Scientists at the University of Cambridge have discovered that a type of white blood cell - called a regulatory T cell - exists as a single large population of cells that constantly move throughout the body looking for, and repairing, damaged tissue.
Adrian Liston, Professor of Pathology at the University of Cambridge, talks about our extraordinary immune system ahead of his event, Diversity in the immune system on 20th March.
Cambridge researchers have discovered how T cells – an important component of our immune system – are able to keep on killing as they hunt down and kill cancer cells, repeatedly reloading their toxic weapons.
The University of Cambridge and Royal Papworth Hospital have secured £1.5million of funding as part of the national effort by UK immunologists to understand immune responses to SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.
People with heart disease are more likely to suffer from depression, and the opposite is also true. Now, scientists at the University of Cambridge believe they have identified a link between these two conditions: inflammation – the body’s response to negative environmental factors, such as stress.
Researchers at the University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford have discovered a new molecule that plays a key role in the immune response that is triggered by influenza infections. The molecule, a so-called mini viral RNA, is capable of inducing inflammation and cell death, and was produced at high levels by the 1918 pandemic influenza virus. The findings appeared in Nature Microbiology yesterday (September 17).
An international team of researchers has demonstrated a way of overcoming one of the major stumbling blocks that has prevented the development of a vaccine against HIV: the ability to generate immune cells that stay in circulation long enough to respond to and stop virus infection.
Leprosy hijacks our immune system, turning an important repair mechanism into one that causes potentially irreparable damage to our nerve cells, according to new research that uses zebrafish to study the disease. As such, the disease may share common characteristics with conditions such as multiple sclerosis.
Our immune systems are meant to keep us healthy, but sometimes they turn their fire on us, with devastating results. Immunotherapies can help defend against this ‘friendly fire’ – and even weaponise it in our defence.
Anti-inflammatory drugs similar to those used to treat conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis could in future be used to treat some cases of depression, concludes a review led by the University of Cambridge, which further implicates our immune system in mental health disorders.
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