Immunology

Cervarix, Gardasil Or Nothing? The HPV Vaccination Debate Goes On

In the UK, the government has chosen the vaccine Cervarix for their human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination program. But actual UK doctors choose Gardisal for their own children, says Phil Hammond, general practitioner, writer, and broadcaster, on bmj.com t ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 23 2008 - 9:40pm

Genomic Study Says Our Immune Response To Rhinovirus Causes Common Cold Symptoms, Not The Virus Itself

Today, scientists from Procter&Gamble (P&G), the University of Calgary and the University of Virginia announced results from the first study to examine the entire human genome's response to the most common cold virus, human rhinovirus. ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 24 2008 - 12:18pm

Evolutionary Genetics And The War Against Viruses

Viruses are nasty opponents, as anyone who has followed the battles against influenza, SARs and HIV/AIDS can attest. They are diverse and in many cases evolve at rates that confound efforts to contain them. Anyone who has gotten a flu shot, and then came d ...

Article - Michael Windelspecht - Oct 27 2008 - 2:50pm

Toxic Chemical DBT In Some Paint And PVC Tubes Affects The Immune System

An international team of researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and the University of Basel in Switzerland have issued a report on the mechanism of toxicity of a chemical compound called Dibutyltin (DBT). DBT is part of a ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 28 2008 - 10:58pm

Go On And Sneeze- Allergies Prevent Some Forms Of Cancer, Says New Study

Don't reach for that antihistamine just yet, if you have allergies.  A new article in the December issue of The Quarterly Review of Biology provides evidence that allergies are much more than just an annoying immune malfunction- they may protect again ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 29 2008 - 11:22am

Hyperdisease Conditions And Extinction

It took less than a decade for native rats to become extinct on the Indian Ocean's previously uninhabited Christmas Island once Eurasian black rats jumped ship onto the island at the turn of the 20th century. But this story is more than the typical ta ...

Article - News Staff - Nov 5 2008 - 12:03am

Discovery- SrbA Gene Regulates Mold's Resistance To Drugs

Montana State University scientists concerned about lethal mold infections have found a gene that regulates the mold's resistance to drugs. The gene, called srbA, allows molds to thrive during infections even when inflammation reduces its oxygen suppl ...

Article - News Staff - Nov 8 2008 - 3:42pm

Killer T-Cell 'Bionic Assassin' Sees Through HIV Disguises

HIV is a master of disguise, able to rapidly change its identity and hide undetected in infected cells. But now, in a long-standing collaborative research effort partially-funded by the Wellcome Trust, scientists from Oxford-based Adaptimmune Limited, in p ...

Article - News Staff - Nov 9 2008 - 5:25pm

Mutating Viruses To Death Using Forced Evolution

It sounds like a science fiction movie: A killer contagion threatens the Earth, but scientists save the day with a designer drug that forces the virus to mutate itself out of existence. The killer disease? Still a fiction. The drug? It could become a reali ...

Article - News Staff - Nov 10 2008 - 7:01pm

Hypochlorite Discovery- Why Household Bleach Kills Bacteria

Developed more than 200 years ago and found in households around the world, chlorine bleach is among the most widely used disinfectants, yet scientists never have understood exactly how this familiar product actually kills bacteria.   New research from the ...

Article - News Staff - Nov 13 2008 - 2:06pm