Immunology

Vibrio Fischeri- The Gene That Lets Bacteria Jump From Host To Host

All life  depends on peaceful coexistence with a swarm of microbial life inside us that performs vital services from helping to convert food to energy to protection from disease.  With the help of a squid that uses a luminescent bacterium to create a preda ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 2 2009 - 1:03am

Fight Infections With Cannibalism

Whenever humans create a new antibiotic, deadly bacteria can counter it by turning into new, indestructible super-bugs. That's why bacterial infection is the number one killer in hospitals today. But new research from Tel Aviv University may give drug ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 2 2009 - 12:28pm

Comparative Genomics Uncovers Molecular Evolution Of Q Fever Pathogen

In the year of the 200th anniversary of the birth of Darwin, researchers using comparative genomics have uncovered genetic clues about why some strains of the pathogen that causes Q fever, Coxiella burnetii, are more virulent than others.   Relevant?   Wel ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 2 2009 - 3:58pm

How The Influenza Virus Hijacks Human Cells

Influenza is and remains a disease to reckon with. Seasonal epidemics around the world kill several hundred thousand people every year. In the light of looming pandemics if bird flu strains develop the ability to infect humans easily, new drugs and vaccine ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 4 2009 - 1:51pm

Taking On A Chickungunya Virus Vaccine

In recent decades, viral epidemics have risen in ferocity and quantity in continents around the globe. More and more people in not only places like Africa and South America, but also in Asia and parts of Europe have been affected by the spread of emergent ...

Article - Erin Richards - Feb 6 2009 - 12:51pm

Huntington's Disease- A Hereditary Illness Spread By Contamination?

Could a hereditary illness ever spread by contamination? Researchers at the CNRS Laboratoire d’enzymologie et biochimie structurales, studying Huntington’s disease in collaboration with Professor Ron Kopito’s team at Stanford University, have shown that th ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 10 2009 - 2:05pm

Vaccine/autism Link Gets Double Shot In The Arm

Parents and advocates who believe vaccines cause autism were dealt a double blow this week. On the scientific front, a discredited 1998 study that launched the vaccine-autism debate onto the forefront made headlines, and on the legal front, a special U.S. ...

Article - Becky Jungbauer - Mar 31 2010 - 4:38pm

Potential Bioterror Virus Virulence Mechanism Gets Uncovered

The Rift Valley fever virus is a mosquito-borne African virus that causes fever in humans, inflicting liver damage, blindness and even death on a small percentage of the people it infects. Rift Valley fever also afflicts cattle, goats and sheep, resulting ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 17 2009 - 10:17am

You Can Literally Get Sick Of Sex, Says Study

Want to get a lot of money thrown at immunology?   Show that sex can not only be exhausting, if you do it right, it can also cause drops in the immune system. According to a study in Journal of Evolutionary Biology, when fruit flies mate the females' ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 19 2009 - 1:26pm

What's Happening In Your Microbiome- The Secret Life Of Spit

Like it or not, your mouth is home to a thriving community of microbial life. More than 600 different species of bacteria reside in this "microbiome," yet everyone hosts a unique set of bugs, and this could have important implications for health ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 26 2009 - 6:10pm