This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American The very first line of defence against any ...

Innate immunity constitutes the body’s first line of defence against invading pathogens. This ancient, evolutionarily conserved system is activated within minutes of encountering foreign agents, ...

Researchers have identified mutations in a set of proteins that predispose their carriers to preeclampsia, a complication that shows up in between 5 percent and 10 percent of pregnancies. Their work ...

In recent years, the field of immunology has increasingly focused on the role of glycolipids and sphingolipids in the differentiation and function of innate immune cells, such as macrophages, ...

In a recent study published in The New England Journal of Medicine, researchers reviewed selected acute-phase proteins concerning their production, structure, and function. The advent of severe acute ...

Immunotherapy is a type of cancer treatment that uses the body's own immune system to fight tumor cells. While much focus has been on engaging T-cells for fighting cancer, less attention has been ...

University of Pennsylvania researchers have found a promising new treatment for periodontitis using a component of the immune system called complement, according to a new study in the Journal of ...

Although the complement system forms part of the innate immune system, it can cause damage to the body in some cases. This is because unwanted complement activation contributes to many autoimmune and ...

Oncolytic virus immunotherapy has been proposed as a step forward for cancer treatment because it can kill cancer cells while activating the immune system. However, its current clinical application is ...

1 Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Rheumatology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 2 Biomedical Research Institute of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 3 Department of Molecular Genetics ...