News by Subject Medicine & Health

A new technique using patients' own modified cells to treat Crohn's disease has been proven to be effective in experiments using human cells, with a clinical trial of the treatment expected to start in the next six months.

An immune checkpoint molecule developed for cancer immunotherapy also protects against future development of multiple types of cancer when administered by itself. The recombinant protein molecule SA-4-1BBL has been used to enhance the therapeutic efficacy of cancer vaccines with success in pre-clinical animal models. Surprisingly, when the researchers treated normal, healthy mice with SA-4-1BBL alone, the mice were protected when the researchers later exposed them to different types of tumor cells.

Results from a phase II clinical trial, experimental work on cells and computational modelling have together shown why the first pill for asthma in 20 years can help reduce asthma attacks.

For the first time ever, researchers are comprehensively sequencing the human immune system, which is billions of times larger than the human genome. In a new study published in Nature from the Human Vaccines Project, scientists have sequenced a key part of this vast and mysterious system -- the genes encoding the circulating B cell receptor repertoire.

Getting enough sleep is key to good health, and studies have shown that insufficient sleep increases the risk of serious problems, including cardiovascular disease. Now Massachusetts General Hospital investigators have discovered one way that sleep protects against the development of atherosclerosis.

Emory scientists have been probing the RNA packaging factors that limit reassortment between avian H7N9/H5N8 strains and a well-known strain (H3N2) that has been dominating the last few human flu seasons in the United States. Mix and match still occurred at a low level, particularly with H5N8.

Biochemistry and Molecular Biology researchers at the Hollings Cancer Center at the Medical University of South Carolina delved into the microscopic world of cell surface sphingolipids and discovered a new sub-cellular complex, as described in the January 2019 issue of Journal of Biological Chemistry.