Immunology

Unexpected Role For Calcium In Tuberculosis

Many of us take a healthy immune system for granted. But for certain infants with rare, inherited mutations of certain genes, severe infection and death are stark consequences of their impaired immune responses. Now, researchers at NYU Langone Medical Cen ...

Article - News Staff - May 11 2015 - 10:00am

Shifting Migration Patterns Of Ticks Change Lyme Disease Patterns Also

Southern Indiana is an oasis free from Lyme disease, the condition most associated with the arachnids that are the second most common parasitic disease vector on Earth. But there are signs that this low-risk environment is changing, both in Indiana and in ...

Article - News Staff - May 14 2015 - 7:30am

Single Blood Markers For Disease Will Be A Thing Of The Past

A number of recent studies have reported on the use of biomarkers, particularly blood-based ones, that offer the potential for screening diseases such as cancer and HIV. A biomarker can be a gene, a gene mutation, protein, other molecule or clinical measu ...

Article - The Conversation - May 14 2015 - 8:00am

How Nigeria Beat The Ebola Virus In Three Months

The diagnosis of the first case of Ebola in Lagos, Nigeria in July last year set off alarm bells around the world. The fear was that it would trigger an apocalyptic epidemic that would make the outbreaks in Liberia, Sierra-Leone and Guinea, where 1322 cas ...

Article - The Conversation - May 18 2015 - 9:30am

Phage Spread Antibiotic Resistance

Investigators found that nearly half of the 50 chicken meat samples purchased from supermarkets, street markets, and butchers in Austria contained viruses that are capable of transferring antibiotic resistance genes from one bacterium to another- or from ...

Article - News Staff - May 18 2015 - 8:00am

Why Do We Need One Vaccine For Measles And A Yearly One For The Flu?

Measles needs only a two-dose vaccine during childhood for lifelong immunity while the influenza virus mutates constantly and requires a yearly shot to get even a certain percentage of protection. What explains that? Surface proteins that the measles virus ...

Article - News Staff - May 21 2015 - 11:54am

Soy Supplements Don't Help With Asthma Severity

The supplements industry has embraced claims suggesting a link between soy intake and decreased asthma severity,  but a randomized, double-blind study, where half of the participants took a soy isoflavone supplement twice daily for six months, and the othe ...

Article - News Staff - May 26 2015 - 11:04am

Evidence-Based Predictors Of Biphasic Allergic Reactions In Children

Children are more likely to have a repeat, delayed anaphylactic reaction from the same allergic cause, depending on the severity of the initial reaction.  Anaphylaxis is a severe, allergic reaction that is rapid in onset and can result in death. Some chil ...

Article - News Staff - Jun 28 2015 - 10:30am

You Are A Citizen Scientist Researcher In The Genetic Arms Race Between Humans And Mosquitoes

Every time you put on bug spray this summer, you're another front in the ongoing war between humans and mosquitoes- and being a citizen scientist in a complex evolutionary experiment. Scientists have found that between 5 and 20 percent of a mosquito ...

Article - News Staff - Jul 2 2015 - 10:30am

A Single Mutation Helped Last Year's Flu Virus Gain An Advantage Over The Vaccine

The 2014-2015 flu vaccine didn't work as well compared to previous years because the H3N2 virus recently acquired a mutation that concealed the infection from the immune system. A study published on June 25 in Cell Reports reveals the major viral mut ...

Article - News Staff - Jul 2 2015 - 10:14am