Army scientists determined that the body’s own natural immune response contributes to disease severity in mice infected with Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus (CCHFV), which causes a widespread tick-borne viral infection in humans. Their work, published May 19, 2022 in PLoS Pathogens, provides a deeper understanding of how the virus causes disease and forms a basis for developing medical countermeasures to prevent and treat infection.

Detecting these T cells may lead to diagnostics to better detect heart disease—and disease severity—through a blood sample. The knowledge also brings researchers closer to developing a vaccine that dampens this dangerous immune cell activity to prevent atherosclerosis.

James Bibb, Ph.D., and colleagues have described a novel preclinical drug that could have the potential to combat depression, brain injury and diseases that impair cognition. The drug, which notably is brain-permeable, acts to inhibit the kinase enzyme Cdk5.

Scientists from St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital uncovered how one type of T cell creates two genetically identical, but functionally different, daughter cells.