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Allergy and immunology news

Disease tolerance research points to treatments that limit infection damage instead of killing microbes

Two identical mice experience the same deadly infection. One survives, while the other dies. Why? Scientists long thought the answer lay in the pathogen burden—the amount of harmful bacteria present in the body. They assumed ...

Lung tumor bacteria plus vitamin B2 metabolite may boost immune response to cancer

Bacteria in lung tumors may boost the activation of innate immune cells in the presence of a common vitamin metabolite, according to a preclinical study by researchers from the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center and its Bloomberg~Kimmel ...

Math and medicine join forces to solve a cancer mystery

Immunotherapy has transformed outcomes for many cancer patients. Unlike conventional treatments, these therapies do not attack tumors directly. Instead, they enable the body's immune system to identify and kill cancer cells ...

Newly found 'immune organ' inside skull directs brain defense

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have discovered lymph node-like structures in the skull bone marrow of mice for the first time and demonstrated that they act as rapid first responders ...

Does your immune system learn like AI?

Could AI hold the key to answering questions that have stumped doctors and scientists for decades? A recent study at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) borrows concepts from machine learning to address an age-old riddle ...

An immune defect that may set Crohn's disease in motion

Crohn's disease, a condition characterized by widespread inflammation in the gut, may arise from a weakened immune response, according to new research from the University of Toronto's Temerty Faculty of Medicine.

New approach opens rare immune cells to genetic risk research

Much of how genetic risk leads to disease has remained hidden. In many cases, genetic variants linked to disease do not act on nearby genes along the chromosome. Instead, they influence genes located far away along the DNA ...

Your nose may be the gateway to a stronger immune system

At the moment, an influenza vaccine called FluMist is the only licensed intranasal vaccine approved for use in humans. The vaccine is administered through a spray of fluid in the nose, rather than with an injection.

Unleashing natural killer cells against cancer

Scientists have developed a strategy to boost the cancer-fighting power of natural killer (NK) cells, part of the immune system's first line of defense. NK cells can detect and destroy cancer cells, but tumors often create ...