Infection Control Today Magazine

Immune System

Drug Used to Boost Immune System Function in Critically Injured Children, May Prevent Infection

Thanks to funding from the National Institutes of Health, Nationwide Children’s Hospital will test the ability of a drug commonly used to improve immune function in pediatric cancer patients to help prevent hospital-acquired infection after severe trauma. It will be the ...More
October 11, 2011
Posted in News, Infections & Pathogens
Immune Cells Repair Damaged Lung Tissues After Flu Infection

Immuno-fluorescence staining in mouse inflamed lung tissue showing activated airway epithelial cells (green), infiltrating macrophages (red) and cell nuclei (blue). There's more than one way to mop up after a flu infection. Now, researchers from the Perelman School of ...More
October 3, 2011
Posted in News, Infections & Pathogens
Researchers Uncover Novel Mechanism for Preventing Infection Via Body's Mucosal Borders

Researchers at the La Jolla Institute for Allergy & Immunology have identified a previously unknown mechanism that generates protective immune memory cells to fight recurring infections at the body's mucosal linings – which include the mouth, the intestines, the lungs ...More
October 3, 2011
Posted in News, Infections & Pathogens
Research Yields Unprecedented Insight into Antiviral Immune Response

The study, "Structural basis of RNA recognition and activation by innate immune receptor RIG-I," was chosen for advanced online publication in Nature on September 25, 2011, and can be found online at: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature10537.html ...More
September 27, 2011
Posted in News, Infections & Pathogens
Researchers Discover How 'Promiscuous' Parasites Hijack Host Immune Cells

Toxoplasma gondii parasites can invade your bloodstream, break into your brain and prompt behavioral changes from recklessness to neuroticism. These highly contagious protozoa infect more than half the world's population, and most people's immune systems never purge the ...More
September 21, 2011
Posted in News, Infections & Pathogens
Scientists Crack Sparse Genome of Microbe Linked to Autoimmunity

Scientists have deciphered the genome of a bacterium implicated as a key player in regulating the immune system of mice. The genomic analysis provides the first glimpse of its unusually sparse genetic blueprint and offers hints about how it may activate a powerful immune ...More
September 14, 2011
Posted in News, Infections & Pathogens
Researchers Find Signals that Preserve the Production of Antiviral Antibodies

Our immune system is capable of a remarkable feat: the ability to remember infections for years, even decades, after they have first been encountered and defeated. While the antibodies we make last only about a month, we retain the means of making them for a lifetime. Until ...More
September 7, 2011
Posted in News, Infections & Pathogens
How Q Fever Invades and Replicates Inside Killer Immune Cells

As part of its life cycle Coxiella burnetii, the bacterial pathogen responsible for Q fever, replicates inside a membrane-bound compartment or "parasitophorous vacuole" (PV) within immune cells. The organism manipulates macrophages to create the PV as well as optimal ...More
September 1, 2011
Posted in News, Infections & Pathogens
Rare Immune Cell is Asset and Liability in Fighting Infection

The same trait that makes a rare immune cell invaluable in fighting some infections also can be exploited by other diseases to cause harm, two new studies show. ...More
August 27, 2011
Posted in News, Infections & Pathogens
Strengthening Fragile Immune Memories to Fight Chronic Infections

After recovering from the flu or another acute infection, your immune system is ready to react quickly if you run into the same virus again. White blood cells called memory T cells develop during the infection and help the immune system remember the virus and attack it if ...More
August 18, 2011
Posted in News, Infections & Pathogens

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