Immunology

How the thymus trains T cells to fight infections

T cells are a special class of white blood cells that patrol the body and attack infected or foreign tissue. They learn to distinguish friendly proteins from dangerous ones in an organ called the thymus. However, when T cells ...

Diabetes

Gut microbe peptide implicated in triggering type 1 diabetes

In type 1 diabetes, the body develops immune cells that target pancreatic beta cells, which play a critical role in the production and secretion of insulin. One of the earliest targets of this immune response is a specific ...

Medications

Marijuana plant might hold key to treating chronic inflammation

Several minor cannabinoids contained in the cannabis plant "strongly inhibit" the activation of human immune cells that lead to chronic inflammation, according to physiologists at The Queen's Medical Center and University ...

Medical research

Study reveals new mode of triggering immune responses

Small proteins, called chemokines, that direct immune cells toward sites of infection can also form DNA-bound nanoparticles that can induce chronic, dysfunctional immune responses, according to a new study by researchers ...

Arthritis & Rheumatism

How mitochondrial damage ignites the 'auto-inflammatory fire'

Mitochondria are self-contained organelles (they possess their own mini-chromosome and DNA) residing within cells and are charged with the job of generating the chemical energy needed to fuel functions essential to life and ...

Genetics

Scientists map networks of disease-associated immune genes

Using new technologies to study thousands of genes simultaneously within immune cells, researchers at Gladstone Institutes, UC San Francisco (UCSF), and Stanford School of Medicine have created the most detailed map yet of ...

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