Publisher Health

One year after infection by SARS-CoV-2, most people maintain anti-Spike antibodies regardless of the severity of their symptoms, according to a study with healthcare workers co-led by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), the Catalan Health Institute (ICS) and the Jordi Gol Institute (IDIAP JG), with the collaboration of the Daniel Bravo Andreu Private Foundation. The results suggest that vaccine-generated immunity will also be long-lasting.
One of the key questions to better predict the pandemic’s evolution is the duration of natural immunity. A growing number of studies suggest that most people generate a humoral (antibody) and cellular (T cells) response that is maintained during several months, maybe years.
During the first wave of the pandemic, the team at ICS/IDIAP JG in collaboration with Carlota Dobaño’s team at ISGlobal started a follow-up study of a cohort of healthcare workers with COVID-19 — a total of 173 people working in healthcare centers of central Catalonia. Most infections were mild to moderate, although some cases required hospitalization.
The research team took regular blood samples from September 2020 onwards to measure the level and type of SARS-CoV-2-specific antibodies in these patients. This work was possible thanks to the support of the Daniel Bravo Foundation, which equipped ISGlobal with the latest technology and necessary resources to perform the study and rapidly reach conclusions during the subsequent waves.
“The results obtained until now lead us to believe that immunity to SARS-CoV-2 will last longer than we originally thought. Being a new virus, it is very important to understand how it behaves and affects different people,” says Anna Ruiz Comellas, researcher at the Catalan Institute of Health and co-author of the study.
No significant decay in antibody levels was observed over the first five months, and at 9 months, 92.4% of peoples remained seropositive — 90% of them had IgG, 76% had IgA and 61% had IgM recognising the Spike protein or the receptor binding domain (RBD). The results were similar among healthcare workers who had not been vaccinated in April (95% had IgG, 83% IgA and 25% IgM).
“These data confirm that IgG have a longer duration, but IgM levels, which are supposed to last less, were unexpectedly quite sustained over time,” says Gemma Moncunill, ISGlobal researcher and senior co-author of the study, together with Ruíz-Comellas. Hospitalization, fever, and loss of smell and taste were associated with higher antibody levels at five or nine months.
Four reinfections were observed among the participants. Two of them were symptomatic and occurred in seronegative individuals. Another asymptomatic reinfection occurred in a subject with very low antibody levels. These results indicate that anti-Spike antibodies protect against symptomatic infections. “They also indicate that people who have not been previously infected should be prioritised for vaccination, since those who have already been infected may be protected for at least one year,” says Anna Ramírez-Morros, first co-author of the study.
“Considering that antibody levels achieved upon vaccination are usually higher than those generated upon natural infection, our results suggest that vaccine-induced immunity will also be long-lasting,” concludes Carlota Dobaño.
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Materials provided by Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal). Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Scientists at the University of Helsinki have found an essential factor from the extracellular matrix that regulates functionality of the breast tissue for instance during pregnancy.
Extracellular matrix (ECM) has previously been recognised as an important element for the growth of various epithelial cells, but rather as a scaffold. A new study shows that ECM can also regulate the function of epithelial cells.
Our tissues constitute of differentiated cell types, which perform specific tasks that are tightly controlled. Normal growth and functioning of tissues is possible only when the various differentiated cell types interact appropriately. Differentiation and function of breast epithelium is guided by a group of cells responsive for estrogen and progesterone hormones. In the recent study it was found that these cells produce an ECM protein into their surroundings, and it regulates the growth and differentiation of the epithelium from outside the cells. Especially, the production of this protein, Lama5, was found to strengthen the functionality of these cells.
Hormone responsive cells can sense growth signals, such as cues from hormones and growth factors, and relay them into neighboring cells. When Lama5 gene was deleted from these cells, they became unable to relay these signals and halted the growth of the entire epithelium.
“This study shows that the extracellular environment produced by the cells themselves is an important factor for the identity and function of epithelial cells, and therefore for the whole tissue,” says assistant professor Pekka Katajisto from University of Helsinki. The study was conducted in his laboratory.
Development during pregnancy and milk production is impaired
Hormone responsive cells were previously not known to participate in generating the surrounding ECM or even having ECM contacts.
“We observed that surprisingly, the hormone sensing cells were producing Lama5, which is critical for the proper function of these cells. Without expression of Lama5 gene, the hormone sensing cells will lose their identity, and can’t support growth of the epithelium for instance during pregnancy,” says Doctor Johanna Englund, the main author of the study.
The study was conducted using for example organoid culture of isolated epithelial cells from mouse mammary glands. The organoids can in specific conditions be induced to produce milk.
“Our results suggest that lack of ECM factor Lama5 impairs also milk production,” Englund says.
Results from this study can help to understand how breast cancer is initiated. 70-80% of breast cancers arise from the hormone sensing cells, and it is conceivable that these cancer cells are also dependent on Lama5 for their growth.
The study was carried out in the laboratory of assistant professor Pekka Katajisto, in HiLIFE and Institute of Biotechnology at University of Helsinki.
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Materials provided by University of Helsinki. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

An MP has given an emotional speech on his family’s support as he battled his alcohol addiction.In a Commons debate on Pride Month, Labour’s Dan Carden said addiction was “killing more people and ruining more lives than ever”, including those of MPs.The Liverpool Walton MP said: “I hope my openness today can help challenge the stigma that stops so many people asking for help.”

A diet higher in fatty fish helped frequent migraine sufferers reduce their monthly number of headaches and intensity of pain compared to participants on a diet higher in vegetable-based fats and oils, according to a new study. The findings by a team of researchers from the National Institute on Aging (NIA) and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), parts of the National Institutes of Health; and the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill, were published in the July 3 issue of The BMJ.
This study of 182 adults with frequent migraines expanded on the team’s previous work on the impact of linoleic acid and chronic pain. Linoleic acid is a polyunsaturated fatty acid commonly derived in the American diet from corn, soybean, and other similar oils, as well as some nuts and seeds. The team’s previous smaller studies explored if linoleic acid inflamed migraine-related pain processing tissues and pathways in the trigeminal nerve, the largest and most complex of the body’s 12 cranial nerves. They found that a diet lower in linoleic acid and higher in levels of omega-3 fatty acids (like those found in fish and shellfish) could soothe this pain pathway inflammation.
In a 16-week dietary intervention, participants were randomly assigned to one of three healthy diet plans. Participants all received meal kits that included fish, vegetables, hummus, salads, and breakfast items. One group received meals that had high levels of fatty fish or oils from fatty fish and lowered linoleic acid. A second group received meals that had high levels of fatty fish and higher linoleic acid. The third group received meals with high linoleic acid and lower levels of fatty fish to mimic average U.S. intakes.
During the intervention period, participants monitored their number of migraine days, duration, and intensity, along with how their headaches affected their abilities to function at work, school, and in their social lives, and how often they needed to take pain medications. When the study began, participants averaged more than 16 headache days per month, over five hours of migraine pain per headache day, and had baseline scores showing a severe impact on quality of life despite using multiple headache medications.
The diet lower in vegetable oil and higher in fatty fish produced between 30% and 40% reductions in total headache hours per day, severe headache hours per day, and overall headache days per month compared to the control group. Blood samples from this group of participants also had lower levels of pain-related lipids. Despite the reduction in headache frequency and pain, these same participants reported only minor improvements in migraine-related overall quality of life compared to other groups in the study.
Migraine, a neurological disease, ranks among the most common causes of chronic pain, lost work time, and lowered quality of life. More than 4 million people worldwide have chronic migraine (at least 15 migraine days per month) and over 90% of sufferers are unable to work or function normally during an attack, which can last anywhere from four hours to three days. Women between the ages of 18 and 44 are especially prone to migraines, and an estimated 18% of all American women are affected. Current medications for migraine usually offer only partial relief and can have negative side effects including sedation, and the possibility of dependence or addiction.
“This research found intriguing evidence that dietary changes have potential for improving a very debilitating chronic pain condition like migraine without the related downsides of often prescribed medications,” said Luigi Ferrucci, M.D., Ph.D., scientific director of NIA.
The NIH team was led by Chris Ramsden, a clinical investigator in the NIA and NIAAA intramural research programs, and UNC adjunct faculty member. Ramsden and his team specialize in the study of lipids — fatty acid compounds found in many natural oils — and their role in aging, especially chronic pain and neurodegenerative conditions. The UNC team was led by Doug Mann, M.D., of the Department of Neurology, and Kim Faurot, Ph.D., of the Program on Integrative Medicine. Meal plans were designed by Beth MacIntosh, M.P.H., of UNC Healthcare’s Department of Nutrition and Food Services.
“Changes in diet could offer some relief for the millions of Americans who suffer from migraine pain,” said Ramsden. “It’s further evidence that the foods we eat can influence pain pathways.”
The researchers noted that these findings serve as validation that diet-based interventions increasing omega-3 fats while reducing linoleic acid sources show better promise for helping people with migraines reduce the number and impact of headache days than fish-oil based supplements, while reducing the need for pain medications. They hope to continue to expand this work to study effects of diet on other chronic pain conditions.
This study was supported by the NIH NIA and NIAAA intramural research programs; and NIH grants including 1R01AT007813-01A1, T32 AT003378, DK056350, and UL1TR002489.

Directing a meeting, dialing up an old acquaintance, dictating the perfect tuna salad sandwich across a drive-through window. For business and for pleasure, human beings are in constant communication.
Our proclivity for socialization is lifelong, equally prominent in the lives of adolescents and adults. A recent study determined key differences in the ways that various age groups communicate, as well as one conversational component that stands the test of time: friendship. Specifically, bonds between individuals who identify as female.
Led by former Beckman Institute postdoctoral researchers Michelle Rodrigues and Si On Yoon, an interdisciplinary team evaluated how interlocutors’ age and familiarity with one another impacts a conversation, reviewing the interaction’s overall effectiveness and stress responses generated as a result.
The study, titled “What are friends for? The impact of friendship on communicative efficiency and cortisol response during collaborative problem solving among younger and older women,” was published in the Journal of Women and Aging in May 2021.
Two hypotheses form the foundation of this female-focused study. First, the tend-and-befriend hypothesis, which challenges the traditionally masculine “fight-or-flight” dichotomy.
“Women have evolved an alternative mechanism in response to stress,” said Rodrigues, who is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Social and Cultural Sciences at Marquette University. “In order to deal with stress, women can befriend female peers.”
The team also tested the socio-emotional selectivity hypothesis, which postulates a social “pruning” as humans advance in age and pursue more intimate, higher-quality circles of friends.

A shipment to Pakistan was a recent move in a new phase of the administration’s pandemic response: a round-the-clock effort to clear regulatory and logistical hurdles to share doses with countries in need.WASHINGTON — When a commercial plane carrying 2.5 million doses of Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine took off on Wednesday from Dallas for Islamabad, Pakistan, federal officials had just finished a dizzying bureaucratic back-and-forth to get them there.The United States had arranged a donation agreement with Moderna and Covax, the year-old vaccine-sharing initiative. Covax had previously worked out indemnity agreements with Moderna, which shield the company from liability for potential harm from the vaccine. American Embassy officials in Islamabad had worked with regulators there to evaluate the Food and Drug Administration’s review of the vaccine; Pakistani regulators had to pore over reams of materials on the vaccine lots and the factory where they were made before authorizing it for use there.Once they signed off, the result was a so-called tripartite agreement: a type of deal that has increasingly come to consume the Biden administration’s pandemic response efforts, underscoring how demand for vaccines is lagging in the United States as many countries plead for help from those with a surplus.Amid criticism from some public health experts that President Biden’s vaccine diplomacy efforts have been slow and insufficient, the White House plans to announce on Thursday that it has fulfilled the president’s pledge to share an initial 80 million doses by June 30. More than 80 million have been formally offered to about 50 countries, the African Union and the 20-nation Caribbean consortium, with around half already shipped and the rest to be scheduled in the coming weeks, said Natalie Quillian, the Biden administration’s deputy Covid-19 response coordinator.The dose-sharing effort has evolved into a constant churn of activity across the federal government, with deputy-level meetings several times a week and daily operations calls. The White House can hold as many as 15 country-specific calls a day, beginning at 7 a.m. and often involving the National Security Council, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the State and Defense Departments and other agencies.About 75 percent of the doses are being routed through Covax, which has shipped more than 91 million doses in all, to both wealthier and lower-income nations. The rest are being shared through bilateral deals, in which countries can retrieve and distribute doses more directly. Researchers have estimated that 11 billion doses of vaccines are needed worldwide to potentially stamp out the coronavirus pandemic. In recent months, tens of millions of doses of the three federally authorized vaccines have been sitting unused in the United States, with more continually coming off supply lines. White House officials said they were aiming to guarantee adequate supply for Americans this spring before completing the work of shipping excess overseas.To date, more than three billion vaccine doses have been administered worldwide, equal to 40 doses for every 100 people. Some countries have yet to report a single dose, even as the highly contagious Delta variant spreads around the world, further exposing inequities.“If this is the pace at which it will continue, then unfortunately, it’s much slower than what is needed,” Dr. Saad B. Omer, the director of the Yale Institute for Global Health, said of the U.S. effort.Ms. Quillian said that more doses would be shipped over the summer, in addition to the 500 million doses of Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine the Biden administration pledged this month to distribute among about 100 countries over the next year. She described this phase of vaccine diplomacy as more procedurally complex than the domestic inoculation program. Among the challenges with bilateral deals, like with the three million doses of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine sent to Brazil last week: the recipient nation negotiating indemnity agreements with the manufacturers.As the doses bound for Pakistan were declared ready for shipment last week, attention shifted to packing and moving them to the Dallas airport. The health authorities in Pakistan and an organization behind Covax — UNICEF, the United Nations agency for children — will deliver them, an effort the Biden administration plans to monitor. Less than two percent of Pakistan’s population is fully vaccinated.Dr. Hilary D. Marston, a member of the administration’s Covid-19 response team and a former official at the National Security Council and the National Institutes of Health who has helped coordinate the shipments, said that the State Department and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had also worked with Pakistani officials to understand how many doses the country was able to store.Receiving donated doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine in Tijuana, Mexico, this month.Francisco Vega/Getty ImagesPakistan was an obvious candidate for vaccine donation, Ms. Quillian said. As a neighbor to India, which faced a devastating surge of virus cases this spring, Pakistan was likely to be affected from the spread of the Delta variant, which was first identified in India. But the broader list of countries the United States has sent vaccines to required more deliberation.Jake Sullivan, the White House national security adviser, said at a news briefing this month that the administration was initially prioritizing neighbors of the United States and Asian countries with surges in virus cases.Sharing doses can sometimes take on the appearance of an international matchmaking scheme. Some countries have requested Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine because of easier storage requirements and its appeal as a one-and-done shot. Others have already authorized one or more of the vaccines used in the United States, making the process faster.“Every country we’ve offered a vaccine to,” Ms. Quillian said, “when they’ve asked for a specific type, we’ve been able to meet that request.”Officials can still run into significant hurdles. Since the donated doses were produced and sold under American legal and regulatory procedures, they have to be separately approved by the countries receiving them. The process often involves working out kinks with foreign regulators.Use of Covax doses can sometimes stall, like in South Sudan and Congo, which both returned some to the initiative because of logistical problems and vaccine hesitancy. There have been clearer successes in bilateral deals the United States has already negotiated. South Korea, which received a million doses of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine from the United States, reported that it had used 99.8 percent of the doses in a few weeks, White House officials said.Dr. Omer said that because of the time it takes for vaccines to prompt an immune response, targeting donations to countries with outbreaks was inadequate.“It took us six months, even since the start of the immunization program, to have certain substantive movement on this topic,” he said of the dose-sharing campaign.Ms. Quillian defended the administration’s timing. “It’s hard to remember back to three months ago, or even February or January. We didn’t have enough vaccine for this country,” she said. “The president wanted to make sure we could take care of our own first and demonstrate that it can work here, and then we always wanted to share if we had surplus.”The Biden administration, Dr. Omer said, needed to lean more on the C.D.C.’s expertise in global inoculation campaigns, including its successes in organizing the distribution of polio vaccines.Dr. Michael H. Merson, a professor of global health at Duke University and a former director of the World Health Organization’s Global Program on AIDS, said that a useful model for distributing vaccines abroad would be the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or Pepfar, which has worked with The Global Fund to deliver, administer and monitor the safety of antiretroviral drugs.The C.D.C.’s disease outbreak forecasting operations recently received a financial boost from Mr. Biden’s American Rescue Plan, which would improve the White House’s efforts to identify potential virus hot spots abroad, White House officials said. A more organized program to do that work is getting underway, they said.

Even the mundane act of swallowing requires a well-coordinated dance of more than 30 muscles of the mouth. The loss of function of even one of these, due to disease or injury, can be extremely debilitating. For these people, nerve stimulation offers a ray of hope to regain some of their lost oral function.
In a new study, researchers at Texas A&M University have delineated the minimum size of electrical currents needed to provide sensation in different parts of the mouth. The researchers said their study is a first but vital step toward building electrical stimulation implants that can restore essential intraoral functions that are lost due to nerve or brain damage.
The results of the study are published in the journal Institute of Electric and Electronics Engineers’ (IEEE) Transactions on Biomedical Engineering.
Many essential bodily functions are coordinated by the nervous system via sensorimotor feedback loops. As the name suggests, these neural circuits involve the brain interpreting incoming signals from sensory nerves and then commanding the motor nerves to execute a certain movement. So, for example, sensorimotor loops play a vital role in voluntary functions, like walking or holding an object, and involuntary movements, like sneezing or blinking.
Within the mouth, also referred to as the intraoral cavity, there is a rich supply of both sensory and motor nerves. In particular, sensorimotor nerves in the soft palate and tongue coordinate several intraoral movements related to swallowing, speech and respiration. And so, damage to either the sensory or motor nerve fibers due to neurotrauma or disease can compromise these essential functions, reducing the quality of life of those afflicted.
Electrical nerve stimulation might help jumpstart the nerves into action, much like how a pacemaker can electrically stimulate nerves in the heart, causing the heart muscle to contract. But unlike a pacemaker, the details on the frequency and amplitude of the electrical currents needed for proper stimulation of different parts of the mouth have not been investigated.
“Electrical stimulation can modulate nerve currents or action potentials, which are the mode of communication to and from the brain,” said Dr. Hangue Park, assistant professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. “And so, electrical stimulation should be carefully applied, because if not, then it might cause undesirable effects, or it might not stimulate anything at all.”
To investigate the minimum stimulation currents needed, Park and his team inserted tiny metal electrodes into a standard dental retainer. These electrodes were positioned in subjects to stimulate either their soft palate or the side and tip of the tongue, which receive a rich supply of sensory nerves. For each of these locations, the researchers slowly changed the amplitude of the stimulation current, keeping the frequency fixed. Then, subjects were asked to report when they just began feeling a sensation and when the sensation was uncomfortable. Next, they repeated the same experiment for a higher frequency of current.
After compiling their data, the team determined the average perception and discomfort thresholds for the tongue and soft palate. In addition, they produced an equivalent circuit of the intraoral cavity to duplicate the electrical properties of that area. This circuit, the researchers said, can help to further study the effects of electrical stimulation offline without requiring human subjects.
The researchers noted that their next steps would be to electrically stimulate the intraoral region and investigate how these simulations change chewing, swallowing and other behaviors.
“Sensorimotor systems can be extremely vulnerable to damage due to neural defects, aging and neurodegenerative diseases,” said Park. “In this study, we have begun to lay the groundwork for electrically stimulating parts of the mouth that control involuntary and voluntary movements. Our work is a seminal study and it is important so that we can, in the near future, help people that face enormous challenges doing everyday tasks that we take for granted.”
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Materials provided by Texas A&M University. Original written by Vandana Suresh. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is widely used in medicine to detect, diagnose and treat diseases such as cancer, while relying on experts’ interpretation of images. Quantitative MRI, which obtains numerical measurements during the scans, can now potentially offer greater accuracy, repeatability and speed — but rigorous quality control is needed for it to reach its full potential, according to a new study.
Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) led the study by 11 institutions comparing measurements by 27 MRI scanners from three vendors at nine clinical sites around the country. To obtain reference values and disentangle sources of bias and variation, the study used a tissue stand-in, or “phantom,” originally developed at NIST for evaluating the performance of MRI machines and related software.
MRI uses magnetic fields and radio waves to visualize the body’s internal structures, especially soft tissues. Traditional MRI poses several challenges. In addition to subjective image analysis, MRI scanner performance may drift, or different machines may produce contradictory images of the same patient.
Quantitative MRI offers prospects for more consistent disease detection, diagnosis and treatment without the need for tissue biopsy. Ideally, numerical measurements of tumors and other disease markers could be reproduced across many different patients, scanners and clinics over time — and potentially reduce medical costs. Organizations such as the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine are promoting quantitative MRI, but it is currently used only in research, not routine patient care.
The new study compared MRI scanner measurements of a value called T1, a property of water molecules that can depend on the surrounding tissue. T1 of the pixels in images is one of the parameters that could be measured by clinical MRI systems. By contrast, subjective interpretations of MRI images look at “T1-weighted” judgments, which are qualitative and nonnumerical.
“A big difference between the T1 and current T1-weighted is that the T1-weighted isn’t quantitative,” study leader Katy Keenan of NIST said. “The pixel values themselves cannot be compared to pixel values in other datasets. It is not easy to compare T1-weighted data across datasets. In the case of carefully acquired T1, comparison of the pixel values is possible, because they have a quantitative meaning.”
The study found that T1 measurements can be subject to significant bias and variation. There was no consistent pattern of discrepancy between vendors, and as a result, a diagnostic threshold value determined on one MRI system can’t be transferred to other MRI systems. In some cases, these variations could make a clinical difference in diagnosing a benign versus a malignant brain tumor, seriously affecting patient care, the study found.
As a remedy, the study recommended establishing rigorous quality control procedures for quantitative MRI to promote confidence and stability in measurement techniques and to transfer measurement thresholds for diagnosis, disease progression, and treatment monitoring from research venues to the entire clinical community. The study results echo previous findings by other researchers.
Earlier efforts to use T1 values to categorize brain tumors were impeded by technical inconsistencies and found to be unreliable. But recent advances in quantitative measurement methods have led to improvements in accuracy, repeatability and acquisition speed. The new study is a step toward applying diagnostic threshold T1 measurement across multiple clinical sites.

Working out just five minutes daily via a practice described as “strength training for your breathing muscles” lowers blood pressure and improves some measures of vascular health as well as, or even more than, aerobic exercise or medication, new CU Boulder research shows.
The study, published June 29 in the Journal of the American Heart Association, provides the strongest evidence yet that the ultra-time-efficient maneuver known as High-Resistance Inspiratory Muscle Strength Training (IMST) could play a key role in helping aging adults fend off cardiovascular disease — the nation’s leading killer.
In the United States alone, 65% of adults over age 50 have above-normal blood pressure — putting them at greater risk of heart attack or stroke. Yet fewer than 40% meet recommended aerobic exercise guidelines.
“There are a lot of lifestyle strategies that we know can help people maintain cardiovascular health as they age. But the reality is, they take a lot of time and effort and can be expensive and hard for some people to access,” said lead author Daniel Craighead, an assistant research professor in the Department of Integrative Physiology. “IMST can be done in five minutes in your own home while you watch TV.”
Developed in the 1980s as a way to help critically ill respiratory disease patients strengthen their diaphragm and other inspiratory (breathing) muscles, IMST involves inhaling vigorously through a hand-held device which provides resistance. Imagine sucking hard through a tube that sucks back.
Initially, when prescribing it for breathing disorders, doctors recommended a 30-minute-per-day regimen at low resistance. But in recent years, Craighead and colleagues have been testing whether a more time-efficient protocol — 30 inhalations per day at high resistance, six days per week — could also reap cardiovascular, cognitive and sports performance improvements.

When it comes to defense, the body relies on attack thanks to the lymphatic and immune systems. The immune system is like the body’s own personal police force as it hunts down and eliminates pathogenic villains.
“The body’s immune system is very good at identifying cells that are acting strangely. These include cells that could develop into tumors or cancer in the future,” says Federica Eduati from the department of Biomedical Engineering at TU/e. “Once detected, the immune system strikes and kills the cells.”
Stopping the attack
But it’s not always so straightforward as tumor cells can develop ways to hide themselves from the immune system.
“Unfortunately, tumor cells can block the natural immune response. Proteins on the surface of a tumor cell can turn off the immune cells and effectively put them in sleep mode,” says Oscar Lapuente-Santana, PhD researcher in the Computational Biology group.
Fortunately, there is a way to wake up the immune cells and restore their antitumor immunity, and it’s based on immunotherapy.