Immunology

Malaria and cholera take devastating tolls in the developing world. Mosquito-borne Malaria kills more than 1 million people annually and no vaccine currently exists. Cholera, a diarrheal illnessthat is common in developing countries, can be fatal and the lone vaccine is too expensive to prevent outbreaks after floods.  Despite the challenges posed by the malaria and cholera, University of Central Florida biomedical researchers say they have developed what may be the first low-cost dual vaccine for both The UFC team genetically engineered tobacco and lettuce plants to produce the vaccine…

What does it take to stop a deadly bioterrorism attack? A strong military? Secured borders? Good Political leaders? If you chose any of the above, you're wrong. The answer is actually llamas--or their proteins to be exact. According to a new study in PLoS One, single domain antibodies found in llamas (sdAb) may  help scientists detect botulinum neurotoxins (BoNTs), substances 100 billion times more toxic than cyanide, which the Centers for Disease Control says pose a potential bioterror threat. The so called "nanobodies" found in llamas are molecularly flexible, unlike conventional…

Using insect cells, scientists in Vienna have developed an alternative method for producing the H1N1 vaccine. The researchers say the discovery, detailed in the Biotechnology Journal, will aid the fight against influenza pandemics by speeding up production and making it easier to meet the demand for vaccines.  "Recent outbreaks of influenza highlight the importance of a rapid and sufficient vaccine supply for pandemic and inter pandemic strains," said co-author Florian Krammer from the University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Science in Vienna. "However, classical manufacturing…

Children whose parents refuse to vaccinate them are nine times more likely to get chickenpox compared to fully immunized children, according to a new study led by a vaccine research team at Kaiser Permanente Colorado's Institute for Health Research.  The study was published today in the January issue of the journal Archives of Pediatrics&Adolescent Medicine. To assess the risk of varicella vaccine refusal, researchers reviewed the electronic health records of 86,993 children between the ages of 12 months and 8 years who were members of Kaiser Permanente Colorado between 1998 and 2008…

 Researchers working in a high containment laboratory at the CDC in Atlanta, GA have discovered how the smallpox virus kills. In a study published in the FASEB Journal, the team says that the virus, now eradicated by vaccination, cripples the immune systems by attacking molecules made by our bodies to block viral replication.  In a high containment laboratory at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, scientists produced the recombinant proteins from the variola virus and a similar virus that affects monkeys, causing monkeypox.  The researchers then showed…

While trying to develop a vaccine for AIDS, researchers have uncovered a biological catch-22 that's been hindering their chances of success. They say that while the immune system can produce cells with the potential to manufacture HIV-blocking antibodies, it also works equally hard to eliminate those cells before they have a chance to mature. Over the years, scientists have assumed that B cells – one of the first lines of defense against infection – are simply not able to "see" the HIV virus. HIV has the ability to hide its most vulnerable parts from immune system surveillance, and…

Researchers at Rice University and Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) have found an unexpected weakness in H1N1's method for evading detection by the immune system. They say the virus has been keeping a secret that may be the key to defeating it and other flu viruses as well. Comparing its genetic sequences going all the way back to the virus's first known appearance in the deadly "Spanish flu" outbreak of 1918, they discovered a previously unrealized role of receptor-binding residues in host evasion, which effectively becomes a bottleneck that keeps the virus in check. The team compared the…

AIDS researchers have for the first time demonstrated that human blood stem cells can be engineered into cells that can target and kill HIV-infected cells — a process that potentially could be used against a range of chronic viral diseases. The study, published today in PLoS ONE, demonstrates that human stem cells can be engineered into the equivalent of a genetic vaccine. By Taking CD8 cytotoxic T lymphocytes — the "killer" T cells that help fight infection — from an HIV-infected individual, the researchers identified the molecule known as the T-cell receptor, which guides the T cell in…

Although the H1N1 vaccine is generally believed to be safe and effective, researchers from the University of Missouri have uncovered evidence that taking over-the-counter pain relievers, like aspirin and Tylenol, can reduce the effectiveness of the vaccine because they inhibit the normal function of enzymes that help regulate the immune system.  The role of these enzymes, called COX enzymes, is not yet understood completely, andmedications that inhibit them may have adverse side effects. Recent research has discovered that drugs that inhibit COX enzymes, such as COX-2, have an impact on…

If you think the stress you experience during the holidays is doing you harm, you're right. Scientists from the University of Connecticut and Yale University say that entertaining your in-laws or traveling long distances this time of year can make you sick, and they they know why. According to their study published in the Journal of Leukocyte Biology, the same part of our nervous system that is responsible for the fight-or-flight response (called the sympathetic nervous system) also controls regulatory T cells, which are used by the body to end an immune response once a foreign invader has…