Immune protection from an unexpected source

Anne Trafton, MIT News Office

	A surface mucous cell bordering on the stomach lumen secretes mucus (pink stain). Image: Public Library of Science Journal

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“Personalized Immune” Mouse Offers New Tool for Studying Autoimmune Diseases

Model may allow development of individualized immunotherapies against cancer and infection

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UGA animal vaccine may slow deadly spread of Chagas disease

Writer: James Hataway

Athens, Ga. - Chagas disease is the single most common cause of congestive heart failure and sudden death in the world. The devastating parasitic infection affects millions of people throughout Central and South America. But as global travel increases, it's becoming a greater threat in the United States and Europe as well.

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Yale study: How suppressing the immune system may prevent type 1 diabetes

By Helen Dodson

A new study at Yale School of Medicine has uncovered the mechanism by which a targeted suppression of the immune system may prevent type 1 diabetes or induce sustained remission. The study appears in Science Translational Medicine.

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Scientists develop vaccine that attacks breast cancer in mice

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Keeping an eye on H1N1

MIT scientists identify a mutation that could allow the flu virus to spread much more easily.

An image of the H1N1 influenza virus taken in the CDC Influenza Laboratory. Image courtesy of the Centers for Disease Control

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On the trail of a stealthy parasite

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Chronic infection may add to developing-world deaths
MIT study points to hidden threat stalking many diarrhea patients

David Chandler, MIT News Office

Worldwide, nearly 2 million people per year die from diarrhea, the vast majority of them in poor countries in Africa and Asia. The disease accounts for 18 percent of all deaths among children -- and yet is almost always preventable with proper treatment. Now, new research from MIT indicates that underlying, low-level undiagnosed infection may greatly add to the severity of a significant number of these cases. This realization could lead to changes in health-care strategies to address the problem.
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Scripps Research Team Sheds Light on Immune System Suppression
Work Could Aid Development of New Treatments for Such Conditions as HIV, Measles, and Tuberculosis

LA JOLLA, CA, October 17, 2008—Diseases such as HIV, tuberculosis, and measles claim countless lives by weakening immune systems in ways that have remained unclear. But a team from The Scripps Research Institute has for the first time pinpointed a clear mechanism for immunosuppression. They have shown how an initial viral infection can block production of critical immune system proteins known as type I interferons, leading to susceptibility to other, potentially deadly infections.
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Scientists Decode Genome of Parasite that Causes Relapsing Malaria
Advance May Speed Development of Malaria Drugs and Vaccines

Scientists have deciphered the complete genetic sequence of the parasite Plasmodium vivax, the leading cause of relapsing malaria, and compared it with the genomes of other species of malaria parasites. The findings shed light on distinctive genetic features of P. vivax, and may lead to new tools to prevent and treat P. vivax malaria. Results of the study, funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), appear in the Oct. 9 issue of Nature.
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NIH Scientists Discover Crucial Control in Long-Lasting Immunity
Tango Between T and B Cells Depends on Key Protein

National Institutes of Health (NIH) scientists have identified a protein that plays matchmaker between two key types of white blood cells, T and B cells, enabling them to interact in a way that is crucial to establishing long-lasting immunity after an infection. Their finding may also explain why some individuals who have a genetic defect that prevents them from making this protein — called SAP — suffer from lethal infections with a common virus that otherwise is rarely fatal (Epstein-Barr virus), while others with this genetic defect have problems with B-cell lymphomas.
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DNA of Good Bacteria Drives Intestinal Response to Infection

A new study shows that the DNA of so-called "good bacteria" that normally live in the intestines may help defend the body against infection.
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Most Vaccine-Allergic Children Can Still Be Safely Vaccinated, Hopkins Experts Say
Team offers step-by-step tool for safe immunization

With close monitoring and a few standard precautions, nearly all children with known or suspected vaccine allergies can be safely immunized, according to a team of vaccine safety experts led by the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center. Writing in the September issue of Pediatrics, the multicenter research team offers pediatricians a step-by-step tool for quickly identifying children with allergic reactions to vaccines, and a much-needed guide, they say, to safely immunize those who are allergic.  
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UNAM scientists are designing a new system to produce vaccines through the use of insect's modified virus

Laura Romero

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Nano-vaccine against hepatitis B produces a strong immunity in animal models

Nanoemulsión dada por la nariz podría ser más segura para administrar y más fácil de almacenar en los países en desarrollo que las vacunas existentes
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How Flesh-Eating Bacteria
Attack the Body’s Immune System

By Debra Kain

“Flesh-eating” or “Strep” bacteria are able to survive and spread in the body by degrading a key immune defense molecule, according to researchers at the University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine and Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences. The finding, which could aid in development of new treatments for serious infections in human patients, will be reported in the August 14 issue of the journal Cell Host & Microbe.

Strep bacteria interacting with human cells

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RARE CASE IN A BALTIMORE COUPLE EXPLAINS WHY SOME INFECTED WITH HIV REMAIN SYMPTOM FREE FOR YEARS WITHOUT ANTIRETROVIRAL DRUGS
- Finding renews promise of vaccine against AIDS; disproves theory of defective virus

AIDS experts at Johns Hopkins say they have compelling evidence that some people with HIV who for years and even decades show extremely low levels of the virus in their blood never progress to full-blown AIDS and remain symptom free even without treatment, probably do so because of the strength of their immune systems, not any defects in the strain of HIV that infected them in the first place.
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NIH Scientists Find a Novel Mechanism that Controls the Development of Autoimmunity

Scientists at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have found a mechanism in the immune systems of mice that can lead to the development of autoimmune disease when turned off. The findings shed light on the processes that lead to the development of autoimmunity and could also have implications for the development of drugs to increase the immune response in diseases such as cancer and HIV. The study paper appears online today in the journal Nature.
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Plants make vaccine for treating type of cancer in Stanford study

By ERIN DIGITALE

STANFORD, Calif. — Plants could act as safe, speedy factories for growing antibodies for personalized treatments against a common form of cancer, according to new findings from the Stanford University School of Medicine. The findings came in the first human tests of an injectable vaccine grown in tobacco plants.
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