual Meeting of ESHRE, live birth rates were no better in poor-responding patients (under the age of 41) given growth hormone as a supplement than in those given placebo.
Helsinki, 4 July 2016: Despite the claims and counter-claims for new embryo assessment techniques introduced over the past two decades, the search for the holy grail of assisted reproduction - the key to the embryo destined to implant - continues. Genetic screening techniques so far have relied largely on the assessment of one component of the embryo's genetic constitution, the number of chromosomes in its cells. Studies dating back 20 years have shown beyond doubt that chromosomal abnormality is common in preimplantation embryos, and becomes even more common with increasing age.
A new study has found that reducing antibiotic prescribing for respiratory tract infections - such as coughs, colds, sore throats and ear infections - is not linked to an increase in the most serious bacterial complications, such as bacterial meningitis. The study, published in the BMJ, investigated whether reducing antibiotic prescribing for people attending their GP with respiratory tract infections could have an effect on safety.
Detecting pesticides and nerve gas in very low concentrations. An international team of researchers led by Ivo Stassen and Rob Ameloot from KU Leuven, Belgium, have made it possible.
OAK BROOK, Ill. - Annual low-dose computed-tomography (CT) screening can eliminate the need for biopsy or surgery in nonsolid lung nodules, according to a new study published online in the journal Radiology.
COLUMBUS, Ohio - Convincing kids to choose vegetables becomes easier when you deploy a team of animated characters to sell them on the good stuff, new research has found.
Miki Mushroom, Zach Zucchini and Suzie Sweet Pea appear to wield the kind of influence many moms and dads only wish they had.
BARCELONA-LUGANO, July 2, 2016 - A novel anti-interleukin 1-alpha antibody has shown a significant impact on symptoms, and a high level of safety and tolerability in patients with advanced colorectal cancer, according to phase III data (1) presented at the European Society for Medical Oncology's 18th World Congress of Gastrointestinal Cancer in Barcelona, Spain.
Xilonix is the first monoclonal antibody immunotherapy to specifically target and neutralize interleukin-1 alpha (IL-1α), one of the most potent inflammatory substances manufactured by the body or tumour cells.
USC researcher Megan L. McCain and colleagues have devised a way to develop bigger, stronger muscle fibers. But instead of popping up on the bicep of a bodybuilder, these muscles grow on a tiny scaffold or "chip" molded from a type of water-logged gel made from gelatin.
First authors Archana Bettadapur and Gio C. Suh describe these muscles-on-a-chip in a new study published in Scientific Reports.
During normal embryonic development, skeletal muscles form when cells called myoblasts fuse to form muscle fibers, known as myotubes.
Researchers at Umeå University in Sweden are first to discover that bacteria can multiply disease-inducing genes which are needed to rapidly cause infection. The results were published in Science on June 30, 2016.
More than 22 years ago, researchers at Umeå University were first to discover an infection strategy of human pathogenic Yersinia bacteria -- a protein structure in bacterial cell-walls that resembled a syringe. The structure, named "Type III secretion system" or T3SS, makes it possible to transfer bacterial proteins into the host cell and destroy its metabolism.