Most current vaccines are administered through needles and syringes. Injections are given either subcutaneously (below the skin), intradermally (into the skin) or intramuscularly (into the muscle). However, the use of needles presents several disadvantages. For example, needle fears are a documented barrier to immunization in children and adults. It’s not surprising, then, that much research […]
Do you know about sleep? Do you know about the critical role it plays in your life? Do you know about the hazards of not getting enough sleep? You may think that not sleeping enough may make you tired, but there is much more to it. Insufficient sleep and poor sleep quality have negative effects […]
IgD, one of the five antibody classes, is considered an enigmatic player in the immune response—we do not understand well what it does. IgD is present on the cell surface of “mature naive” B cells as a major component of the B cell receptor, or BCR, and is secreted in very limited amounts in the […]
Tuberculosis, a preventable and curable disease, ranks alongside HIV infection/AIDS as a leading cause of death worldwide. Indeed, new data from the World Health Organization reveal that the global tuberculosis burden is higher than previously estimated. The risk of developing tuberculosis is between 26 and 31 times greater in people living with HIV than among […]
Dendritic cells and T lymphocytes play together to ensure immunological tolerance—a functional state in which T lymphocytes are unable to respond to certain antigens. Why is immunological tolerance necessary? The answer is simple: T lymphocytes must be able to direct their destructive potential to infected cells and cancer cells while, at the same time, avoiding […]
Macrophages—the big eaters of the immune system—reside in most tissues. They’re plastic, and change their function depending on the environmental cues they receive. Therefore, they play many different roles. Results from a new study highlight one of these new roles, until now unknown—macrophages grab the broken ends of blood vessels and stick them back together. […]
Innate immunity, the first line of defense against infectious pathogens and cancer cells, relies on a variety of cell types to carry out its pathogen-fighting and clean-up functions. Resident cells present in most tissues serve as sentinels, detect danger signals and send for help. Phagocytic cells—such as macrophages and neutrophils—respond to the call, infiltrate the […]
During the past year, Zika virus has been moving north from Brazil into the Caribbean—bringing along several cases of microcephaly, a genetic defect characterized by small heads and brain damage in newborns. Indeed, infections caused by Zika virus are linked to microcephaly in children born to infected mothers, and to Guillain-Barré syndrome, a form of […]
“When a wound swells up, turns red and hurts, it may be a sign of inflammation. Inflammation is—very generally speaking—the body’s immune system’s response to stimulus. This can be bacteria colonizing a wound or a splinter piercing your finger, for example. Inflammation happens when the immune system fights against something that may turn out to […]
The microbiome is made up of dynamic communities of trillion microbes, and consists of eukaryotes, archaea (primitive single-celled organisms), bacteria and viruses that reside on and in our bodies. These microbes complement each other and the human host, and play important roles in a variety of biological processes. Indeed, 0ur microbial partners carry out a […]