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Allergy and immunology news

Autoantibodies could shape cancer risk, growth and response to immunotherapy

Scientists have long sought to understand why some people with no known risk factors develop cancer while others with significant risk never do. The answer may lie in immune proteins known as autoantibodies (auto-Abs), suggests ...

Experimental plague vaccine strategy protects mice with missing key immune defenses

The plague has killed more people than World War II. The bacterium Yersinia pestis (Yp), which causes plague, has triggered three major pandemics throughout history, leaving behind a casualty toll of more than 200 million ...

Building a blueprint to manipulate the immune system

Why do some vaccines protect for a lifetime, while threats like tumors and viruses present such an ongoing challenge? The answer lies in the immune system's memory and how invading pathogens hack the system.

Long non-coding RNA emerges as a 'kill switch' for macrophages

Macrophages are considered the "scavenger cells" of the immune system, but some pathogens exploit these very cells as hiding places. Researchers from the Helmholtz Institute for RNA-based Infection Research (HIRI) in Würzburg ...

Key gut protein balances immune protection and tolerance

A protein produced by gut immune cells orchestrates both immune protection against pathogens and immune tolerance of gut bacteria, according to a study led by Weill Cornell Medicine investigators. The discovery illuminates ...

How immune cells in our gut mesentery fight salmonella

Widely recognized as the face of food poisoning, salmonella bacteria lurk in raw meat and poultry, on pets, and in unpasteurized dairy products. If untreated, extreme cases can lead to full-body infections, like typhoid fever. ...

Study reveals a distinct subtype of eosinophilic esophagitis

Researchers from Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago identified a distinct subtype of eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE)—a chronic allergic inflammatory disorder in which the esophagus narrows, interfering with ...

Resetting psoriasis memory may help body stop repeat flare-ups

Stress, bad weather, strep throat, alcohol or cuts—there are a number of triggers that can set off psoriasis. At the same time, a great deal is happening in research on this skin disease, and new ways of controlling the immune ...