http://www.physorg.com/ en-us Physorg.com internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. In acute ischemic stroke, the blood supply to the brain is restricted. Initially, brain cells die from lack of oxygen. In addition, ischemia activates harmful inflammatory processes in the affected area of the brain. For the first time, scientists at the Neurology Clinic at Heidelberg University Hospital have shown that certain immune cells in the blood inhibit inflammation after a stroke. These cells are known as regulatory T lymphocytes (Treg). The regulator cytokine Interleukin 10 plays an important role in this protection, perhaps offering a new approach to stroke therapy. The study has now been published in Nature Medicine. http://www.physorg.com/news159098558.html Medicine & Health Thu, 16 Apr 2009 11:03:00 EST news159098558 The parasite Trypanosoma brucei, which causes African sleeping sickness, is like a thief donning a disguise. Every time the host's immune cells get close to destroying the parasite, it escapes detection by rearranging its DNA and changing its appearance. Now, in research to appear in the advance online April 15 issue of Nature, two laboratories at Rockefeller University have joined forces to reveal how the parasite initiates its getaway, by cleaving both strands of its DNA. http://www.physorg.com/news159022189.html Biology Wed, 15 Apr 2009 13:50:17 EST news159022189 Begin treatment as early as possible: this general common sense rule seems to apply to most diseases except HIV-AIDS, which is only treated once a certain number of immune cells called "CD4+" cells have disappeared. The results of a North American study, which involved the team of Dr. Marina Klein of the Research Institute of the MUHC, run contrary to this consensus. The findings show that the risk of death in seropositive patients decreases by 69% to 94% if they start treatment earlier than officially recommended. http://www.physorg.com/news158928364.html Medicine & Health Tue, 14 Apr 2009 11:46:54 EST news158928364 Australian scientists have made a discovery that may one day remove the need for a lifetime of toxic immunosuppressive drugs after organ transplants. http://www.physorg.com/news158329558.html Medicine & Health Tue, 07 Apr 2009 13:26:25 EST news158329558 An inflammatory factor already linked to several diseases, including pulmonary disease, lung cancer, and arthritis, may also be responsible for the insulin resistance that comes with obesity, according to a new study published in the April issue of Cell Metabolism, a Cell Press publication. http://www.physorg.com/news158327353.html Medicine & Health Tue, 07 Apr 2009 12:50:24 EST news158327353 Damage to patients' immune systems is happening sooner now than it did at the beginning of the HIV epidemic, suggesting the virus has become more virulent, according to a new study in the May 1, 2009 issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases, now available online. http://www.physorg.com/news158321117.html Medicine & Health Tue, 07 Apr 2009 11:05:38 EST news158321117 (PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers at the University of Rochester have developed a novel optical technique that permits rapid analysis of single human immune cells using only light. http://www.physorg.com/news157824159.html Physics Wed, 01 Apr 2009 17:03:17 EST news157824159 Microglia, immune cells in the brain, is suggested to be involved in the repair of damaged brain, like a medical doctor. However, it is completely unknown how microglia diagnoses damaged circuits in an in vivo brain. Japanese group led by Professor Junichi Nabekura and Dr Hiroaki Wake of National Institute for Physiological Sciences, NIPS, Japan, successfully took a live image how microglia surveys the synapses in the intact and ischemic brains of mice by using two-photon microscopic technology. They report their finding in Journal of Neuroscience on April 1, 2009. http://www.physorg.com/news157739552.html Medicine & Health Tue, 31 Mar 2009 17:32:58 EST news157739552 A new study published as the cover article for the April 2009 issue of The FASEB Journal promises to give physicians new ways to reduce deadly responses to viral infections of the brain and spinal cord. In the report, scientists from Columbia University, NY, detail for the first time the chemical processes that star-shaped nerve cells, called astrocytes, use to handle invading viruses and to summon other immune cells to cause life-threatening inflammation. http://www.physorg.com/news157713299.html Medicine & Health Tue, 31 Mar 2009 10:15:23 EST news157713299 Researchers at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, and at Ghent University in Ghent, Belgium, have identified a new role for certain lung cells in the immune response to airborne allergens. Many foreign substances, called antigens, are inhaled daily, but the lungs have mechanisms that usually prevent people from making unwanted immune responses to these materials. http://www.physorg.com/news157633193.html Medicine & Health Mon, 30 Mar 2009 12:00:37 EST news157633193 For some people it is a certainty: as soon as the annual flu season gets underway, they are sure to go down with it. It is little comfort to know that there are other people who are apparently resistant to flu or overcome the illness after just a couple of days. It is this phenomenon that is now being investigated by researchers at the Helmholtz Center for Infection Research, using various strains of mice. http://www.physorg.com/news157285267.html Biology Thu, 26 Mar 2009 11:21:39 EST news157285267 Detectives on television shows often spray crime scenes with a compound called luminol to make blood glow. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have applied the same compound to much smaller crime scenes: sites where the immune system attacks the body's own tissues. http://www.physorg.com/news156952089.html Medicine & Health Sun, 22 Mar 2009 14:49:27 EST news156952089 Influenza, or flu, is an unpleasant affair with fever, cough, as well as head and body ache. When this illness is further complicated by a bacterial pneumonia, a harmful super-infection develops. Until now, researchers thought that the flu facilitates an infection with pneumonia bacteria because it leads to a decrease of immune cells in the blood and thus impairs the body's defenses. http://www.physorg.com/news156514812.html Medicine & Health Tue, 17 Mar 2009 13:50:13 EST news156514812 USA300--the major epidemic strain of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) causing severe infections in the United States during the past decade--inherits its destructiveness directly from a forefather strain of the bacterium called USA500 rather than randomly acquiring harmful genes from other MRSA strains. This finding comes from a new study led by scientists at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health. http://www.physorg.com/news156512182.html Medicine & Health Tue, 17 Mar 2009 12:39:13 EST news156512182 Immune cells once thought to be innocent bystanders in cystic fibrosis may hold the key to stopping patients' fatal lung disease. New findings from the Stanford University School of Medicine and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital show that white blood cells called neutrophils respond strongly to conflicting signals from cystic fibrosis patients' lungs, setting up a molecular fracas that may explain the patients' severe lung damage. http://www.physorg.com/news156446148.html Medicine & Health Mon, 16 Mar 2009 18:16:15 EST news156446148 Many scientists believe a vaccine that prevents HIV infection will need to stimulate the body to make neutralizing antibodies, infection-fighting proteins that prevent HIV from entering immune cells. Previous research has shown that some individuals who control HIV infection without medication naturally produce antibodies able to neutralize diverse strains of HIV. Until now, however, scientists were hampered in studying the way effective HIV-neutralizing antibodies arise during natural HIV infection because scientists lacked the tools to obtain more than a few HIV-specific antibodies from any given individual. http://www.physorg.com/news156428787.html Medicine & Health Mon, 16 Mar 2009 13:26:47 EST news156428787 (PhysOrg.com) -- For 25 years, researchers have tried and failed to develop an HIV vaccine, primarily by focusing on a small number of engineered "super antibodies" to fend off the virus before it takes hold. So far, these magic bullet antibodies have proved impossible to produce in people. Now, in research to be published March 15 online by Nature, scientists at The Rockefeller University have laid out a new approach. They have identified a diverse team of antibodies in "slow-progressing" HIV patients whose coordinated pack hunting knocks down the virus just as well as their super-antibody cousins fighting solo. http://www.physorg.com/news156346918.html Medicine & Health Sun, 15 Mar 2009 14:42:37 EST news156346918 Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have identified a key protein that is required for immune cells called B lymphocytes to divide and replicate themselves. The rapid generation of large numbers of these immune cells is critical to the body's antibody defense mechanism. However, when B cells grow unchecked, it can lead to immune cell cancers such as multiple myeloma or, when they grow to attack the wrong targets, to autoimmune disease. By discovering the role of the CD98hc protein, scientists may find new therapy targets for such diseases. http://www.physorg.com/news155749323.html Medicine & Health Sun, 08 Mar 2009 16:42:28 EST news155749323 We usually think of fish as a "heart-healthy" food. Now fish are helping researchers better understand how heart disease develops in studies that could lead to new drugs to slow disease and prevent heart attacks. http://www.physorg.com/news155495877.html Medicine & Health Thu, 05 Mar 2009 17:18:28 EST news155495877 It's called the obesity paradox. Although obese people are more apt to suffer from inflammatory diseases, such as diabetes, heart disease, and stroke, they are also more likely to survive a major attack caused by one of those conditions. http://www.physorg.com/news154882304.html Medicine & Health Thu, 26 Feb 2009 14:52:58 EST news154882304 By studying how mice fight off infection by intestinal worms - a condition that affects more than 1 billion people worldwide - scientists have discovered that the immune system is more versatile than has long been thought. The work with worms is opening a new avenue of exploration in the search for treatments against autoimmune diseases like diabetes and asthma, where the body mistakenly attacks its own tissues. http://www.physorg.com/news154879979.html Medicine & Health Thu, 26 Feb 2009 14:13:30 EST news154879979 Millions of "natural killer cells" -- nature's first line of defense against cancer, viruses and other infectious microbes --- are on constant patrol inside your body. http://www.physorg.com/news154541184.html Medicine & Health Sun, 22 Feb 2009 16:07:11 EST news154541184 A study led by researchers at the University of Illinois reveals how a cellular protein recognizes an invading virus and alerts the body to the infection. http://www.physorg.com/news154278336.html Biology Thu, 19 Feb 2009 15:06:15 EST news154278336 (PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers at North Carolina State University have discovered that the good bacteria found in dairy products and linked to positive health benefits in the human body might also be an effective vehicle for an oral vaccine that can provide immunity to anthrax exposure. The approach could possibly be used to deliver any number of specific vaccines that could block other types of viruses and pathogens. http://www.physorg.com/news154117517.html Medicine & Health Tue, 17 Feb 2009 18:26:22 EST news154117517 New animal research in the February 18 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience may indicate how certain diseases make people feel so tired and listless. Although the brain is usually isolated from the immune system, the study suggests that certain behavioral changes suffered by those with chronic inflammatory diseases are caused by the infiltration of immune cells into the brain. The findings suggest possible new treatment avenues to improve patients' quality of life. http://www.physorg.com/news154116153.html Medicine & Health Tue, 17 Feb 2009 18:02:58 EST news154116153 (PhysOrg.com) -- In 1973, Ralph M. Steinman launched a new scientific discipline when he published his discovery of the dendritic cell, an odd-shaped player in the immune system. Since then, dendritic cells have proved to be critical sentinels on the lookout for foreign invaders, involved in early immune responses such as graft rejection, resistance to tumors and autoimmune diseases. Now it appears they need to be considered in research on arterial and heart function, too, according to new experiments to be published February 16 in The Journal of Experimental Medicine. http://www.physorg.com/news154111447.html Medicine & Health Tue, 17 Feb 2009 16:44:42 EST news154111447 To prevent the rejection of newly transplanted organs and cells, patients must take medicines that weaken their entire immune systems. Such potentially life-saving treatments can, paradoxically, leave those receiving them susceptible to life-threatening infections. http://www.physorg.com/news153572957.html Medicine & Health Wed, 11 Feb 2009 11:10:16 EST news153572957 (PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers have generated altered immune cells that are able to shrink, and in some cases eradicate, large tumors in mice. The immune cells target mesothelin, a protein that is highly expressed, or translated in large amounts from the mesothelin gene, on the surface of several types of cancer cells. The approach, developed by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and the National Cancer Institute (NCI), shows promise in the development of immunotherapies for certain tumors. The study appears online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. http://www.physorg.com/news153513867.html Medicine & Health Tue, 10 Feb 2009 18:45:10 EST news153513867 New research reveals a model of host-pathogen interaction that explains how the immune system finds and destroys cells infected with a potentially lethal brain virus. The study, published online on February 5th in Immunity, a Cell Press publication, may lead to new treatments for West Nile virus (WNV) and other similar viral infections. http://www.physorg.com/news153059154.html Medicine & Health Thu, 05 Feb 2009 12:26:33 EST news153059154 Researchers at the Centenary Institute in Sydney have discovered a molecule on the surface of immune cells which plays a critical role in cancer rejection. http://www.physorg.com/news152975033.html Medicine & Health Wed, 04 Feb 2009 13:04:17 EST news152975033