StemCell Therapy

In Functional Medicine, the gut, or gastrointestinal (GI) tract, is often considered the gateway to health. Most of us limit considerations of gut function to eating and nutrition, but as we explore connections with the rest of our body, there is so much more. Important aspects of gut health include barrier function, nutrition, immune balance, the microbiome, and even mental status.

Consider this. The GI tract is like a hollow tube going through our body with an opening on either end. As such, this hollow space (gut lumen) is actually outside our body making it the largest interface with the external environment. Flattening the numerous folds of the gut results in a surface area equal to the size of half a badminton court-about 20x20 feet! The integrity of the gut lining is critical for providing a protective barrier while allowing nourishmentkeeping the bad out and allowing the good in. This is astounding intelligence at work.

The immune system is an integral collaborator with our GI tract. Incredibly, it is estimated that the gut-associated immune system accounts for 70-75% of our entire immune system. It provides an additional vital layer of protection from external environmental threats. At the same time, the interplay between the gut and the immune system influences immune function. Exposures in the gut teach the immune system to tolerate things that are not threatening and to react to things that are potentially harmful. When a healthy gut is working well, the immune system learns for example, that a peanut should be safe and an infectious organism is not.

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We cant talk about gut health without talking about the gut microbiome, the micro-organisms in our GI tract also known as our gut flora. Consisting primarily of bacteria (but also fungi and viruses) our gut microbiome is comprised of approximately a trillion cells (similar to the number of cells making up our body) and contains 100 times more genes than the human genome. The composition of our microbiome (favorable vs. unfavorable organisms) greatly influences the health of our gut and in turn our overall health and vitality. This ecosystem is easily thrown off by such things as dietary choices, toxin exposures and medications we may need to take (think antibiotics).

One of the most fascinating connections to health and well-being is the so called gut-brain axis. This is a bidirectional path of communication between the gut and the brain and is very much influenced by our gut microbiome. Information between brain and gut occurs through nerves (especially the vagus nerve), hormones, metabolic channels and the immune system. These modes of communication allow the brain to influence intestinal activities and the gut to influence mood, cognition, and mental health. Ever experience nausea or sudden diarrhea when stressed? How about making a decision from your gut? This is the gut-brain axis in action.

Gut health can be compromised for many reasons and we dont necessarily experience this as GI symptoms; problems can manifest in skin, brain, joints and more. Thus, when working with my patients, we usually start by assessing gut health often with the aid of specialized testing looking at the microbiome, digestive function, inflammatory markers and more. Many tools are available for healing and optimizing gut health. This effort alone can have a profound impact on ones quality of life.

In upcoming articles, we will take a deeper dive into GI health and associated maladies. In the meantime, consider these first steps with dietgo plant centered with more fiber rich veggies while minimizing processed foods and refined sugars.

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What is Your Gut Telling You? - Shepherd Express

One of the best ways to combat COVID-19 is by understanding how your immune system responds to the virus.

That said, our body's immune system is divided into two separate systems namely, the innate and adaptive (or acquired) immune systems.

Innate immune system is the first line of defense against viruses, which includes barriers like the skin and layers in our throat or gut, chemicals in our blood, and different immune cells.

On the other hand, the adaptive or acquired immune system helps with the production of antibodies and white blood cells to both attack and remember the virus, also known as B cells, which also helps fight off the virus, if it attacks a second time. This type of immune response is slower and may take days or weeks to generate.

There is also something called the T cells, which are also part of your adaptive immune system. Some of these stimulate B cells to make antibodies, while some others eliminate the cells that have been infected by the virus.

With that brief account of how the immune system functions under a virus attack, we can also determine why some people get more sick than others. Those with asymptomatic or mild infections, both innate and adaptive immune responses seem to work as planned and normally, however, in people who develop a more severe form of infection, experts believe it is due to a weakened immune system.

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Coronavirus explainer: Can drinking green tea help with COVID symptoms? - Times of India

Stanford Medicine researchers have developed a new technique that allowed three children to receive kidney transplants without needing to take immunosuppressant drugs for the rest of their lives.

Its a development that could change the lives of countless people in need of new organs.

The Holy Grail of transplantation is immune tolerance This is ground-breaking, Amit Tevar, surgical director of the Kidney and Pancreas Transplant Program at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, who wasnt involved in the study, told NBC News.

Immunosuppressants leave a transplant recipient at greater risk from infection.

The challenge: For most people, their immune system is a powerful weapon against illness by detecting and attacking foreign invaders in the body, it can stop everything from common colds to potentially deadly infections.

But for people who need organ transplants, the immune system is an obstacle to a healthy life if they dont take immunosuppressant drugs, it will identify their new organ as foreign and attack it, too.

These drugs typically have to be taken for the rest of a transplant recipients life, and while they do help prevent organ rejection, they can have nasty side effects and leave a person at greater risk from infection.

The Stanford team gave each child a new kidney and a new immune system from the same donor.

A two-parter: The three children who received kidney transplants at Stanford have a rare disease called Schimke immuno-osseous dysplasia (SIOD), which affects both their kidney function and their immune systems.

Successfully treating them without immunosuppressants required the Stanford team to perform what it calls a dual immune/solid organ transplant (DISOT) essentially, they gave each child a new kidney and a new immune system from the same donor.

The donated stem cells were processed using a technique designed to prevent a potentially fatal complication.

First, the kids underwent a grueling regimen of chemotherapy, radiation, and immune-suppressing medications to destroy their own immune systems.

Then they received a stem cell transplant from one of their parents. That gave them a functional immune system something they previously lacked due to their disease.

Before transplantation, the donated stem cells were processed using a technique developed by lead author Alice Bertaina to prevent graft-versus-host disease (GVHD). That is a potentially fatal complication in which the new immune cells attack the recipients body.

The children were then given 5 to 10 months to recover from the stem cell transplants before they underwent kidney transplants, with each donated organ coming from the same parent who donated the stem cells.

They are doing everything They are having completely normal lives.

The results: One child experienced a mild case of GVHD that was cleared up with medication. Two received immunosuppressants for just 30 days after the kidney transplants. The third stopped taking them even sooner due to short-term side effects.

Its now been around 2-3 years since the kidney transplants, and all three children are living without any signs of immune disease or organ rejection. They have fully functioning kidneys with no immunosuppressants required.

They are doing everything: They go to school, they go on vacation, they are doing sports, Bertaina said. They are having completely normal lives.

Looking ahead: The Stanford team isnt the first to try transplanting a donors immune system along with a new organ, but in past attempts, patients still ended up needing to use immunosuppressants or were at high risk of developing GVHD.

Bertainas stem cell processing technique appears to be the key to a successful two-transplant combination, and in May 2022, the FDA approved DISOT to treat patients with a variety of conditions related to kidney disease, including SIOD, cystinosis, and systemic lupus.

Thats a challenge, but its not impossible.

The Stanford team now plans to trial the protocol in other patients, including children whose bodies have already rejected kidney transplants. They also plan to investigate its use for other types of transplants, including ones where the organs come from deceased donors.

Thats a challenge, but its not impossible, Bertaina said. Well need three to five years of research to get that working well.

Wed love to hear from you! If you have a comment about this article or if you have a tip for a future Freethink story, please email us at tips@freethink.com.

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How three kids got kidney transplants without immunosuppressants - Freethink

The first month of life is the most critical time for a childs survival after birth since they are sensitive to diseases as newborns. Therefore, immunization is highly crucial for the survival of newborns. In addition, timely immunizations limit illness transmission and protect newborns and toddlers from potentially fatal illnesses.

Sustainable Development Goals prioritize reducing the child mortality0020rate to at least as low as 2.5% in all countries by 2030. Furthermore, to build appropriate immunity and decrease susceptibility to disease in newborns, vaccine-preventable diseases (VPDs) require an early receipt of the recommended number of doses of a given vaccine.

An extensive immunization program, adequate nutrition, hygiene, and quality baby care products can increase newborn survival and health. In addition, timely care, immunization, and necessary nutritional support eliminate unnecessary stillbirths by increasing access to high-quality antenatal care, skilled birth care, and postnatal care for mothers and newborns.

Unfortunately, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, approximately 23 million children were denied crucial immunizations in 2020, increasing by roughly 4 million over 2019. Conflict, underinvestment in national immunization programmes, vaccine stock-outs, and disease outbreaks such as Covid-19 contribute to the disruption of health systems and limit the sustainable supply of vaccination services. In addition, approximately 42% (9.6 million) of unvaccinated and under-vaccinated babies live in fragile or humanitarian environments, including conflict-affected nations. These are the most vulnerable children to illness outbreaks.

It recommended that all parents follow (CDC) the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions recommended immunization schedule for their children, protecting them from 14 potentially deadly diseases before their second birthday. In addition, doctors must diagnose any life-threatening symptoms in time at the hospitals or at home. Furthermore, the newborns should immediately get referred to the appropriate provider for further diagnosis and care.

In 2022, Indias infant mortality rate will be 26 deaths per 1000 live births, a 3.74 percent decrease from 2021. Pneumonia, diarrhoea, birth abnormalities, and malaria are the leading causes of death from the end of the newborn period until the first five years of life.

Malnutrition is the underlying condition that makes children more sensitive to severe diseases. However, with the increase in approximately 80 percent of hospital deliveries worldwide, there is an excellent potential for delivering necessary infant care and detecting and mitigating high-risk newborns.

Apart from providing ART (Preventive Antiretroviral Treatment) to mothers and newborns to prevent opportunistic infections, doctors and healthcare workers must conduct HIV testing and care for exposed infants and counseling and assistance for moms regarding infant feeding.

So why should all newborns get timely vaccination?

Timely Vaccination Helps Combat Diseases in Infants

The immunization schedule suggested by the CDC is both safe and effective in safeguarding your infant. It focuses on how your newborns immune system reacts to immunizations at different ages and how probable your infant is to get exposed to a specific disease. It ensures that the child receives vaccination against 14 potentially dangerous diseases at the right moment.

Prevent Chronic Health Complications

Delaying immunizations may expose your baby to disease when they are most vulnerable to dangerous illnesses. Newborn infants are most susceptible to severe disease complications. For example, whooping cough may cause a persistent cough for several weeks and can become fatal for some newborns in the first 12 months. Therefore postponing immunizations will expose your infant to infections such as diphtheria when they are most vulnerable, causing severe health complications.

Administering Complete Course of Doses Helps Curb Diseases

Each recommended vaccination get meticulously designed to protect against a specific disease. A few require multiple doses to create strong enough immunity to safeguard your baby or strengthen immunity that has weakened over time. Others require additional vaccination doses to protect your child if the first dose does not create adequate antibodies.

In some cases, the flu virus evolves, and infants need to complete the full flu vaccine every year. Therefore each vaccines prescribed dose on the schedule is critical.

Spreading Diseases To Other

Infants who dont get vaccinated on time are at risk of becoming ill and transferring infections to other babies and adults with weak immune systems. Timely immunization also helps protect and safeguard the health of the newborns friends, family, and community members.

Strengthening The Immune System For Long-Term Protection

The antibodies the mother passes on to your baby before birth can help protect them from ailments in the first few months of life. Breastfeeding protects against several infections while your babys immune system develops. However, breast milk does not create adequate antibodies to protect newborns against all chronic illnesses. What works best is the immune system must finally combat diseases on its own. Vaccines safeguard infants when maternal antibodies have worn off. Parents could only pass on immunity for diseases to their infants, which they are resistant to, which will only protect your infant for the first few months after birth.

Views expressed above are the author's own.

END OF ARTICLE

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Immunization reduces the death rate in newborns - Times of India

Summary: New findings reveal phagocytes do not fully mature until after birth, contradicting previous assumptions that they mature during embryonic development.

Source: University of Freiberg

What gets into the brain and what doesnt is strictly regulated. Researchers at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Freiburg have now studied phagocytes that coat the blood vessels in the brain and reinforce the blood-brain barrier.

As the scientists from the Institute of Neuropathology at the Medical CenterUniversity of Freiburg together with an international research team have shown, these cells only mature fully after birth according to a defined step-by-step developmental program.

Until now, it had been assumed that this process was completed during embryonic development.

Their studies, which were published in the journalNatureon April 20, 2022, were initially carried out on genetically modified mouse lines and were confirmed on human samples. They are expected to provide important insights into the development and treatment of diseases of the brain.

We were able to show that theimmune cellswe studied migrate from the cerebral membrane to theblood vesselsin the brain shortly before birth and mature there. This process is probably not completed until weeks after birth and could partly explain why the brain is so vulnerable at the beginning of life, says Prof. Dr. Marco Prinz, Medical Director of the Institute of Neuropathology at the Medical CenterUniversity of Freiburg and head of the Collaborative Research Center/Transregio 167NeuroMac and member of the Cluster of Excellence CIBSS -Centre for Integrative Biological Signalling Studies at the University of Freiburg.

The late timing of the maturation of the phagocytes, also called macrophages, was very surprising to us, since theprecursor cellsare already present in the brain long before, says Prinz.

In addition, the scientists were able to show for the first time that the vessels, as structure-giving cells of the brain, send important signals for normal development of the brains macrophages.

Theblood-brain barrieris formed by cells on the blood vessels of the brain. They control which substances can enter the brain and which cannot. This protects the brain from harmful substances and pathogens. The blood-brain barrier is particularly permeable in the case of infectious diseases, certain brain tumors and oxygen deficiency.

Significance for Alzheimers, multiple sclerosis and more

In addition to the blood-brain barrier, the immune cells we studied control what can reach thebrain cellsfrom the blood, they eat pathogens and prevent excessive inflammation. They are also involved in the development of cancer, Alzheimers disease and multiple sclerosis. Our findings could be important for a better understanding of these diseases and future therapies, Prinz adds.

Color-coded cells and gene analyses

For their study, the researchers led by the two first authors Dr. Takahiro Masuda from Kyushu University, Japan, and Dr. Lukas Amann from the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Freiburg used several newly established mouse lines.

With these, different types of brain macrophages and theirprogenitor cellscould be specifically labeled for the first time and later found in the different brain regions using high-resolution microscopy. In addition, they examined the gene activity of individual cells and thus determined their degree of maturity.

We were also able to confirm the data on human brains. This gives us a much deeper understanding of the timing and molecular mechanisms in the development of the cells. This knowledge can now be used to explore new and more specific therapeutic approaches forbraindiseases, says biologist Dr. Lukas Amann, who works at the Institute of Neuropathology at the Medica CenterUniversity of Freiburg.

Author: Press OfficeSource: University of FreibergContact: Press Office University of FreibergImage: The image is credited to University of Freiburg / Dr. Lukas Amann

Original Research: Closed access.Specification of CNS macrophage subsets occurs postnatally in defined niches by Lukas Amann et al. Nature

Abstract

Specification of CNS macrophage subsets occurs postnatally in defined niches

All tissue-resident macrophages of the central nervous system (CNS)including parenchymal microglia, as well as CNS-associated macrophages (CAMs) such as meningeal and perivascular macrophagesare part of the CNS endogenous innate immune system that acts as the first line of defence during infections or trauma.

It has been suggested that microglia and all subsets of CAMs are derived from prenatal cellular sources in the yolk sac that were defined as early erythromyeloid progenitors.

However, the precise ontogenetic relationships, the underlying transcriptional programs and the molecular signals that drive the development of distinct CAM subsets in situ are poorly understood.

Here we show, using fate-mapping systems, single-cell profiling and cell-specific mutants, that only meningeal macrophages and microglia share a common prenatal progenitor.

By contrast, perivascular macrophages originate from perinatal meningeal macrophages only after birth in an integrin-dependent manner. The establishment of perivascular macrophages critically requires the presence of arterial vascular smooth muscle cells.

Together, our data reveal a precisely timed process in distinct anatomical niches for the establishment of macrophagesubsetsin the CNS.

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New Discoveries About the Origin of the Brains Immune System - Neuroscience News

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A possible contributor of Long COVID -19 may actually be an abnormally suppressed immune system, and not a hyperactive one, according to a UCLA- led research group. The study, recently published in the peer-reviewed journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.

It contradicts what scientists previously believed, which was that an overactive immune response to SARS-CoV-2, often referred to as a "cytokine storm," was the root cause of the perplexing syndrome. Health experts told Fox News this "cytokine storm" is an over-reactive inflammatory response in the infected person that can potentially cause damage to lungs and other organs, possibly creating severe illness or even death.

Long COVID, which occurs in a subset of patients recovering from COVID-19, is a syndrome where a multitude of symptoms including shortness of breath, muscle aches, fatigue, vocal fatigue, and brain fog persists for several months after the acute infection stage, health experts explained to Fox News.

A worker in a protective takes a swab for a COVID-19 test at a coronavirus testing facility in Beijing, Saturday, April 23, 2022. Beijing is on alert after 10 middle school students tested positive for COVID-19 on Friday, in what city officials said was an initial round of testing. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

TIME-RESTRICTED EATING NO MORE BENEFICIAL THAN CALORIC RESTRICTION IN OBESE PATIENTS, STUDY SAYS

According to the press release about the UCLA study, limited understanding of the causes of long COVID makes treating the condition challenging.

"While this was a small pilot study, it does suggest that some people with long COVID may actually have under-active immune systems after recovering from COVID-19, which means that boosting immunity in those individuals could be a treatment," Dr. Otto Yang, a professor of medicine, division of infectious diseases, and of microbiology, immunology and molecular genetics at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA said in a press release.

A woman gets tested at a mobile COVID-19 testing van (Liao Pan/China News Service via Getty Images)

While investigating the notion that long COVID-19 is triggered by an underlying hyperactive immune response, the UCLA-led team of researchers studied the effect of the monoclonal antibody Leronlimab on Long COVID-19, in a small exploratory trial that involved 55 people with the condition. Leronlimab is an antibody that attaches to an immune receptor involved in inflammation called CCR5, the study authors explained in the release.

Participants were randomly selected to receive weekly injections of the antibody or a saline placebo for eight weeks. During that period, the investigators tracked changes in 24 symptoms associated with long COVID, according to the release.

In the report, the investigators explained that they initially thought blocking CCR5 with Leronlimab would weaken the overactive immune systems response after a COVID-19 infection.

STDs INCREASED DURING COVID-19 PANDEMIC'S FIRST YEAR, CDC REPORT FINDS

"But we found just the opposite," Yang, who is also the senior author, said in the release. "Patients who improved were those who started with low CCR5 on their T cells, suggesting their immune system was less active than normal, and levels of CCR5 actually increased in people who improved. This leads to the new hypothesis that long COVID in some persons is related to the immune system being suppressed and not hyperactive, and that while blocking its activity, the antibody can stabilize CCR5 expression on the cell surface leading to upregulation of other immune receptors or functions."

The researchers stated in the release that the findings suggested "a complex role for CCR5 in balancing inflammatory and anti-inflammatory effects, e.g.through T regulatory cells."

A woman is tested for COVID-19 at the Lenasia South Hospital, near Johannesburg, South Africa, Wednesday, Dec. 1, 1021. South African doctors say the rapid increase in COVID-19 cases attributed to the new omicron variant is resulting in mostly mild symptoms. (AP Photo/ Shiraaz Mohamed)

Dr. Aaron Glatt, a spokesperson for the Infectious Diseases Society of America, who was not affiliated with the study, commented on the findings to Fox News and said, "This preliminary study presents intriguing new information regarding the COVID-19 long-haul syndrome." Glatt, who also serves as the Chief of Infectious Diseases at Mount Sinai South Nassau Hospital on Long Island, New York, added, "At this point in time however, our understanding of the pathogenesis of "long COVID" remains unclear. This study supports doing further research to investigate a different potential mechanism."

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The study authors did state that the results needed to be confirmed in a larger, more definitive study. Also noted in the release, is that the study was funded by Leronlimab maker CytoDyn Inc. and conducted by researchers either employed by or serving as consultants to the company.

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Long COVID-19 may be caused by abnormally suppressed immune system in some people: UCLA-led study - Fox News

Exercising regularly is good for your immune system with some research suggesting that it may even lower the risk of getting upper respiratory infections, such as the common cold. Even as little as 30 minutes of moderate exercise five times a week is enough to bring about benefits.

Since exercising is good for our immune system, some people might think that exercising while youre sick can help you sweat it out. Unfortunately, when it comes to the common cold, theres no evidence exercising while sick can shorten the illness or make it less severe.

There are a couple of reasons why exercise is beneficial for our immune system. The first may be partly explained by the hormones that are released when we exercise. These are called catecholamines which people may better know as adrenaline and noradrenaline. These hormones play an important role in the functioning of our immune system by eliciting the quick release of important immune cells that help detect the presence of viruses or other pathogens in the body. They also increase the amount of movement of our immune cells between the blood and tissue which is important in helping immune cells detect and prevent illnesses caused by viruses or other pathogens. Research shows that exercise is one way we can increase the levels of these important hormones in our body.

When we exercise, it also increases blood flow in order to help our body keep up with the increased demands of exercise. This elevated blood flow places greater stress on our blood vessels, which releases specific immune cells called natural killer cells and T cells that can be found dormant on the walls of our blood vessels. Natural killer cells and T cells both play an important role in killing cells infected with a virus.

Exercise may also benefit our fight against infection in other ways. For example, older adults who regularly exercise over a period of one month have been shown to to have quicker skin wound healing compared to a non-exercise control group. This quicker healing process lowers the risk of virus and bacteria entry into the body via skin wounds.

All of these mechanisms together may improve our immune system and lower the risk of getting sick from viral infections. You dont even have to be a regular gym-goer to see benefits. Three studies have shown that when people who didnt exercise started brisk walking regularly for 40-45 minutes, five days per week, they saw 40-50 per cent fewer days of upper respiratory tract infection symptoms when compared to a control group.

While theres currently no evidence that exercising while sick with a cold can help you get over it faster, that doesnt mean you cant exercise

Despite the benefits of exercise on our immune system, its difficult to know whether exercising while sick with a cold will help you get over your illness quicker than if you dont exercise. There are currently no studies that have investigated this, largely because of how difficult it would be to conduct this type of study mostly because some of the participants would purposely need to be infected with a virus to compare whether or not exercising has any effect. Not only would this be difficult to do, it could also be unethical.

So as exercise is good for the immune system, why could exercising while sick not improve the response of the immune system to the infection? Well, its important to remember that exercise can stress the body. This stress may in turn make the immune cells less capable at responding to pathogens. This may be partly due to the fact that the body needs more oxygen and stored energy (in the form of glucose) when we exercise which our immune cells also need to help fight off a virus. If the body is fighting an existing infection and is then exposed to the stress of exercise this may not benefit the immune response.

But while theres currently no evidence that exercising while sick with a cold can help you get over it faster, that doesnt mean you cant exercise if you want to. If your symptoms are mainly above the neck (such as a runny nose or congestion), begin by exercising at a lower intensity than you might normally to see how you are feeling. If you feel OK, you can gradually increase your intensity. But if exercising makes you feel worse, rest. Its also not recommended for you to exercise if youre experiencing fever, aching muscles or vomiting.

If you do want to exercise while youre sick, make sure you take caution especially if you exercise around other people. Since colds are infectious, it may be best to skip the gym and exercise outdoors or at home to avoid spreading it around.

Regular exercise is a great way to help prime the immune system to fight many different types of infections, including the common cold and possibly even Covid-19. But dont feel you have to exercise if youre sick. Sometimes the best remedy for a cold is rest, staying hydrated and taking pain-relieving medicines if needed.

John Hough is a senior lecturer in exercise physiology at Nottingham Trent University. This article first appeared on The Conversation.

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Exercising wont help you recover from illness, but may prevent the next one - The Independent

Can you tell someones health by looking at their face? A study published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B suggests that there is a relationship between peoples immune functions and their perceived facial attractiveness.

There are facial traits that are seen as being more attractive, regardless of culture, race, age, or background, such as clear skin and red lips. Evolutionary psychologists have linked the cross-cultural preference for the features to adaptive mate selection, as they may signal health and immune function. Though this intuitively makes sense, research on the topic has been lacking.

I became interested in this topic because, within academia, there has always been an assumption that facial attractiveness is a signal of good immune function, but no one has ever directly tested this hypothesis and found evidence to support it, explained study author Summer Mengelkoch, a graduate researcher at Texas Christian University.

Previous work has been inconclusive, and relied upon indirect proxies of immune function (like health or longevity) as opposed to directly testing relationships between attractiveness and immune function. I wanted to conduct a critical test of this hypothesis to see if I could find evidence to support it or not!

Mengelkoch and colleagues used 159 university students in Texas as participants in Phase I of this research. They were screened to ensure a lack of obesity, chronic illness, mental illness, and hormonal medication. Women participated during the early follicular stage of their menstrual cycle to control for sex hormones. Participants were photographed without any makeup and while making a neutral expression. Their weight, height, and blood sample were then taken. Blood work was completed, and participants completed questionnaires. In Phase II of the study, 492 participants rated the facial attractiveness of the subjects from Phase I.

Results showed that there is a relationship between immune function and facial attractiveness, specifically the aspect of the immune system that deals with bacterial threats. There are gender differences seen in this relationship, with certain measures of immune function, such as NK cells, as being perceived in opposite ways, specifically women with lower levels were seen as more attractive but men with higher levels were judged as more attractive. This study linked attractiveness with immune function but not with any acute measures of health. This may suggest that the adaptive measure is that people gravitate towards partners who could fight off illness rather than simply preventing contact with someone who is sick.

Generally, people are told that caring about attractiveness, or facial beauty, makes someone shallow or superficial. But these results indicate that caring about the facial attractiveness of a romantic partner might be about more than just looks, it also might help you to select healthy partners, Mengelkoch told PsyPost.

This study aimed to explore the relationship between health and perceived attractiveness. Despite the great strides made, it also has some limitations. Firstly, which facial features specifically are associated with immune function is out of the scope of this research. In addition, other aspects of ones appearance, such as body type, could be significant on this topic, though it was not considered in this study. Lastly, this study excluded people in Phase I who had chronic physical or mental illnesses, and these results could change with a larger, more diverse subject pool.

We tested relationships between facial attractiveness and immune function in a sample of relatively healthy college students, with limited diversity, Mengelkoch said. This should be tested in broader populations. Additionally, while we utilized a much larger number of immune measures than has been used in previous research on this topic, there are still many other facets of immune function which have yet to be explored. I would love to do a live immune challenge study, to investigate how a persons attractiveness relates to their whole immune systems ability to combat a live pathogenic threat.

The study, More than just a pretty face? The relationship between immune function and perceived facial attractiveness, was authored by Summer Mengelkoch, Jeff Gassen, Marjorie L. Prokosch, Gary W. Boehm, and Sarah E. Hill.

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New research indicates that facial attractiveness is a signal of healthy immune function - PsyPost

We have seen the terms DNA and vaccine used together in the media quite frequently in recent years due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic; in fact, Google reports anywhere from a 250% to 1,000% increase in searches in various combinations of these search terms.

So what is the deal with DNA, and does it play a role in vaccine development today?

A vaccine is defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as a preparation that is used to stimulate the bodys immune response against diseases. In other words, vaccination exposes our body to a specific pathogen (a virus or bacteria that is harmful to us), giving our immune system a chance to survey it without extreme consequences of becoming ill.

During this surveillance period, specific immune cells, called B cells, produce antibodies that match unique molecular signatures (called antigens) on the pathogen or pathogen-derived proteins; this marks the pathogen or pathogenic proteins for destruction by other immune cells. The instructions to make antibodies specific to their antigen pairing are stored in B cells memory for possible future infections.

Ernest Board, Wikimedia Commons, public domain

Painting (c. 1910) of Edward Jenner performing his first vaccination on young James Phipps in 1796.

Infectious pathogens or pathogenic proteins do not stay in our bodies long, as many immune cells, such as T-cells and macrophages, recognize the antigen-antibody markings and subsequently degrade them to inhibit further spread of infection in the body. Also, B cells do not always remember the antigens from the pathogen the first time around or recognize slight differences (mutant forms) between antigen markings. This is why there is often a need for booster vaccines to keep up with mutant versions of a pathogen. The recipes for flu vaccines, for example, change on a yearly basis based upon epidemiologists best guess which strains will be most prevalent.

While doctors of the early 900s to 1700s may have not understood the scientific underpinnings of immunology and disease like we do today, they did utilize the scientific method to learn to provoke immunity.

Specifically, scientists discovered that exposure to infectious pathogens in small dosages primed human immune systems just enough that people recovered if they were exposed naturally later. This technique was termed variolation and was used to immunize patients against smallpox: Doctors exposed people to the contents of pustules from milder forms of the disease.

Borrowing from this idea in the late 1700s, English doctor Edward Jenner thought to instead use cowpox, a virus similar to the smallpox. In 1796, he tested it on a small boy, who made a full recovery, marking a breakthrough. Because the pus was from a cow-related disease, the new term for this type of exposure-infection-recovery system was vaccination.

Today, when most people think about vaccines, what comes to mind are formulations in which the pathogens antigen is either a weakened or inactivated virus (like Jenners work) or a portion of a viral protein (such as the hepatitis B vaccine).

The race to slow the spread of COVID-19 led to the development and premiere of the first FDA-approved vaccines utilizing mRNA technology, but the concept of vaccines composed of primarily nucleic acidbased technology are not a novel or new concept. To understand why, lets take a step back into the timeline of molecular biology and advances in vaccine development.

Nicolle Rager, National Science Foundation

In a cell, proteins are naturally produced through the process of transcription and translation. Specifically, DNA stored in the nucleus holds a code that can be transcribed to mRNA (or messenger RNA). Because proteins can be translated to their final form only from mRNA molecules, this transcription step from DNA to mRNA is super important. The process of going from RNA to a protein is called translation. These combined processes are known as the central dogma of biology and have been studied thoroughly by scientists over the past century.

Understanding these processes, scientists thought that they could borrow from nature to create better vaccines. This led to advances in what is called recombinant technology, where recombinant is a scientific mechanism of copy and paste.

To make protein-based vaccines using recombinant technology, scientists took the DNA code for a portion of a pathogens protein surface and cloned (or transferred) it into another source, such as a plasmid DNA for bacteria or yeast. Then, the protein was produced by the natural transcription and translation machinery in these microbes; this allowed the protein to be produced in large quantities for vaccine production.

While this vaccine method (as well as older methods, such as those using dead or inactivated pathogens) are effective in the immunization process, they require a lot of work in their development and production to scale up to volume necessary to inoculate the public; this becomes a difficult factor to consider when a virus mutates and a new vaccine has to be produced quickly.

So, scientists decided to once again borrow from the central dogma of biology but this time with a different kind of recombinant technology in mind.

Rather than cloning a DNA fragment into a plasmid for yeast and bacteria to produce it as a protein, scientists wanted to put a viral proteins DNA code (or gene) into a vector that could be directly inserted into humans via vaccination. One way of accomplishing this was transferring the DNA into what is called the adenovirus, or the common cold virus-vector. With this technology, human machinery could produce enough protein to stimulate the immune system to prevent future disease, overcoming the production issues related to protein-based vaccines.

In the process of production, these vectors are also genetically engineered (or altered) so that the adenovirus itself cannot replicate or integrate into your DNA, once the vaccine itself is administered.

These types of vaccines are advantageous in that they provide the body with an antigen to target for antibody production with few side effects all you feel symptomwise is similar to the common cold. This also means they can be given to immune-compromised individuals.

The Janssen (Johnson and Johnson) and AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines are based exactly on this technology. They were built upon earlier models for other diseases such as Ebola, tuberculosis and Middle East respiratory syndrome, or MERS, which is caused by a coronavirus.

The Pfizer BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines require cold storage to prevent degradation and are not ideal for certain parts of the world that lack the necessary instrastructure and equipment. Shelf-stable options are needed to ensureequitable access.

Also inspired by previous coronavirus and MERS outbreaks were the mRNA-based vaccines currently produced by Pfizer and Moderna.

The thought behind this type of vaccine design to simplify the work of recombinant adenovirus-vector vaccines by injecting the genetic code for the antigen directly as a piece of mRNA (and not as a vector).

This vaccine technology is quite convenient for cells, as it streamlines production of the antigen by cutting down on the process of transcription; instead, the RNA that enters a cell can be directly translated into a protein with antigen markings. This allows the immune cells recognize the protein as foreign and attack it.

And whats even better: The RNA isnt able to replicate itself and is subject to the cells machinery that naturally breaks down our own RNA. This RNA also is not be able to enter the nucleus, where our DNA is stored, and thus does not integrate into our DNA.

While the RNA-based COVID-19 vaccines are the first of their kind, they come with their own set of challenges.

A main barrier for worldwide production of these vaccines concerns their storage and expiration: Because RNA is a single strand of nucleic acid (and not a double helix like DNA), it is often more unstable than DNA above certain temperatures and cannot keep long. If the vaccine is kept out at room temperature for a long time prior to immunization, the person receiving the vaccine gets broken-down portions of the RNA, which are not sufficient code to translate the protein for the immune system to recognize and attack. Thus, countries without proper storage cannot benefit from this type of vaccine.

DNA-based vaccines are also not new.

They are used in veterinary settings for treating West Nile virus in horses and melanoma in canines, and clinical trials of therapeutic DNA vaccines for humans, such as those targeting various forms of cancer, are under way in the U.S.

Despite the ease in manufacturing these types of vaccines, the remaining challenge lies in their mechanism of delivery to cells. Because a DNA-based antigen needs to not only penetrate the cell membrane but also the nucleus, where replication machinery is housed in our cells, a simple stick with a needle (which is termed a shot colloquially) will not deliver DNA to the proper place in the body.

A recent Nature Biotechnology news article captured much of the ongoing research on delivery systems for these types of vaccines. Inovio Pharmaceuticals electroporation method involves applying an electric field to the injection site, causing the pores of the surrounding cell membranes and the pores of the nuceli to widen and allow the DNA molecules to pass across. Another delivery system, by Zydus Cadila, is the Tropis device. It involves a pressurized jet of liquid, powered by a simple spring mechanism, to puncture the skin and deliver the vaccine intradermally. It was recently utilized in India in the first-ever approved DNA-based vaccine, for COVID: ZyCoV-D.

Despite varied success, the issue with both of these delivery methods is their high cost. Researchers in Canada and the U.S. are hoping to change this, however, by developing cheaper devices or even device-free delivery.

DNA-based vaccines certainly have their advantages.

They are proving to be effective at preventing symptomatic COVID infection. ZyCov-D has 67% effectiveness, even with the delta variant.

Also, DNA is generally safe to store at room temperature with little degradation, thus allowing for widespread accessibility of the vaccine without concerns for the cost of storage.

Finally, because viral mutations vary considerably in terms of infection and death rates, having a DNA vaccine that is cheap and quick to produce would revolutionize our ability to respond to future outbreaks and maybe even help us prevent pandemics altogether.

As we reflect on how far vaccine technology has come on DNA Day 2022, dont neglect to appreciate the power and potential of DNA vaccines.

Want to get your lab involved in DNA Day outreach? Check this link for suggestions of both in-person and virtual activities for 2022!

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DNA and vaccines - ASBMB Today

Many people who are immunocompromised will not fully develop the appropriate antibodies after COVID-19 vaccination, but there is hope in the form of an alternative treatment.

Vineeta Kumar, M.D., Photography: Andrea MabryEven with multiple COVID-19 vaccines and boosters, there are still groups of people who do not receive the full benefit of vaccines due to immunosuppressed conditions that prevent the body from making sufficient antibodies. But one alternative treatment option is providing hope.

Known as Evusheld, the medication contains protective antibodies againstSARS-CoV-2.

The antibodies are given as two injections at the same time to a patient, and once injected they are in the system ready to work if the patient is exposed to another person with acute COVID-19 infection in the future.

Vineeta Kumar, M.D., professor of nephrology in the University of Alabama at Birminghams Marnix E. Heersink School of Medicine, says this is an effective option for immunocompromised populations, such as transplant patients.

We know that transplant recipients develop less of an antibody response to the vaccine due to their immunosuppressive medications, Kumar said.In other words, the medication or immunosuppressed condition may prevent their body from makingsufficient antibodies, and in some patientsanyantibody.This could result in a decrease in the vaccines ability to provide protection against COVID-19 infection.

Kumar adds that this treatment is meant to be given before a person has been exposed to another with COVID-19 infection.

Evusheld should notbe used as a substitute for vaccination or for primary prevention strategies, including masking, social distancing and avoidance of large indoor social gatherings, Kumar said. Vaccination of close contacts, including household members, continues to be an important measure to protect transplant recipients from COVID-19 infection.

For transplant patients, Kumar says it is crucial they receive the infusion as soon as they are cleared after the transplant.

Due to limited supply ofEvusheld nationwide, patients early after transplant or early after receiving medications that suppresses their immune system are prioritized to getEvusheldfirst, she said.

Anoma Nellore, M.D., Photography: Steve Wood She says it is possible that Evusheld may reduce the bodys immune response to a COVID-19 vaccine. If someone has received the COVID-19 vaccine, they should wait at least two weeks after vaccination to receive Evusheld; but booster doses of vaccine can be given any time after Evusheld has been administered.

We will continue to monitor response of the new virus variants to this infusion, Kumar said.

UAB and doctors across the state are still working to make sure as many people have it as possible.

And these include referrals through our state Department of Public Health and referrals from other medical centers, said Anoma Nellore, M.D., associate professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases. We want to make sure all patients are protected.

At UAB, Kumar is the Robert and Cutessa Bourge Endowed Professor in Transplant Nephrology.

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Evusheld provides additional protection for immune-compromised patients against COVID-19 - University of Alabama at Birmingham

Our immune system is versatile but it's also complex and when the human body is exposed to a new virus, like the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which it's never seen before, the immune system gets activated and the first and the most rapid response is the production of antibodies. However, a weak immune system has susceptibility to infection and a person with poor immunity may get infections more frequently than most other people.

In order to not end up with illnesses that might be more severe or harder to treat, we got a few health experts on board to share some tips on how to treat poor immunity with the help of Yoga and natural way of living. In an interview with HT Lifestyle, Ayurveda expert Vaidya Shakuntala Devi shared, Poor immunity can be bettered by doing Yoga regularly. There is a concept called pran vayu in yoga which refers to the energy that the body receives inward. It is related to the heart chakra and governs breathing and the lungs, also affecting the food we ingest to nourish our bodies. Those people who have proper circulation of pran vayu in the body tend to have better immunity. There is a specific pran vayu mudra in yoga which can be practiced every day to build immunity and energize the body.

Asserting that poor immunity does not improve overnight, Shivani Gupta, Founder of HelloMyYoga, highlighted that if you live a healthy lifestyle, you will notice improvements. She elaborated, A healthy lifestyle is one in which you follow a daily routine that includes yoga, pranayama, and meditation to maintain your mind, breath, and body in balance. You avoid using food delivery apps and instead prepare sattvic meals, avoiding refrigerated or microwaved foods and spend some "me" time gazing at nature rather than reels on social media. Not only will your immunity improve, but you will also transform as a person.

According to Dr Deepak Mittal, Founder of Divine Soul Yoga, Though the human body has the ability to repair and maintain the immunity, our immunity can get compromised with a sedentary lifestyle. Yoga is an ancient Indian practice for maintaining a healthy body and mind and allows us to maintain our vital energy and fight disease. Thus, Yoga is an effective practice to boost our immunity. Yoga when combine with Pranayama and meditation can do wonders to our body and soul. These are the perfect tools to deal with everyday stress and other concerning health issues like anxiety, depression, migraine, insomnia, hypertension and various psychosomatic illnesses. Studies have shown that meditation stimulates electrical-activity in different parts of the brain that act as a command center for the immune system. Therefore, when these areas are stimulated, the immune system works more effectively.

Also, read: A few seconds of anxiety can reduce your immunity for hours. Heres the key to tackle it

He added, These elements are the time tested therapy which also remove toxins from our body & improve blood circulation, improve concentration, strengthens respiratory system, regulate the sleep and promote divine healing. These elements are also provided by Divine Soul Yoga to help people rejuvenate both their body & mind and live a balanced life. Some of the easy yoga asanas that can be practiced for boosting the immunity are Bhujasana, Halasana, Matyasana and Dhanurasana. These should be practiced under supervision of a well-qualified and experienced trainer.

Highlighting that a strong immune system can wipe out a virus within a few days, Dr Ganga Anand (PT), ChildBirth Educator, Obs and Gynae at Daffodils by Artemis in Gurgaon, revealed that Yoga and breathing techniques can help relax the nervous system and boost an immune response. Gushing over the ways that yoga positively impacts the immune system, Dr Ganga Anand shared that it supports and stimulates the thymus gland, improves circulation, improves oxygen flow and aids the transfer of energy from nutrients to cells, improves the flow of sinuses and flushes out mucus from the lungs, massages and rejuvenates internal organs, helps the body flush out toxins and open up energy pathways to allow the body to heal more effectively.

He listed a few Yoga practices that consists of asanas, Pranayama and meditation, for boosting immunity. These include:

1. Dhanurasana (Bow Pose)- It acts as an ideal stress buster as it helps improve the flow of white blood cells by applying pressure on the digestive system. Practicing the Dhanurasana puts pressure on the belly, which in turn helps strengthen the digestive system.

2. Vrikshasana (Tree Pose)- It helps us to achieve a state of balance. As it symbolizes a sense of calm and serenity, it is one of the best poses for immunity and relaxation.

3. Tadasana (Mountain Pose)- Widely known to be helpful for the nervous system and also helps to correct ones posture and improve flexibility of thighs and joints

4. Ardha Matsyendrasana (Half-fish pose)- This is widely considered to be the"destroyer of deadly diseases''.

He mentioned that other than these, there are many other asanas like Chaturangana Dandasana, Matsyasana, Utkatasana and Anjaneyasana that also help to build immunity.

Read more from the original source:
Tips to treat poor immunity with the help of Yoga and natural way of living - Hindustan Times

Here are eight tips to boost your immunity and reduce your risk of serious COVID-19 illness.

The immune system helps prevent and recover from various infections and diseases. Strong immunity is pivotal for the prevention and complete recovery from COVID-19.

COVID-19 (also called coronavirus disease) is an infectious disease caused by the newly discovered coronavirus called SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2). The disease may manifest as mild to moderate respiratory illness in most people who may be easily treated at home.

Some high-risk groups, such as older people and people with underlying health conditions (such as diabetes, cancer, chronic respiratory diseases, and cardiovascular diseases) have a higher risk of getting a serious illness that requires hospital admission.

Learn eight tips to boost your immunity and reduce your risk of serious COVID-19 illness below.

8 tips to boost your immunity and reduce your risk of serious COVID-19 illness

Medically Reviewed on 4/19/2022

References

Glick J. Boost Your Immune System to Help Fight Flu and COVID-19. Penn Medicine. https://www.lancastergeneralhealth.org/health-hub-home/2022/february/boost-your-immune-system-to-help-fight-flu-and-covid-19

World Health Organization. Nutrition advice for adults during the COVID-19 outbreak. http://www.emro.who.int/nutrition/news/nutrition-advice-for-adults-during-the-covid-19-outbreak.html

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8 Tips To Keep Your Immune System Healthy With COVID-19 - MedicineNet

The 700kHz, 260-element histotripsy ultrasound array transducer used in Prof. Xus lab. Credit: Photo by Marcin Szczepanski/Lead Multimedia Storyteller, Michigan Engineering

A new technique pioneered in rats at the University of Michigan could improve outcomes for cancer and neurological conditions.

Noninvasive sound technology developed at the University of Michigan breaks down liver tumors in rats, kills cancer cells, and spurs the immune system to prevent further spreadan advance that could lead to improved cancer outcomes in humans.

By destroying only 50% to 75% of liver tumor volume, the rats immune systems were able to clear away the rest, with no evidence of recurrence or metastases in more than 80% of the animals.

Even if we dont target the entire tumor, we can still cause the tumor to regress and also reduce the risk of future metastasis, said Zhen Xu, professor of biomedical engineering at U-M and corresponding author of the study in Cancers.

Zhen Xu, Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Michigan works in her office. Dr. Xus research focuses on developing new ultrasound technique for treatment of cancer, cardiovascular diseases, and neurological diseases. She and her colleagues have developed histotripsy, an ultrasound ablation technique via controlled cavitation. Histotripsy is the first image-guided ablation technique that is non-invasive, non-ionizing, and non-thermal. Dr. Xus work spans from basic science, device development, preclinical investigations, to clinical translation of histotripsy. Credit: Photo by Marcin Szczepanski/Lead Multimedia Storyteller, Michigan Engineering

Results also showed the treatment stimulated the rats immune responses, possibly contributing to the eventual regression of the untargeted portion of the tumor and preventing further spread of the cancer.

The treatment, called histotripsy, noninvasively focuses ultrasound waves to mechanically destroy target tissue with millimeter precision. The relatively new technique is currently being used in a human liver cancer trial in the United States and Europe.

In many clinical situations, the entirety of a cancerous tumor cannot be targeted directly in treatments for reasons that include the mass size, location or stage. To investigate the effects of partially destroying tumors with sound, this latest study targeted only a portion of each mass, leaving behind a viable intact tumor. It also allowed the team, including researchers at Michigan Medicine and the Ann Arbor VA Hospital, to show the approachs effectiveness under less than optimal conditions.

Zhen Xu,Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Michigan (left) and Tejaswi Worlikar, Biomedical Engineering PhD student discuss the 700kHz, 260-element histotripsy ultrasound array transducer they use in Prof. Xus lab. Credit: Photo by Marcin Szczepanski/Lead Multimedia Storyteller, Michigan Engineering

Histotripsy is a promising option that can overcome the limitations of currently available ablation modalities and provide safe and effective noninvasive liver tumor ablation, said Tejaswi Worlikar, a doctoral student in biomedical engineering. We hope that our learnings from this study will motivate future preclinical and clinical histotripsy investigations toward the ultimate goal of clinical adoption of histotripsy treatment for liver cancer patients.

Liver cancer ranks among the top 10 causes of cancer related deaths worldwide and in the U.S. Even with multiple treatment options, the prognosis remains poor with five-year survival rates less than 18% in the U.S. The high prevalence of tumor recurrence and metastasis after initial treatment highlights the clinical need for improving outcomes of liver cancer.

Where a typical ultrasound uses sound waves to produce images of the bodys interior, U-M engineers have pioneered the use of those waves for treatment. And their technique works without the harmful side effects of current approaches such as radiation and chemotherapy.

Zhen Xu, Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Michigan (center) and Tejaswi Worlikar, Biomedical Engineering PhD student (right) move the 700kHz, 260-element histotripsy ultrasound array transducer they use in Prof. Xus lab. Credit: Photo by Marcin Szczepanski/Lead Multimedia Storyteller, Michigan Engineering

Our transducer, designed and built at U-M, delivers high amplitude microsecond-length ultrasound pulsesacoustic cavitationto focus on the tumor specifically to break it up, Xu said. Traditional ultrasound devices use lower amplitude pulses for imaging.

The microsecond long pulses from UMs transducer generate microbubbles within the targeted tissuesbubbles that rapidly expand and collapse. These violent but extremely localized mechanical stresses kill cancer cells and break up the tumors structure.

Reference: Impact of Histotripsy on Development of Intrahepatic Metastases in a Rodent Liver Tumor Model by Tejaswi Worlikar, Man Zhang, Anutosh Ganguly, Timothy L. Hall, Jiaqi Shi, Lili Zhao, Fred T. Lee, Mishal Mendiratta-Lala, Clifford S. Cho and Zhen Xu, 22 March 2022, Cancers.DOI: 10.3390/cancers14071612

Since 2001, Xus laboratory at U-M has pioneered the use of histotripsy in the fight against cancer, leading to the clinical trial #HOPE4LIVER sponsored by HistoSonics, a U-M spinoff company. More recently, the groups research has produced promising results on histotripsy treatment of brain therapy and immunotherapy.

The study was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health, Focused Ultrasound Foundation, VA Merit Review, U-Ms Forbes Institute for Discovery and Michigan Medicine-Peking University Health Sciences Center Joint Institute for Translational and Clinical Research.

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Noninvasive Sound Technology Breaks Down Tumors, Kills Cancer Cells, and Spurs the Immune System - SciTechDaily

Neoantigens help direct the bodys natural immune response by tagging cancer cells. They can also help vaccines detect and destroy cancer. (Photo for illustrative purposes only: Getty Images/koto-feja)

April 21, 2022

By Tamar NordenbergFor VA Research Communications

"By tagging cancer cells, neoantigens help direct the body's natural immune response, including cancer-fighting T cells."

Telltale proteins called neoantigens can serve as potent weapons in the fight against cancer. VA researchers recently conducted two studies to identify which neoantigens can best harness the power of the bodys immune system.

A team of VA investigators and colleagues conducted two studies focused on neoantigens, unique protein segments that can form in cancer cells because of a mutation in the tumors DNA. Neoantigens, which do not exist in healthy cells, can play a starring role in fighting cancer. The proteins can earmark enemy cells and spur the immune system into action, explains VA researcher Dr. Karen Taraszka Hastings. She is a dermatologist with the Phoenix VA Health Care System in Arizona and is principal investigator on both studies.

VA research assistant Elizabeth S. Borden says neoantigens play an important role in the bodys war on cancer. By tagging cancer cells, neoantigens help direct the bodys natural immune responseincluding the cancer-fighting response of the immune systems T cellsand they can also help vaccines and other immune system-based treatments detect and destroy cancer cells, she explains. Borden is an M.D./Ph.D. student at the University of Arizona College of MedicinePhoenix, and is first author on both studies.

In the two VA-supported studies, Hastings and Borden collaborated with colleagues at the University of Arizona who specialize in statistical analysis and evaluation of biological data. Hastings is an associate professor at Arizona State University, with an academic focus on immunobiology.

The teams neoantigen studies have the promise of improving health care for Veterans and others with cancer by helping to identify which patients have the cancer types most likely to respond to which immunotherapies, points out Hastings, who treats many VA patients with melanoma and other skin cancers.

The Frontiers in Oncology article reviewed existing research into the therapeutic potential of different neoantigens. The article details not only current knowledge, but also gaps in understanding. We hope this review will provide a good starting point and reference for other researchers aiming to improve neoantigen prioritization for applications in cancer immunotherapy, Borden says.

The literature overview is important because the ability to predict which neoantigens are present in a cancer cell, and which can unleash an immune response, is crucial in cancer treatment, Hastings explains. Knowing whether immunogenic neoantigens are present could help identify patients who may benefit most from a certain therapy. And, for personalized cancer vaccines, knowing which neoantigens are present and can stimulate an immune response is key to generating an effective vaccine.

Some therapies already harness the power of the bodys natural immune response to destroy cancer cells. One such therapy, immune checkpoint inhibition, safeguards the ability of the bodys T cells to destroy tumor cells by blocking biological signals that would get in their way. Immune checkpoint inhibition has revolutionized treatments for many types of cancers by its ability to recognize and destroy tumors, Borden says.

But Borden emphasizes that not all cancer patients respond to this type of immunotherapy. The teams other study, NeoScore, aims to identify which neoantigens best trigger an immune response and which patients are most likely to respond to treatment. The study also aims to support the development of new therapies, like personalized cancer vaccines, to treat patients for whom current treatments fall short.

The NeoScore study, published in the Journal of Immunology, examined a long list of characteristics to determine the most essential hallmarks of the power to quash cancer cells. The analysis focused on MHC class I neoantigens, a category known to directly elicit an immune response for killing cancer cells.

There is no widespread agreement on the characteristics that make a neoantigen capable of mounting an immune response or capable of stimulating a T-cell response. So, the team set out to assess which characteristics had the most promise. They translated these characteristics into an overall score representing the likelihood a given neoantigen would elicit a T-cell response. The NeoScore rating helps prioritize neoantigens that would be most effective in the development of personalized vaccines.

Demonstrating the effectiveness of the approach, a high NeoScore was strongly associated with improved survival in patients who were treated with immune checkpoint inhibition for melanoma. In contrast, a clinical test that looks at high tumor mutation burden, currently used to help physicians decide whether to prescribe immune checkpoint inhibition, showed no such improved survival. These results suggest that the NeoScore has the potential to be developed and applied to improve therapeutic decision-making for immune checkpoint inhibition and personalized cancer vaccines, Hastings says.

Moving forward, Hastings team is interested in examining MHC class II neoantigens, which are known to play a pivotal role in enhancing the immune response to cancer. This class has been studied less extensively than the MHC class I antigens, and represents fertile ground for future research, according to Hastings. The investigator and her research partners are also planning to delve more deeply into how to best apply the NeoScore to predict a patients response to immune checkpoint inhibition.

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Cultivating the Cancer-Fighting Power of Neoantigens - VA's Office of Research and Development

Elon Musk bought Twitter on Monday, and soon users of the social-media platform, as well as regulators and lawmakers around the world, will find themselves in unprecedented, uncharted territory, says John Wihbey, associate professor of media innovation and technology at Northeastern.

Twitters board accepted Musks $44 billion offer for the company in a dramatic turn of events that comes less than two weeks after the billionaire announced his bid for the company, The Wall Street Journal reports. Market-watchers expected Twitter to reject the offer, as the company moved to prevent Musk from increasing his stake in the company after he announced his bid on April 14. But after Musk produced financing, Twitter appeared more interested.

John Wihbey, associate professor of media innovation and technology at Northeastern.Photo by Matthew Modoono/Northeastern University

If Musk takes the company private, he would have full control of highly granular individual data for hundreds of millions of Twitter users, including accounts run by national embassies, politicians, and government agencies.

If you think about Elon Musk as his own nation-state with his own inscrutable intentions, its not dissimilar to selling the company to a foreign nation, Wihbey says. Elon Musk would personally own a lot of data from users around the world. And if he, a single person, unchecked by the discipline of a public company, owns this information, there are certainly questions that arise about how fair a broker he can be.

Famously elusive and often fickle, Musk has made some of his gripes with Twitter well-known. Hes frequently criticized the companys content moderators for intervening too heavily on the platform, which hes called the internets de facto public town square.

In a regulatory filing to announce his offer to buy the company, Musk wrote, I invested in Twitter as I believe in its potential to be the platform for free speech around the globe, and I believe free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy, adding that he believes the company would neither thrive nor serve this societal imperative in its current form. Twitter needs to be transformed as a private company.

However, Wihbey chalks Musks free-speech rhetoric up to more of a talking point than a strategic initiative, particularly when Twitter executives have been battling with thorny issues in countries around the world that have serious life-or-death consequences.

Earlier this year in India, for example, Twitter blocked hundreds of accounts and tweets linked to protests over agricultural reform laws, after one such protest turned deadly, the BBC reports. The company removed the tweets at the request of Prime Minister Narendra Modis administration, but then restored accounts associated with media and activist groupswhich government officials then demanded Twitter block again.

The back-and-forth illustrates one of many complex negotiations the company must make as it expands further into populations beyond the U.S., says Wihbey, whose own research indicates that much of the growth for Twitter and other social-media platforms is international.

Twitter is facing serious human-rights concerns in markets around the world, often where real violence is at stake, Wihbey says. Just saying Twitter needs more free speech doesnt solve the practical political problems the company is dealing with.

Musk has also said that he plans to make Twitters algorithm an open-source model, enabling anyone to see the code that dictates how and when tweets appear on a users timeline.

This would be a change Wihbey can get behind, he says. We should be able to figure out what these algorithms are doing with more precision. They should be subject to outside, third-party research.

With relatively open data sources (compared to other social-media platforms), Twitter has long been used as a resource for social-network, computer-science, other social-science researchers, as well. Now that Musk is poised to take over, its not clear that researchers will still have access to this important source of information.

This was always a long-term fear for people who do research with Twitter, but I dont think anyone ever expected the ground to shift this suddenly beneath our feet, Wihbey says.

For media inquiries, please contact Ed Gavaghan at e.gavaghan@northeastern.edu or 617-373-5718.

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'Uncharted territory' ahead after Elon Musk buys Twitter - News @ Northeastern - Northeastern University

For the immunocompromised even those fully vaccinated are feeling vulnerable as New Zealand loosens the restrictions designed to protect them. How worried should they be? Joanne Naish investigates.

For the immunocompromised, Covid-19 is terrifying but while those who get vaccinated arent quite as safe as the general vaccinated population, the degree of added risk is variable.

Immunocompromised, or people whose immune systems might not work as well as they should for several reasons, are at higher risk of severe outcomes from Covid-19 but misinformation spreading online incorrectly suggesting the vaccine is equally useless for all immunocompromised people (from those with high blood pressure to organ recipients) is creating unnecessary anxiety.

Several studies have shown it is not all doom and gloom for the immunocompromised while vaccine effectiveness is lower for them than the immunocompetent, they can still get good protection from severe illness and death.

A US report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed the need for ventilation or death was reduced by 74% for people who received an mRNA vaccine compared to 92% for the immunocompetent.

READ MORE:* Covid-19: 16 and 17 year olds eligible for Pfizer vaccine boosters* Fourth jab decision still pending, study finds triple protection from severe Covid-19* When can you be vaccinated or get your booster after having Covid-19?

An American study showed 63.1% of organ recipients showed positive antibody response from three doses, and in two studies, 50% of recipients with no or minimal antibody response after three doses of mRNA vaccine mounted an antibody response after a fourth dose.

Elena mozhvilo/Unsplash

Many immunocompromised people are fearful of catching Covid-19 even if they are fully vaccinated

How much protection immune deficient people get from the vaccine depends on what their condition is and how old they are.

The Ministry of Health has a long list of conditions that make people immunodeficient and therefore eligible to receive three initial doses instead of two of the vaccine prior to a booster including leukaemia, aggressive lymphomas, HIV/AIDS with a low CD4 count and people who have had received a stem cell transplant or are receiving immunosuppressive therapy for an organ transplant.

Immunologist Graham Le Gros said immunocompromised was being used as a catch-all term for anyone who might not have good outcomes if they catch Covid-19, but also for people who are believed to not have effective coverage from the Covid-19 vaccine.

He said cancer patients were one of the biggest cohort of immune-compromised people in New Zealand.

However, it was not the cancer that made them immune deficient it was treatment like chemotherapy that zapped their immune system.

National Cancer Institute/Supplied

People receiving cancer treatment should be boosted beforehand to make sure they are protected from Covid-19.

The good news was if patients receive their booster dose before their treatment, the antibodies created would offer good protection from severe illness for the entire time they underwent their cancer treatment, Gros said.

For another rare group of people who were genetically immune deficient, an extra vaccine dose might be required to give them the same protection.

Theyve got a disorder where the immune system doesnt work very well like the boy in the bubble, or they are missing some very specific kind of immune receptor that means their immune system doesnt work well. They need multiple vaccines to get their sluggish immune systems up to speed with the right protection, he said.

However, a small number might never gain an immune response in which case they should continue to isolate themselves or have access to therapies like injecting other peoples antibodies into them or antiviral drugs, he said.

Jericho Rock-Archer/Stuff

Malaghan Director Graham Le Gros says immune deficient people are justifiably worried about Covid-19.

The elderly were also inherently immunocompromised.

We know that over 65, the immune system doesnt normally work quite as well as when you are 25 or 35 and so for the flu vaccine they give an extra dose, a larger dose, to get over that kind of sluggishness. We know for Covid-19 we can get around it by being a bit more regular with the booster you can kick along enough to make it good.

Emerging evidence was revealing people with type 2 diabetes also needed an extra dose to boost their immune response, he said.

Gros says despite the positives, people with known immune deficiencies were justifiably worried about Covid-19.

What I am seeing is those people are really scared that they want people to wear masks they feel very vulnerable. Thats who the Government has been trying to protect. Thats who goes down in the pandemic. We could have lost a lot of us.

Theres hundreds of thousands of them, and we would have lost them if wed just let the virus come through [before vaccination]

Chris McKeen/Stuff

Vaccinologist Associate Professor Helen Petousis-Harris says immunocompromised people were at higher risk of not making a good immune response.

Vaccinologist Helen Petousis-Harris said immunocompromised people were at higher risk of not making a good immune response to the vaccine and were less likely to be protected.

She said the term immunocompromised covered anyone who had either a condition or was on medication that impacts various important aspects of their immune system.

How effective the vaccine was for those people also very much depended on the individual and what part of their immune system was affected.

RYAN ANDERSON/Stuff

People should continue to wear masks to protect those who do not get effective protection from the vaccine.

She said immunocompromised people were acutely aware of the risks to them.

I think there is a lack of appreciation by many people that these seriously immunocompromised people need to got to the supermarkets and other places, and it could be terrifying for them, especially when there are people objecting to wearing masks, she said.

They were understandably worried about the move to orange setting and the reopening of the borders, even if they were up-to-date with their vaccines.

Given they are less likely to be protected by the vaccine it is understandable if they are worried about any of the loosening of restrictions. They have done all they can to protect themselves, so it is up to the rest of us to continue to be considerate as we open up, she said.

Tom Lee/Stuff

Extra doses of the Covid-19 vaccine are available for those who meet the criteria

A Ministry of Health spokesperson said it did not have a figure for the number of immunocompromised people in New Zealand because it was a moving variable.

Individuals who are severely immunocompromised are at a higher risk of severe outcomes from Covid-19 and might not produce a sufficiently strong immune response after two doses, they said.

Age is the biggest risk factor for Covid-19 so for elderly with immuno-compromising conditions are at higher risk of severe illness and death, as Covid infection is more severe in the elderly anyway and risk factors are cumulative.

The Ministry said it was difficult to say exactly how many immunocompromised people had received a third dose but 31,646 third doses have been given out in total.

This group also tends to have a prolonged infection and viral shedding period, are at higher risk of developing a new variant, and are more likely to transmit the virus to any contacts compared to non-immunocompromised consumers.

Data about the number of immunocompromised people who have died of Covid-19 was not available yet.

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I'm immunocompromised - how worried should I be about Omicron? - Stuff.co.nz

As the pandemic rages on across the globe, scientists have started identifying a chilling pattern: An estimated one-third of people infected with COVID-19 develop neurological symptoms including strokes, headaches, and disturbed consciousness. In some brains, COVID causes molecular changes that mirror those seen in the brains of people with Alzheimers, leading some scientists to believe that long COVID may be an atypical form of the memory-destroying disorder. There are also larger concerns that damage to the brain caused by COVID may put individuals at an increased risk of developing dementia later in life. The downstream effects on long-term health are far from understood, but dramatic preliminary evidence suggests a complicated alignment with Alzheimers disease.

Amid an overall push to better understand long COVIDon April 5, President Joe Biden ordered a new research initiative across federal agenciesthere is also a worldwide effort to study this insidious link to Alzheimers, with various groups racing to understand the overlap between COVID and neurological harm. In New Jersey, one project stands out for incorporating another critical overlapping factor: the people at high risk of developing both severe COVID and Alzheimers.

Rutgers University researchers are currently enrolling older Black adults in an observational study examining the consequences of COVID and how these relate to risk for Alzheimers. The neurodegenerative disease disproportionately affects Black Americans, with the CDC anticipating case counts increasing over the next 40 years. COVID is also deadlier for Black Americans, a reality stemming from long-standing public health inequities.

Although there are some obvious risk factors that exacerbate the effects of COVID and Alzheimers on Black populations (such as increased rates of diabetes stemming from poor nutrition), scientists still do not fully understand why these health disparity gaps are so large, Mark Gluck, a professor of neuroscience and public health at Rutgers University-Newark, told The Daily Beast. Genetics and differences in immune systems may play a role, but specific ideas are hard to come by yet.

Gluck spearheads the ongoing COVID-Alzheimers study, alongside Patricia Fitzgerald-Bocarsly, an immune system researcher and Provost of Rutgers Biomedical and Health Science-Newar, and Maria Laura Gennaro, a professor of medicine and epidemiology at Rutgers. By examining the questions surrounding COVIDlike why age is a risk factor and why some develop long-haul symptomsthe team hopes to gain insights into Alzheimers disease that we would never have had otherwise, said Gluck.

In some ways, examining what COVID has to do with the brain is really a proxy for understanding the immune systems effect on the brain. Its known that the immune system plays a role in the development of Alzheimers: People with the disease have faulty microglia (a type of immune cell), and chronic inflammation is generally thought to drive cognitive decline. Its possible, Gluck explained, that to some degree, Alzheimers may be like an autoimmune disorder, in which immune cells attack healthy brain cells and damage brain tissue via inflammation.

COVID can induce an immune response in the brain, which may explain why some people develop brain fog and memory loss. This may mirror what is happening in the brains of people with Alzheimer's. It also suggests that Alzheimers researchers, who mostly talk to scientists studying neurodegenerative diseases, should be talking more to immunologists, Gluck said.

Fitzgerald-Boscarly is one of those immunologists. While scientists have been interested in the intersection of the immune system and neuroscience for decades, she told The Daily Beast that whats happening now is a maturation of the field boosted by advanced research tools. Early in her career, she was in the lab that saw some of the very first patients with HIV in New York. HIV also triggers inflammation, which can damage the brain.

In a sense, my career to date has been bookended by these two pandemics: HIV and COVID, Fitzgerald-Boscarly said.

In June 2020, Fitzgerald-Boscarly released findings that in older adults, theres a buildup of cytotoxic T cells (which kill cancerous or infected cells) that no longer function due to agingwhat biologists call senescent cells. She believes that an accumulation of these faulty cells in older people may, in part, drive up chronic low-grade inflammation that contributes to diseases like dementia. Their presence may also explain why COVID is deadlier for older people.

The team is especially curious about the gene variants APOE4 and APOE2which are known to play a role in Alzheimers risk. APOE4 is the strongest risk factor gene for Alzheimers disease, and early research suggests it also increases the risk of developing severe COVID. Meanwhile, APOE2 appears to protect against developing Alzheimers disease. The question now is whether or not it may also shield asymptomatic patients from the most serious outcomes of COVID.

Supported by a grant from the National Institutes of Health awarded in April 2021, the Rutgers study is currently enrolling Black adults over 60 in the Newark area. The goal is to build a cohort of 200 to 300 participants, half of whom have had varying degrees of COVID and half who have not. They will be asked about their sleep, fitness, cognitive status, and overall health while participating in genotyping and brain scans.

Dr. Alexander Salerno is a partner in this recruitment. He runs Salerno Medical Associates, a family-owned practice that serves the communities of Newark and East Orange, New Jersey. His practice serves roughly 20,000 residents across five clinics, including 6,000 older Black individualsat least half of whom came down with COVID between 2020 and 2021.

When Salerno looks back on when COVID first hit his community, its with pride and astonishment. As other practices closed, his clinics stayed open. In spring 2020, the Salerno Medical Associates partnered with Rutgers to get FDA approval for saliva testing and subsequently went to work, testing hundreds of patients a day. The rules were constantly changing and resources were nearly impossible to get.

It was really tough in the beginning, Salerno told The Daily Beast. Our offices are technically in federally underserved areas when it comes to primary care. Now add a pandemic to that. Our urban community was very vulnerable.

Today, Salerno sees many different degrees of long haul syndrome. But its difficult to know what is strictly COVID-caused or not. Many of his patients paused care during the worst of the pandemic, and in turn, many cases of diabetes, hypertension, and cardiovascular disease got worse. He suspects some patients who had COVID but dont show signs of further illness yet may still in the future. The summation of it all we have yet to truly understand, Salerno says.

When Salerno gauges patient interest in participating in the Rutgers study, its within an overall conversation about brain health. His goal is to destigmatize dementia and educate his patients on the controllable factors, like diet and exercise, that can modify risk and severity.

Gluck believes the community-oriented nature of Salernos practice, along with its history, motivates its clients to participate in the study. Salernos parents founded the practice in the 1950s, and after the 1967 Newark riots erupted amid racial tensions, they stayed while other businesses left. The practice also serves patients through three programs designed to expand access to care and increase healthcare knowledge

We feel this is important because healthcare is not a one-size-fits-all approach, Salerno said. Not everyone can get to a clinic or doctors office, and when they do, theres a lot of disservice as opposed to good service.

In the far future, that service may include care for Alzheimers informed by participation in the Rutgers study.

From the diagnosis point of view, understanding the role of the immune system in Alzheimers could help us understand whos most at-risk, Gluck says.

Furthermore, knowing which aspects of the immune system are exactly involved could lead to therapeutic interventions that target them. This necessitates much more research, Fitzgerald-Boscarly explains. For example, its known that drugs called senolytics clear senescent cells. But because evolution has allowed senescent cells to accumulate, its possible theres some benefits. The trick will be determining how to make quality therapies, without inadvertently causing harm.

For now, the focus of the research is to study people at increased risk for Alzheimers and COVID and look for patterns, but there are plans to collaborate with other universities and examine the immune system reactions of older adults who were hospitalized with COVID. They are pressing into this area of neuroimmunology, Fitzgerald-Boscarly said. As a scientist, no two days are the sameas studies grow and evolve, theres the joy of discovery.

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Meet the Scientists Racing to Unravel COVID's Hidden Link to Alzheimer's - The Daily Beast

A few months ago, Candice Matthis and Debbie Nichols sat down with their husbands to have some bacon. It was an unremarkable scene, except for two details.

First, there were the EpiPens, which Matthis and Nichols both had ready in case of emergency. The two women cant eat red meat, not after they were each diagnosed with a dangerous red-meat allergy that develops, oddly enough, after tick bites. They had bonded as friends over their strange shared fate, where a strip of bacon could send them into anaphylactic shock. Matthis is so sensitive that even the airborne particles wafting off a pan of cooking meat typically make her sick. But this time, nothing happened to her as the bacon sizzled. Her EpiPen remained untouched. Nichols made herself a BLT. It had been years, she told me. And for her, too, nothing happened, except that she remembered how good a BLT tasted.

Which brings us to the second remarkable thing about the meal. This bacon was not your regular bacon, or even your fancy pasture-raised, thick-cut bacon; this bacon was so exclusive that its not available in stores. It came from Revivicor, a biotechnology company that genetically modifies pigs to create organs suitable for transplant into humans. (One of its pig hearts was experimentally transplanted into a human for the first time this January.) It just so happens that the same moleculea sugar called alpha-galthat causes the human immune system to reject pig organs also causes the tick-associated red-meat allergy, known as alpha-gal syndrome. To make a pig whose organs could be harvested for transplant, Revivicor first had to make an alpha-gal-free pig. And when it did, the company realized that transplant surgeons werent the only ones interested.

Since last fall, Revivicor has been quietly sending refrigerated packages of alpha-gal-free bacon, ham, ground pork, chops, and pork shoulders to people in the alpha-gal-syndrome community. These packages were free, but Revivicor has told the FDA it is exploring a mail-order business. And so a biomedical company has found itself an accidental purveyor of specialty pork products.

Alpha-gal syndrome is an unusual allergy with an unusual history, even before genetically modified bacon entered the picture. It was considered a rare curiosity when it was first discovered in 2008. Since then, the true prevalence of alpha-gal syndrome has begun to reveal itself; tens of thousands of Americans likely have it. And the tick species that causes this syndrome, the Lone Star tick, is spreading across the United States too. Exactly how the bites of the Lone Star tick trigger this specific immune reaction to alpha-gal is still unknown. One hypothesis is that the ticks saliva also contains the sugar molecule.

Although sometimes shorthanded as an allergy to red meat, alpha-gal syndrome is more accurately called an allergy to mammalian products. The molecule is found in the bodies of nearly all mammals other than primates, where it likely functions as a molecular tag. It is in muscle and fat, which means steaks, bacon, and lamb chops are obvious no-nos for people with alpha-gal syndrome. But for people who are more sensitive to alpha-gal, dairy can also trigger a reaction. And for the small minority who are the most sensitive, avoiding alpha-gal means hunting for mammalian by-products hiding in the most unexpected places: drug capsules and candy (which can contain gelatin), face creams (collagen), and lip balm (lanolin). Even a wool sweater can make some people break out in hives.

To avoid alpha-gal, Matthis and Nicholswho blog about alpha-gal syndrome as the Two Alpha Galshad to dramatically restructure their diets and their lives. I was a huge Paleo person, says Matthis, which obviously wasnt going to work anymore. She eventually went vegan.

Her entire family had to give up red meat at home because of her sensitivity to meat fumes. They went through their own mourning, she told me. It was hard, but they understood the danger; her teenage children have had to take her to the ER in anaphylactic shock. Eating in restaurants is a total minefield, so she packs a cooler of safe foods when she travels. Nichols, for her part, went on a cruise a few months after she was first diagnosed, thinking she could just avoid beef, pork, and dairy. She woke up in the middle of the night in what she now understands to have been anaphylaxis. In retrospect, she must have accidentally eaten something of mammalian origin. She remembers pacing the top deck, trying desperately to breathe, and waking a nurse, who did not believe that she had such an allergy. Im never going on a cruise again, she told me. Never!

Skepticism from doctors and nurses is unfortunately not uncommon. Alpha-gal syndrome doesnt quite look like typical food allergies, says Scott Commins, an allergist at the University of North Carolina who originally helped discover the syndrome back in 2008. The symptoms usually appear hours after eating rather than immediately. At 2 a.m., no one really in the ER thinks to ask what you had for dinner at 8 p.m., he told me. The delay is a big issue. And while some people have classic allergy symptoms such as hives and swelling of the lips and tongue, others tend to have gastrointestinal issues, including abdominal pain and diarrhea. A diagnosis requires a test for antibodies against alpha-gal. Some patients told me they had a relatively easy time getting the test; others had to deal with doctors totally unfamiliar with alpha-gal. Living in Nevada, nobody really has alpha-gal [syndrome] unless they moved here, says Ilana Short, who lives in Las Vegas now but grew up in Tennessee. (Lone Star ticks are currently found in the eastern, southern, and midwestern United States, though they have been moving west.) She had unexplained hives for years before she was finally diagnosed.

Commins first got in touch with Revivicor years ago when he was looking into alpha-gal-free pigs as an experimental model to study the allergy. Revivicor, for its part, was not founded with niche food allergies in mind. It is and has always been focused on the goal of xenotransplantation, or animal-to-human organ transplants. Alpha-gal happens to be one of the biological obstacles to that goal. Because human bodies dont naturally produce this molecule, its presence on, say, a pig organ causes immune rejection. To get around this, Revivicor had to create a pig lacking a functional gene for alpha-gal. If this strategy to get around the immune system worked for transplants, it could work for food allergies too.

Again, Revivicor was focused on transplants. We didnt at first think there were enough patients with alpha-gal syndrome to really be a blip on their radar screen, Commins told me. But over time, the community of people with the syndrome has grown larger and larger. They joined Facebook groups to swap information and tips and recipes. And some of them started reaching out to Revivicor about its alpha-gal-free pigs.

One of these people with alpha-gal syndrome happened to be Steve Troxler, who is, ironically enough, the agriculture commissioner of North Carolina, one of the top hog-producing states in the nation. Part of my job as a commissioner of agriculture is to be able to eat more barbecue than any human being on the face of the Earth, he says, which became rather awkward when he developed the allergy in 2017. When Troxler heard about Revivicor, he saw the benefit both for people with alpha-gal syndrome and, potentially, for North Carolina. He sprang into action.

With his decades of agriculture-industry experience, Troxler knew which people at the FDA to introduce the company to and how to navigate the complex regulatory process. It kind of became a part of my lifes work to try to help get this product to the market, he told me. The agency took 20 years to approve the first genetically modified animal for food, the AquaBounty salmon. Troxler was proud to help get Revivicors pigonly the second genetically modified food animalapproved in a relatively speedy two years. In December 2020, the FDA gave Revivicors GalSafe pig an official stamp of approval. (These pigs are not, by the way, the exact same pigs whose organs were used in the much-publicized pig-heart transplant or in two recent kidney transplants into brain-dead patients. Xenotransplantation requires a suite of additional genetic modifications to minimize rejection and make the organs comparable in size to humans.)

The original herd of GalSafe pigs at the time of approval was smallreportedly numbering just 25. And Revivicor still has a long road to travel to commercial availability. The pigs are currently raised at a facility in Iowa, but Troxler hopes to set up a bigger production plant in, of course, North Carolina, with the alpha-gal-free pork hitting the market in 18 months. Revivicor has been very tight-lipped about its plans for commercializing GalSafe pork. The company, which rarely grants media interviews, declined to comment for this story.

Late last year, though, the company began offering free samples of GalSafe pork products in limited quantities. An order form began to circulate among the alpha-gal support groups on Facebook. Amber Shifflett received her order of four ham steaks and four packs of ground pork last fall. She had had to give up her beloved steaks and bacon breakfasts when she was diagnosed with alpha-gal syndrome earlier in the year. Now she has carefully rationed her precious stock of alpha-gal-free pork. She ate the ham steaks for Christmas. That was my Christmas present to myself, she told me. The ground pork is still in her freezer, waiting for a special occasion. Im so hesitant because theyre the last of my samples, she said. Maybe shell have them for a cookout this summer, when everyone else is chowing down on red meat. She is still researching the right recipe.

The half-dozen people I talked with who tried the Revivicor meat all had good experiences. Troxler, in his expert opinion, said the pork tasted just like normal pork. No one had allergic reactions. The only bad thing is it reminded me how delicious pork is, says Sharon Forsyth, who has had the syndrome for three years and runs the site Alpha-gal Information. Scott Commins is about to begin a study, funded by Revivicor, to formally confirm the porks safety for people with alpha-gal syndrome, because the FDA approval was just for general consumption.

As nice as it was to taste pork again, those who tried Revivicors pork told me, it didnt solve the challenges of living with alpha-gal. Some missed eating bacon more than others, but they all missed the carefreeness they hadnt known theyd once enjoyed. I miss being able to have a normal life, Forsyth said. I miss being able to travel. I miss being able to eat out without it always being an ordeal. One of her good friends lives in Madagascar, but she cant fathom traveling to a country where she doesnt speak the language and where she would have to ask about the presence of meat and dairy and hidden mammalian ingredients such as gelatin in everything she used or ate.

Its not just food and personal care products she worries about. Mammalian by-products are also used widely in medicine: Replacement heart valves come from pigs or cows; vaccines can contain additives such as glycerin or bovine extract; gelatin is in drug capsules; sutures can have collagen; and monoclonal antibodies can be derived from mammals or mammalian cell lines. In fact, one of the first pieces of evidence that clued scientists in to alpha-gal syndrome was when cancer patients in areas with ticks started reacting to a mouse-derived monoclonal-antibody treatment. Most people with alpha-gal syndrome are not so sensitive that they have to avoid all of these medical products, but some are. Imagine that youre sick in a hospital, Forsyth said, and you have to worry about reacting to not just the food you eat but the drugs youre given.

But Revivicors pigs could offer a safer alternative here, too. Having pork is great, Commins said. But to me its really the medical uses of these animals that can be really helpful for patients. They might not be as sci-fi as transplanting whole pig organs, but alpha-gal-free sutures and heart valves would matter to these patients. The genetically modified pigs that were created for xenotransplant research and then turned into niche pork products might become medical products again.

Original post:
A Tick Bite Made Them Allergic to Meat - The Atlantic

The immune system fights germs and foreign substances on the skin, in the tissues of the body and in bodily fluids such as blood. The immune system is made up of two parts: the innate, (general) immune system and the adaptive (specialized) immune system. These two systems work closely together and take on different tasks.

The innate immune system is the body's first line of defense against germs entering the body. It responds in the same way to all germs and foreign substances, which is why it is sometimes referred to as the "nonspecific" immune system. It acts very quickly: For instance, it makes sure that bacteria that have entered the skin through a small wound are detected and destroyed on the spot within a few hours. The innate immune system has only limited power to stop germs from spreading, though.

The innate immune system consists of

All outer and inner surfaces of the human body a key part of the innate immune system. The closed surface of the skin and of all mucous membranes already forms a physical barrier against germs, which protects them from entering. Additionally, chemical substances like acid, enzymes or mucus prevent bacteria and viruses from gaining a foothold. Movements created, for example, by hair-like structures in the bronchi (cilia) or bowel muscles stop germs from settling in the body. Tear fluid, sweat and urine (which flushes the organs of the urinary tract) have a similar effect.

The innate immune system activates special immune system cells and proteins if germs get past the skin and mucous membranes and enter the body.

When a part of the skin is infected, immune system cells move to the area or immune system cells that are already there are activated. Specific immune system cells release substances into the immediate area that make the blood vessels wider and more permeable. This causes the area around the infection to swell, heat up and redden, and inflammation results. A fever may develop as well. Then the blood vessels expand further and even more immune system cells arrive.

Certain proteins (enzymes) are also activated to help in the immune response (see below).

Bacteria or viruses that enter the body can be stopped right away by scavenger cells (phagocytes). Scavenger cells are special kinds of white blood cells (leukocytes). These cells enclose germs and "digest" them. The remains of these germs move to the surface of the scavenger cells to be detected by the adaptive immune system.

There are also other types of immune system cells that release substances to kill bacteria and various germs. Both germs and body tissue and immune system cells die and decay during an immune system response. Their remains form pus, a yellowish fluid.

Several proteins (enzymes) help the cells of the innate immune system. A total of nine different enzymes activate one another in a process similar to a chain reaction: One enzyme in the first stage alerts several enzymes of the second stage, each of which again activates several enzymes of the third stage, and so on. This allows immune system responses to escalate very quickly.

The tasks of these enzymes include:

marking germs as targets for scavenger cells,

attracting other immune system cells from the bloodstream,

fighting viruses by destroying the viral envelope (the outermost layer of a virus) or cells that have been infected with viruses.

The natural killer cells are the third major part of the innate immune system. They specialize in identifying cells that are infected by a virus or that have become tumorous. To do this, they search for cells that have changes in their surface, and then destroy the cell surface using cell toxins.

The adaptive immune system takes over if the innate immune system is not able to destroy the germs. It specifically targets the type of germ that is causing the infection. But to do that it first needs to identify the germ. This means that it is slower to respond than the innate immune system, but when it does it is more accurate. It also has the advantage of being able to "remember" germs, so the next time a known germ is encountered, the adaptive immune system can respond faster.

This memory is also the reason why there are some illnesses you can only get once in your life, because afterwards your body becomes immune. It may take a few days for the adaptive immune system to respond the first time it comes into contact with the germ, but the next time the body can react immediately. The second infection is then usually not even noticed, or is at least milder.

The adaptive immune system is made up of:

T lymphocytes in the tissue between the body's cells

B lymphocytes, also found in the tissue between the body's cells

Antibodies in the blood and other bodily fluids

T lymphocytes (also called T cells) are produced in bone marrow and then move to the thymus through the bloodstream, where they mature. The "T" in their name comes from "thymus."

T cells have three main jobs:

They use chemical messengers to activate other immune system cells in order to start the adaptive immune system (T helper cells).

They detect cells infected by viruses or tumorous cells and destroy them (cytotoxic T cells).

Some T helper cells become memory T cells after the infection has been defeated. They can "remember" which germs were defeated and are then ready to activate the adapted immune system quickly if there is another infection.

T cells have detection features on their surfaces that can attach to germs like a lock that one particular key will fit. The immune system can produce a matching T cell type for each germ in an infection within a few days.

Then if a germ attaches to a matching T cell, the T cell starts to multiply creating more T cells specialized to that germ. Because only the cells that match the germ multiply, the immune response is customized.

B lymphocytes (B cells) are made in the bone marrow and then mature there to become specialized immune system cells. They take their name from the "B" in "bone marrow." Like the T cells, there are many different types of B cells that match particular germs.

The B cells are activated by the T helper cells: T helper cells contact B cells that match the same germs that they do. This activates the B cells to multiply and to transform themselves into plasma cells. These plasma cells quickly produce very large amounts of antibodies and release them into the blood. Because only the B cells that match the attacking germs are activated, only the exact antibodies that are needed will be produced.

Some of the activated B cells transform into memory cells and become part of the "memory" of the adaptive immune system.

The various cells of the adaptive immune system communicate either directly or via soluble chemical messengers such as cytokines (small proteins). These chemical messengers are mostly proteins and are produced by different cells in the body.

Antibodies are compounds of protein and sugar that circulate in the bloodstream. They are created by the immune system to fight germs and foreign substances. Antibodies can quickly detect germs and other potentially harmful substances, and then attach to them. This neutralizes the "intruders" and attracts other immune system cells to help. Antibodies are produced by the B lymphocytes. Germs and other substances that can provoke the creation of antibodies are also referred to as "antigens."

An antibody only attaches to an antigen if it matches exactly, like a key in the lock of the antibody. That is how antibodies detect the matching germs to initiate a fast response from the adaptive immune system.

Antibodies have three main functions:

They activate other immune system cells by attaching to their surfaces. Scavenger cells are better able to fight off germs that are loaded with antibodies, too.

They activate proteins that help in the immune system response.

The antibodies of the adaptive immune system also support the innate immune system.

Brandes R, Lang F, Schmidt R (Ed). Physiologie des Menschen: mit Pathophysiologie. Berlin: Springer; 2019.

Menche N (Ed). Biologie Anatomie Physiologie. Mnchen: Urban und Fischer; 2016.

Pschyrembel. Klinisches Wrterbuch. Berlin: De Gruyter; 2017.

IQWiG health information is written with the aim of helpingpeople understand the advantages and disadvantages of the main treatment options and healthcare services.

Because IQWiG is a German institute, some of the information provided here is specific to theGerman health care system. The suitability of any of the described options in an individualcase can be determined by talking to a doctor. We do not offer individual consultations.

Our information is based on the results of good-quality studies. It is written by ateam ofhealth care professionals, scientists and editors, and reviewed by external experts. You canfind a detailed description of how our health information is produced and updated inour methods.

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The innate and adaptive immune systems - InformedHealth ...

Scientists work daily on altering current vaccines by using molecular means to assure the individual that each variant is covered. And there is development of new medications to treat patients who have been infected and are ill.

Published on December 20, 2021

We are going to have to deal with an invasive virus for the foreseeable future. Never has the worlds population been so acutely aware of a deadly non-living particle that wreaks havoc on the worlds people on a weekly basis. Its a force to separate those who are immunologically protected from those who are not. Furthermore, the immune system, which I call the biological soul, determines who is to live or die.

I had been talking about biological warfare to emergency volunteers long before the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Now, the pandemic has brought the biowarfare issue to reality and made it a terrorist act more deadly than 9/11, from an invisible source. Now, we talk about viral replication and immunogenetics to explain the value of vaccination, appropriate behavior and the use of personal protective equipment in 2021. It seems like the COVID virus is living, because it appears when we least expect it in new forms, highly developed and often with new characteristics. It is as though it is alive and directs itself and us. The alpha, the delta and then a plethora of Greek lettered variants, until the recent appearance of Omicron.

There is no doubt that our immune systems are primed to deal with scourges like COVID. The immune system is our biological soul because it directs and protects every organ of the body like a spirit and is present to make sure that you live a long and secure life. The immune system is imperceptibly learning about new invaders every hour of the day in a kind of terrorist drill. It learns and is informed by your microbiomes (bowel, skin, lungs and others), collections of organisms without which the immune system would not work. From your birth, the biomes initially delivered to you by your mother during your voyage into the world to the present biomes determined by your hygiene, diet, stress and consumption of medicines. The immune system learns during every moment of the day by exposure to this or that minor or major antigen. Occasionally with something like the novel coronavirus, the immune system encounters a cunning foe that establishes a resistant presence to an immune system overwhelmed by its lack of recognition of the new invader. You can hear the T cells say, this is not a drill. Moreover, there is always the danger that a new resistance may develop as soon as the immune system learns its way. COVID is discreet in its passage to various organs and does its damage through inflammation in many organs, selective residence in areas like the human brain and the formation of small micro blood clots in the microscopic vessels that line the alveoli of the lung, those little sacks that provide exchange of oxygen. This is the way this efficient particle replicates and, in the process, kills its host.

As with every other kind of invasion by bacteria or parasites, the immune system can inform itself and overcome most infections. It all depends on the health of your biological soul, your genetic predisposition and the number of organ comorbidities like heart disease, lung disease, obesity or simply age. After infection, the response among humans who have recovered as measured by neutralizing antibody, or in rare cases measured cellular immunity, varies from individual to individual. As I looked for strong titered antibodies from the previously infected survivors to get some convalescent sera for use among the dying, I was struck by the inconsistency of the immune response in most patients who recovered from COVID. This was clearly proof that the immune response was different for all of us. Vaccination is needed for both the previously infected and those who wish to prevent initial infection, and both responses vary from individual to individual.

I am astonished by misinformation about the vaccine and its efficacy (largely the result of ignorance), but more importantly, I am stunned by the disinformation given by certain individuals (purposeful attempts at obfuscation) and groups on social media decrying the need for the jab. This disinformation has effects are on both young and old folks and is the basis for vaccine hesitancy and doubtless thousands of deaths. Excuses have abounded, such as the vaccine does not work because it has been rushed, it affects fertility, it is really a chip that is injected into you to follow you, it is given to old people to eliminate them from the population or finally that the virus is a political hoax. Since there have now been over 800,000 deaths in this country alone and only 61 percent of the population is vaccinated (the lowest among wealthy countries), this disinformation is very deadly. Because of vaccine hesitancy, families are fractured. The unvaccinated are prohibited from interacting with relatives over the holidays. Extra attention is given by hosts and hostesses to ensure that there are no super spreaders amongst them. A recent wedding of a cousin that resulted in 35 infected people with two guests hospitalized is a stark example of what can happen.

Naming this the year of immunity is a perfect substrate for many articles directed to each component of the healthy immune system. Topics such as the long-haul syndrome, breakthrough infections, the new appearance of autoimmunity in those after infection, the sudden appearance of new pain syndromes, the role of the brain and the importance of the biome are all items for future discussion. Moreover, scientists work daily on altering current vaccines by using molecular means to assure the individual that each variant is covered. And there is development of new medications to treat patients who have been infected and are ill. These medications are anti-viral in different ways: One is a nucleoside analogue which disrupts replication of the virus (Molnupiravir), and the other is an anti-viral proteinase inhibitor that acts like anti-HIV and Hepatitis C pills (Paxlovid). Both oral pills should be available in 2022 to prevent further death. While there is no substitute for the vaccine, there is hope for the hesitant.

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New Year: 2022 as the Year of Immunity - Worth