https://medicalxpress.com/immunology-news/ en-us Latest medical news and research in Allergy and immunology In a study published in Science, researchers from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center have developed a spatial atlas of specialized immune structures, called tertiary lymphoid structures (TLSs), across multiple cancer types. This first-of-its-kind atlas revealed that TLS maturation state, spatial location and composition within tumors may provide clinically meaningful information about cancer prognosis and treatment response. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-05-ai-powered-atlas-reveals-insights.html Thu, 28 May 2026 17:40:03 EDT news699207601 Researchers at Trinity College Dublin have identified key differences in how immune cells generate and use energy, a process known as cellular metabolism, in people with latent versus active tuberculosis (TB). The findings offer new insights into why some individuals control infection while others develop disease. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-05-immune-energy-signature-linked-tuberculosis.html Thu, 28 May 2026 15:20:05 EDT news699198841 Long regarded as cells involved primarily in allergic responses and antiparasitic defense, eosinophils are now drawing increasing attention in oncology. A review article led by Marie Gilon, an oncology resident physician and Ph.D. candidate at the University of Liège, synthesizes current knowledge on how these white blood cells interact with tumor biology and may inform the clinical management of cancer patients. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-05-unexpected-allies-eosinophils-cancer-immunotherapy.html Thu, 28 May 2026 13:40:06 EDT news699191101 A Mount Sinai-led research team has demonstrated that autoimmunity, in which the body's immune system attacks its own tissues, is responsible for the often-debilitating and confounding symptoms of long COVID in a subset of people. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-05-scientists-validate-link-autoimmunity-covid.html Thu, 28 May 2026 11:00:05 EDT news699120421 Why do some people recover easily from bacterial infections while others rapidly deteriorate into life-threatening sepsis? According to a new study published in Nature Communications, the answer may lie not only in the invading pathogen itself, but also in the microorganisms already living inside the gut. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-05-gut-microbe-worsen-sepsis-triggering.html Thu, 28 May 2026 09:40:06 EDT news699178321 Trillions of microorganisms live in the human gut, collectively forming the gut microbiome. They support important bodily functions, including digestion, metabolism, and the immune system. While this microbial community remains stable for many years, it often becomes unbalanced with age: diversity declines, certain microorganisms gain the upper hand, and the risk of inflammation increases. Why the gut microbiome loses its balance with age is one of the central unanswered questions in aging research. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-05-aging-immune-gut-microbiome.html Wed, 27 May 2026 17:20:04 EDT news699114602 Valley Fever, technically known as Coccidioidomycosis, is a dust-borne fungal infection that occurs in dry regions like the southwestern US and is proliferating in California and Arizona. California alone spends $1 billion a year on treatment. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-05-immune-modulation-effectively-combat-valley.html Wed, 27 May 2026 11:40:25 EDT news699093541 The overuse of antibiotics is increasingly leading to the emergence of infectious superbugs—dangerous bacteria that have developed antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and are therefore much harder, if not impossible, to eliminate from the body. In a review published in Trends in Immunology, researchers highlight the promise of using human monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) to treat patients more effectively and tackle AMR. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-05-human-monoclonal-antibodies-antimicrobial-resistance.html Wed, 27 May 2026 11:00:08 EDT news699026224 A new LMU study shows how different immune cells variously influence the formation of dangerous vascular deposits—and identifies miR-147 as a potential starting point for future therapies. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-05-inflammation-worsen-artery-plaque.html Wed, 27 May 2026 10:01:08 EDT news699092837 While we tend to quickly forget having been ill or having received a vaccine, the immune system remembers remarkably well. It has memory B cells—"trained" immune cells that circulate throughout the body in search of harmful invaders they have encountered previously; these cells can rapidly deploy targeted weapons when faced with a pathogen again. Now, researchers from Prof. Ziv Shulman's laboratory at the Weizmann Institute of Science report that activated memory B cells can also recognize an internal enemy: cancer cells. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-05-immune-memory-cells-ovarian-cancer.html Tue, 26 May 2026 13:00:05 EDT news699016382 At age 49, Jan Janisch-Hanzlik's multiple sclerosis was destroying her freedom to live the life she wanted. She gave up her active nursing job for a desk role. Frequent falls made her afraid to carry her grandchildren. She had to move to a bigger house to make room for the wheelchair she feared she might end up needing full-time. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-05-car-cancer-autoimmune-disease-immune.html Tue, 26 May 2026 11:40:01 EDT news699012782 Researchers have discovered how part of the body's immune system could better combat a leading cause of death for people with cystic fibrosis (CF). A team led by The University of Queensland's Professor Peter Sly and Dr. Abdullah Tarique has identified how macrophages—the white blood cells that fight infection in the body—function differently in people with CF, compared to others. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-05-pac-cells-deadly-infection-people.html Tue, 26 May 2026 08:40:03 EDT news699002822 A study led by researchers at the Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares (CNIC) has identified a mitochondrial checkpoint that enables dendritic cells to efficiently activate T lymphocytes against viruses and tumors. Dendritic cells are immune cells that detect threats and activate the body's defenses, acting as sentinels that instruct T lymphocytes on what to attack. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-05-mitochondria-immune-cell-effectiveness-immunotherapy.html Fri, 22 May 2026 14:00:02 EDT news698596501 Not all broken genes fail in the same way: some simply stop working, while others interfere with what still works. Researchers from Hiroshima University have identified a critical boundary within the immune-regulating gene called RELA that helps predict how harmful mutations cause disease. Their findings could improve diagnosis and treatment for patients with a rare inherited inflammatory disease. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-05-key-gene-boundary-discovery-treatment.html Fri, 22 May 2026 10:40:02 EDT news698664601 In a new study published in Nature Immunology, researchers at Boston Children's Hospital demonstrated that pairing the original COVID-19 mRNA vaccine with an immune system enhancer, known as an adjuvant, improved the duration of the vaccine's protection in mice. The combo also showed a more pronounced response against omicron viral components than the vaccine alone. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-05-covid-mrna-vaccine-immune-boosters.html Fri, 22 May 2026 05:00:04 EDT news698572864 Immunotherapy for cancer works like a guided missile, directing the body's immune cells toward tumor cells. However, not all immune cells respond to the call to attack, and this can lead to variability in treatment responses. As immune cell response is a critical factor in the likelihood of overcoming the disease, understanding why is paramount. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-05-elite-immune-cells-multiple-myeloma.html Thu, 21 May 2026 20:20:01 EDT news698572645 Scientists at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research have captured, for the first time, "housekeeping" immune cells actively attacking and engulfing live melanoma cells—a discovery that could change the way we approach treatment for one of Australia's most common and deadly cancers. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-05-scientists-capture-housekeeping-immune-cells.html Thu, 21 May 2026 16:00:07 EDT news698571781 Researchers at The George Washington University, working with Weill Cornell Medicine, have identified specific gut bacteria linked to better responses to cancer immunotherapy in patients with advanced melanoma. The study analyzed data from 678 patients across seven previous studies, all treated with immune checkpoint inhibitors—a type of therapy that can be highly effective in treating certain cancers, but does not work for everyone. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-05-gut-bacteria-linked-immunotherapy-success.html Thu, 21 May 2026 15:50:01 EDT news698596441 Scientists at La Jolla Institute for Immunology (LJI) have discovered that combining key vaccine ingredients could give the body the tools it needs to fight the entire family of arenaviruses with a single vaccine. This "pan-arenavirus" vaccine approach may protect against life-threatening infections from Lassa virus, Junin virus, and many other arenaviruses with pandemic potential. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-05-scientists-harness-cells-combat-entire.html Thu, 21 May 2026 11:20:06 EDT news698576629 A newly developed microscopy technique allows, for the first time, the visualization of more than 30 protein markers simultaneously in the human brain and uses bioinformatics to analyze their spatial relationships. In the process, the researchers have discovered a previously unknown population of immune cells in the brains of Alzheimer's patients that is found almost exclusively in the vicinity of a specific type of pathological protein deposit. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-05-technique-previously-unknown-population-immune.html Wed, 20 May 2026 14:20:02 EDT news698500470 Immunotherapy could be a promising new treatment option for patients with difficult-to-treat depression. This is a key finding from a University of Bristol-led pilot randomized controlled clinical trial, published in JAMA Psychiatry. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-05-trial-anti-inflammatory-drug-difficult.html Wed, 20 May 2026 11:00:04 EDT news698492101 As tumors outgrow their blood and nutrient supplies, or respond to treatments like chemotherapy and radiotherapy, individual cancer cells die, exposing their internal scaffolds. These dead cells are an abundant source of mutated proteins, or antigens, that can mark cancer cells as different from healthy ones. This is exactly what the immune system needs to recognize a tumor. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-05-dead-tumor-cells-chemotherapy-radiotherapy.html Wed, 20 May 2026 08:20:01 EDT news698480102 Most people living with severe asthma are also battling other health conditions that go under the radar, a major new study has found. Researchers analyzing data from thousands of patients discovered that the additional illnesses—which range from obesity to osteoporosis—tend to appear in clusters. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-05-severe-asthma-links-recurring-illness.html Tue, 19 May 2026 19:00:04 EDT news698401195 The most common white blood cells in your body—immune cells called neutrophils—can make a protein nobody knew they were making, Stanford Medicine investigators have discovered. That unexpected sighting joins a growing list of hints tying schizophrenia, a disorder of the brain, to events occurring elsewhere in our bodies. The findings are summarized in a paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-05-neutrophils-schizophrenia-linked-protein.html Tue, 19 May 2026 18:00:07 EDT news698428441 CAR T-cell therapy is considered a milestone in personalized cancer treatment. In this approach, a patient's own immune cells are genetically modified to recognize and destroy tumor cells. While it has already shown impressive success in certain blood cancers, its effectiveness against solid tumors has so far been limited. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-05-key-protein-immune-cell-exhaustion.html Tue, 19 May 2026 16:40:02 EDT news698423521 Calcium is widely known for its role in maintaining strong bones and teeth, but it is also one of the body's most important cellular messengers. Calcium signals help regulate muscle contraction, neural function, immune cell activation and many other physiological processes. Because cells rely on calcium signals to decide when and how strongly to respond, the movement of calcium must be tightly controlled. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-05-newly-peptides-safer-immunotherapies.html Tue, 19 May 2026 15:40:05 EDT news698419681 Researchers at the Francis Crick Institute have revealed that sensory nerve signals interfere with the immune system's response to lung cancer. This previously unrecognized neuroimmune connection could be targeted to improve responses to immunotherapy. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-05-nervous-lung-cancer-evade-immune.html Tue, 19 May 2026 15:00:02 EDT news698416083 Researchers have discovered a new method to boost the body's natural ability to fight respiratory viruses, including respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), one of the leading causes of severe lung infections worldwide. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-05-body-defense-respiratory-viruses.html Tue, 19 May 2026 14:40:01 EDT news698415902 Inflammatory bowel diseases occur when the delicate balance between the gut, the immune system, and the microbiota is disrupted. Until now, however, it was unclear whether harmful microbes or defects in the body's own immune cells were the primary cause of these diseases. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-05-links-mitochondrial-lipid-deficiency-inflammation.html Mon, 18 May 2026 19:20:06 EDT news698342521 Chemotherapy can be life-saving for many patients, but not all tumors respond—and some that do, may eventually become resistant. Investigators at Houston Methodist have identified a possible explanation for this resistance, offering new insight into why certain cancers evade treatment. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-05-chemotherapy-backfire-immune-shift-tumor.html Mon, 18 May 2026 18:20:06 EDT news698341621