Awesome Library Search   
   

Search Results
Terms: immune system
Matches: 48    Displayed: 20

Categories

Specific Results

  1. Immune System (Howstuffworks.com - Brain)
      Provides a comprehensive explanation of the immune system. 5-00

  2. -03-27-08 Simulated Immune System Reported (Time.com)
      "You've heard of artificial limbs and artificial hearts but what about artificial immune systems? Add another notch to the test tube: scientists at VaxDesign, a five-year-old biotechnology company based in Orlando, Florida, have created a simulated human immune system, called the Modular Immune In Vitro Construct (MIMIC for short). The dime-sized immune system can predict how humans will respond to new vaccines. The goal? To streamline vaccine research and hasten the eradication of global killers, such as AIDS." 03-08

  3. -Study: Species-Specific Microbes May Be Key to Immune Systems (PBS.org)
      "The results support the thinking that we humans have coevolved with our microbes--and we're probably not the same without them. 'The selection of partners is not by chance,' Chang says. And that might explain why as we alter our microbiomes--with antibiotics and superclean upbringings--our immune systems have been changing as well, ushering in increasing rates of autoimmune conditions such as allergies and diabetes. 'The consequence is that the balance between us and our microbes, determined through evolution, is upset in ways that impact our health and increase risk for many diseases that were previously uncommon,' he notes." 06-12

  4. Liquid Radiation Has Fewer Side Effects (ABC News)
      "A study published in today's New England Journal of Medicine offers encouraging news about a novel way to fight cancer. It finds that injecting a type of liquid radiation, called Bexxar, into patients with lymphoma — a cancer of the immune system — can fight the disease more quickly and with fewer side effects that existing treatments. The approach might eventually be used on a variety of cancers."

      "The radioactive drug is delivered intravenously and works like a guided missile. It travels throughout the body, homing in on a specific protein found on the cancer cells." 2-05

  5. Anti-Malaria Vaccine Discovered (Scientific American) star
      "A new vaccine stimulated human immune cells to recognize and kill malaria parasites in a recent clinical trial. The vaccine proved effective in both infected human blood samples and mice whose immune systems had been modified to mimic that of humans." 12-05

  6. -05-13-06 Tracing Lung Ailments to Ground Zero (New York Times)
      "Some of the people working in the cleanup and recovery effort after Sept. 11 wore masks, but the most effective ones were effective for no more than 20 minutes."

      "As they push their investigation into the health risks to workers in the recovery and cleanup operations at ground zero, medical detectives are focusing on a group of lung diseases that can lead to long-term disabilities and, in some cases, death."

      "The most worrisome to medical experts are granulomatous pulmonary diseases, which show a particular type of swirling marks left on the lungs by foreign matter like dust. Doctors say the severity of the disease is often dictated by a patient's genetic makeup. The diseases include pulmonary fibrosis and sarcoidosis, a sometimes fatal disorder that can be set off when exposure to dust causes the body's immune system to attack itself." 05-06

  7. -08-21-06 AIDS Mystery Solved (CBS News)
      "The cells are turned off by HIV, which disarms them by flicking off a molecular switch in the cells. But in the laboratory, researchers were able to block that switch and restore T-cell function."

      "The findings raise the possibility that one day, doctors could switch a chronically ill patient's immune system back 'on' so that it could resume its fight against HIV, cancer or even Hepatitis C." 08-06

  8. -09-01-06 Cells Engineered to Fight Cancer (ABC News)
      "Researchers took immune system cells from the blood of 17 advanced melanoma patients who, like Origer, had not been helped by conventional treatments. Origer had only three months to four months left to live when the experimental treatment began."

      "These ordinary blood cells, called T cells, were genetically engineered to become cancer-fighting cells that could recognize and attack the life-threatening melanoma." 09-06

  9. -03-18-09 A New Approach to AIDS (Time.com)
      "In fact, the search for an AIDS vaccine has been thwarted over and over by the tricky, unexpected nature of HIV, whose behavior is only now coming to be understood. The human immune system does not appear to develop an effective response to HIV simply by being exposed to a virus surface protein or two — an approach that has worked for many other vaccines in the past."

      "In a very small fraction of people infected with HIV, the body's immune response is able to control the virus and prevent it from progressing to full-blown AIDS. Rockefeller scientists found six such people with high levels of the antibodies that inhibit HIV proliferation and keep it from invading new cells. Taking blood samples from these special few, the researchers isolated the antibodies and set about discovering how they work." 03-09

  10. Mycorrhizal Fungus (CleanAirGardening.com)
      "Mycorrhizal fungi are tiny, harmless critters that attach themselves to plant roots and actually help plants to make use of water and organic nutrients in the soil. They live on the roots of roughly 95% of all earth’s plant species. In exchange for what they provide the plant, the plant offers the fungi a meal of sugars (fixed carbon) produced by the photosynthesis process."

      "Mycorrhizal fungi populate the area around a plant’s roots and form very thin filaments, adding to the length and efficiency of a plant’s roots. This is like having a second set of roots for the plants. Thus, plants, trees, and shrubs with a well established mycorrhizal fungal root system are better able to survive droughts and transplant shock. They also absorb more nutrients from the soil."

      "Plants with mycorrhizal fungi can survive better in their non-native environments, or that is to say, environments that don’t necessarily reflect the ideal environments for their survival, such as urban areas and home gardens. Mycorrhizal fungi also boost a plant’s immune system, making them resistant to soil-borne pathogens. In addition, they help to keep parasitic nematodes away." 05-09

  11. -New Vaccine for Melanoma Cancer (MSNBC News)
      "For the first time, a novel treatment that trains the immune system to fight cancer has shown modest benefit in late-stage testing against the deadly skin cancer melanoma."

      "The approach is called a cancer vaccine, even though it treats disease rather than prevents it. In a study of about 180 patients already getting standard therapy, the vaccine doubled the number of patients whose tumors shrank, and extended the time until their cancer worsened by about six weeks." 05-09

  12. -09-26-09 Children Under 10 Will Need Two Swine Flu Shots (U.S. News)
      "Still confused about what's going to happen with swine flu shots next month? You're not alone. The federal government and individual states still haven't told us how they're going to distribute the vaccine, or when. Yesterday's chirpy press release from the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases made it easy to think that all children will need just one swine flu immunization, but that's not true. The younger a child is, the less well his or her immune system responded to the swine flu vaccine in clinical trials. So children under age 10 will need two doses of swine flu vaccine, one month apart, according to the NIAID itself." 09-09

  13. -How to Flu-Proof Your Winter (Time.com)
      "According to Frances Largeman-Roth, senior editor of Health magazine, the best way to fight back depends a lot on your age. On 'The Early Show,' she shared the best ways to combat these illnesses with age-specific protection plans."

      "Boosting your immunity is important since your immune system naturally weakens as you age so charging it up as key during cold and flu season." 02-10

  14. Beta Glucans (WebMD.com)
      "Beta glucans are used for high cholesterol, diabetes, cancer, and HIV/AIDS. Beta glucans are also used to boost the immune system in people whose body defenses have been weakened by conditions such chronic fatigue syndrome, or physical and emotional stress; or by treatments such as radiation or chemotherapy. Beta glucans are also used for colds (common cold), flu (influenza), H1N1 (swine) flu, allergies, hepatitis, Lyme disease, asthma, ear infections, aging, ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease, fibromyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis, and multiple sclerosis."

      "People apply beta glucans to the skin for dermatitis, eczema, wrinkles, bedsores, wounds, burns, diabetic ulcers, and radiation burns." 07-10

  15. Vitamin D: You May Have a Serious Vitamin D Deficiency (New York Times)
      "Studies indicate that the effects of a vitamin D deficiency include an elevated risk of developing (and dying from) cancers of the colon, breast and prostate; high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease; osteoarthritis; and immune-system abnormalities that can result in infections and autoimmune disorders like multiple sclerosis, Type 1 diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis."

      "Most people in the modern world have lifestyles that prevent them from acquiring the levels of vitamin D that evolution intended us to have." 07-10

  16. -03-29-12 A Single Antibody May Cure Multiple Cancers (Time.com)
      "A single treatment to cure all cancers? Scientists may be one step closer."

      "In a recent study, scientists reported that they successfully tested an antibody treatment that shrank human breast, ovary, colon, bladder, brain, liver and prostate tumors transplanted into mice. The antibody blocks a protein called CD47, which normally sits on the cell surface and issues a 'don’t eat me' signal that prevents the body’s immune system from attacking it."

      "The researchers started by exposing tumor cells to macrophages, and the CD47-blocking antibody treatment, in a petri dish. When the antibody wasn’t present, the tumor cells survived. But when the antibody bound itself to CD47 and blocked its 'don’t eat me' signal, the macrophages destroyed the cancers." 03-12

  17. Changes in Social Status Seen in Genes of Monkeys (New York Times)
      "Social stress is known to have adverse health effects on both humans and primates."

      "Now, researchers report that it also affects the immune system of female rhesus macaques at the genetic level."

  18. -02-08-16 Zika Virus and Buillian-Barre Syndrome (Time.com)
      "In addition to the abnormally small heads and associated brain damage that characterizes microcephaly, experts from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently completed the initial stages of a trial looking at the connection between Zika and Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS). With GBS, the immune system goes array and starts attacking the body’s nerves, which leads to weakness that can snowball into temporary paralysis. Sometimes the disorder can disrupt breathing." Sometimes visitors misspell as sika.

  19. Multiple Sclerosis - Fact Sheet (Family Caregiver Alliance)
      "Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is one of the most commonly occurring chronic neurological diseases. MS affects the central nervous system (CNS)—the brain and spinal cord—and is thought to be caused by a disorder of the immune system, or auto-immune disorder. About 400,000 people nationwide, and possibly 2.5 million people worldwide, have MS. The disorder affects people of all ages, but onset is most likely to occur between the ages of 20 and 40. Women are twice as likely as men to develop MS." 1-04

  20. Flu Research Breakthrough (CBS News)
      "Different influenza strains spread around the world annually. Every so often a strain tough enough to kill millions emerges, and experts believe the world is overdue for another pandemic. Unraveling what made the 1918 flu so vicious could help doctors better react if a similar strain returns."

      "All flu viruses are thought to have originated in birds. But scientists also have long thought that to cause human epidemics, the viruses first had to jump from birds to pigs, where genetic changes that allow the strains to better spread in mammals occur."

      "Flu strains that are more birdlike are more dangerous to people because their immune systems haven't been exposed to them before."

      "Asia's current bird flu, a strain known as H5N1, clearly can jump directly from poultry to people - at least 16 people have died of it this winter. Most cases have been traced directly to contact with sick birds, although human-to-human transmission has not been ruled out in one instance." 2-04

Back to Top

Home Teachers Students Parents Librarians College Students
Send comments to [Dr. Jerry Adams at jadams@awesomelibrary.org.]