Immunology

Antibiotics A Potential Mechanism For Autoimmunity

The code for every gene includes a message at the end of it that signals the translation machinery to stop but diseases like cystic fibrosis and Duchenne muscular dystrophy can result from mutations that insert this stop signal into the middle of an essen ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 1 2014 - 3:30am

Unvaccinated Infants Fuel Epidemics

In unvaccinated hotbeds like California and New York, rich elites rely on 'herd immunity' to protect their children- poor families will get the vaccines and protect the rich ones. That's why in those states, easily preventable diseases have ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 1 2014 - 8:50pm

Study Helps Unravel The Tangled Origin Of Lou Gehrig's Disease

After playing in every game for some 14 years in baseball, Lou Gehrig of the New York Yankees- "The Iron Horse"- took himself out of the lineup because his manager wouldn't. He had been dropping balls, unable to get to routine plays, hittin ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 4 2014 - 9:45pm

Antibiotics In Manure Implicated In Human Pathogenic Bacteria In Soil

Researchers have have found that the repeated application of manure contaminated with antibiotics changes the composition of bacteria in the soil. The focus of the investigation was on sulfadiazine (SDZ), a widely used antibiotic in animal husbandry which ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 5 2014 - 10:11am

Elafin Protein Discovery May Mean Treatment For Celiac Disease

The human protein Elafin plays a key role against the inflammatory reaction typical of Celiac disease and researchers have developed a probiotic bacterium able to deliver Elafin in the gut of mice. Celiac disease is an auto-immune pathology that occurs in ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 8 2014 - 8:02pm

Ménière's Disease: New Insight Into Rare Inner Ear Condition

Ménière's Disease is a rare condition affecting the inner ear.  It can cause tinnitus, hearing loss, vertigo attacks and a feeling of pressure deep within the ear and is a long term but non-fatal illness, making it low profile in scientific community ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 15 2014 - 6:30pm

Antibiotics Improve Health Of Children In Developing Countries

Antibiotics improve growth in children at risk of undernourishment in low and middle income countries, according to a literature review in the British Medical Journal. Malnutrition in early childhood, reflected in poor growth, is the cause of nearly half ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 15 2014 - 7:30pm

New MRSA Superbug In Brazil

An international research team has identified a new superbug that caused a bloodstream infection in a Brazilian patient. The new superbug is part of a class of highly-resistant bacteria known as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus or MRSA, which i ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 17 2014 - 12:39pm

Malaria Pathogen's Cellular Skeleton Gets A Super-Microscope Look

The tropical disease malaria is caused by the Plasmodium parasite. For its survival and propagation, Plasmodium requires a protein called actin. Scientists of the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) in Germany used high-resolution structural bio ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 17 2014 - 9:34pm

Where Did The The Pandemic Flu Virus Of 1918 Come From?

One of the foremost biomedical mysteries of the past century is the origin of the 1918 pandemic flu virus and its unusual severity, which resulted in a death toll of approximately 50 million people.  A new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 29 2014 - 12:30pm