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Novel technique could propel personalized treatments for cancer

When it comes to defeating cancer, some immune cells are mightier than others. But even the best-trained eye and today's advanced scientific tools have trouble discerning the most powerful tumor-fighting cells from the rest.

23 Oct 2020

Study finds how long SARS-CoV-2 survives on surfaces in the food supply chain

From the delivery of an Amazon package to ordering takeout food, people touch a multitude of surfaces every day, leaving behind residue, germs, and more.

21 Oct 2020

New DNA-cutting tool could advance gene editing for novel treatments

Gene editing for the development of new treatments, and for studying disease as well as normal function in humans and other organisms, may advance more quickly with a new tool for cutting larger pieces of DNA out of a cell's genome, according to a new study by UC San Francisco scientists.

21 Oct 2020

Study explores the impact of microbial immune diversity on dynamics of host-virus interactions

CRISPR-Cas serves as a key driving force of strain diversity in host-virus systems during an evolutionary fight between the host and virus.

21 Oct 2020

Cheese-ripening bacteria respond to volatile gases produced by fungi

Scientists have discovered that fungi use many ways to interact with bacteria and one of these methods is through the smells emitted by cheese.

19 Oct 2020

Study shows antibody levels drop rapidly in recovering COVID-19 patients

The lack of effective treatments for COVID-19 is forcing hospitals to use blood plasma from recovering patients to treat those who have severe symptoms.

19 Oct 2020

Researchers develop new approach to reduce plastic waste produced in laboratories

A research group developed an approach to reduce plastic waste produced by their lab. They have shared their approach with the hope that other labs will follow suit.

16 Oct 2020

Lymphocytes play crucial role in controlling virus shedding in asymptomatic COVID-19 patients

COVID-19 remains stubbornly inconsistent. More than a million people have died and 35 million have been diagnosed, but a large fraction of people infected with the coronavirus--about 45%, according to recent estimates--show no symptoms at all.

15 Oct 2020

Treatment using immune system T cells preserves vision of mice with retinoblastoma

A treatment that uses immune system T cells, combined with an immune-boosting drug packaged in an injectable gel, was found to preserve the vision of mice implanted with tissue from a human eye cancer known as retinoblastoma.

13 Oct 2020

Scientists develop new antimicrobial molecules from toxic proteins in wasp venom

A team led by scientists in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania has engineered powerful new antimicrobial molecules from toxic proteins found in wasp venom.

13 Oct 2020

Scientists develop UK Crop Microbiome Cyrobank to facilitate sustainable yield improvement

Scientists from the UK's foremost agricultural research institutes have teamed up to create a new UK Crop Microbiome Cyrobank (UK-CMCB) to safeguard future research and facilitate the sustainable yield improvement of the UK's six major food crops including barley, oats, oil seed rape, potato, sugar beet and wheat.

12 Oct 2020

Researchers investigate how mining activities affect deep seafloor food web

The deep sea is far away and hard to envision. If imagined it seems like a cold and hostile place. However, this remote habitat is directly connected to our lives, as it forms an important part of the global carbon cycle.

9 Oct 2020

Immune cell biomarker may help identify patients at risk for graft-versus-host disease

A recent report published in Science Translational Medicine by MUSC Hollings Cancer Center investigator Sophie Paczesny, M.D., Ph.D., sheds light on immune cell biomarkers that may reveal which patients are most at risk for graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), a life-threatening condition that can arise after hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) for treatment of liquid cancers such as leukemia.

8 Oct 2020

Study offers new treatment strategies for HIV

According to a new study, immune cells that can detect residual HIV-infected cells in patients living with HIV and undergoing ART continue to remain active.

8 Oct 2020

Grant awarded to study how plants affect microbiomes

For centuries, scientists have worked above ground, studying plants and their effect on biodiversity.

7 Oct 2020

Study finds how the malaria parasite can withstand fever's heat

Even when a person suffering from malaria is burning up with fever and too sick to function, the tiny blood-eating parasites lurking inside them continue to flourish, relentlessly growing and multiplying as they gobble up the host's red blood cells.

6 Oct 2020

Researchers identify a promising treatment for COVID-19 infection

An effective method for treating the 2003 SARS epidemic, also works on the closely associated SARS-CoV-2 virus.

5 Oct 2020

Study unravels how immunotherapy is 'uniquely suppressed' by liver cancers

Though cancer immunotherapy has become a promising standard-of-care treatment--and in some cases, perhaps a cure--for a wide variety of different cancers, it doesn't work for everyone, and researchers have increasingly turned their attention to understanding why.

5 Oct 2020

Researchers map genetic networks controlling human regulatory T cell identity

Unlike most T cells, which launch immune responses against foreign molecules, regulatory T cells are the peacekeepers of the human immune system, damping down inflammatory reactions when they're not needed.

5 Oct 2020

New antibodies could form the basis of a broad-spectrum flu drug

Researchers have identified two antibodies that protect mice against lethal infections of influenza B virus, report scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

25 Sep 2020