Immunology news from FierceBioResearcher

There's new evidence to support the theory that the enzyme protein kinase G offers a promising target in the fight against tuberculosis. The enzyme is secreted by the microbe that triggers TB and is believed to provide essential protection for the bug from the host's immune system, which tracks down and kills most pathogens. Scientists say they have a compound that can block the protein, but were worried about interfering with the action of other proteins also secreted by the microbe. …

Researchers at Harvard Medical School have adapted RNA interference (RNAi) techniques for use against neurological diseases. Manjunath Swamy's team mixed therapeutic RNA with a benign segment of the rabies virus to come up with a treatment that could get through the blood/brain barrier to treat infected cells. The process was tested on mice infected with the fatal viral encephalitis. About 80 percent of the infected mice were cured while all of the mice in the control arm died. Swamy says …

A scientific team at Taiwan's Vaccine Research and Development Centre spent 13 months and $1.2 million to develop a new, cell-based vaccine to target avian flu. One of the scientists said this was the first time that researchers used dog kidney cells in vaccine work. Baxter Vaccines, for example, has used green monkey kidney cells in its cell-based vaccine work. The researchers in Taiwan are building a pilot vaccine plant that will be ready by the end of the year and human clinical trials …

In a new study, U.S. researchers say that they have developed a plant that makes a protein that can be used to manufacture a safe and effective smallpox vaccine. And Dr. Hilary Koprowski, head of the Centre for Neurovirology at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia and developer of the live polio vaccine, says that in 10 years time all smallpox vaccine will be made in plants. Smallpox has been eliminated as a routine health threat, but governments around the globe have been …

GlaxoSmithKline had to play a serious game of catch-up in its quest to develop a new vaccine for cervical cancer. Four years ago, Glaxo's vaccines division--GSK Bio--concluded that it was two years behind Merck's program for an HPV vaccine. In order to bridge that yawning gap, researchers at the company adopted a new approach developed by automaker Renault called the "one roof" approach. The company plucked a variety of experts it needed from different fields and put them together under …

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases will spend $23 million a year over the next seven years to establish a consortium of six research centers to investigate influenza viruses--including H5N1. The goal is to help government officials respond to seasonal flu as well as potential outbreaks of pandemics.

"There are a variety of viruses to monitor besides the well-known H5N1," St. Jude researcher Robert Webster said. "For example, H7N7 infected chicken industry …

Using bacterial enzymes, an international team of researchers have developed a simple method to convert type A, B or AB to group O blood that can be used universally. According to the researchers, the enzymes could be used to serve as a kind of biological scissor that could cut away sugar molecules from the surface of red blood cells. People with group A or B blood have sugar molecules in their blood that triggers an immune reaction. Group O has one of the antigens and AB has both. …

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases' public database now includes more than 2,000 sequences on human and avian flu viruses that are freely available to researchers. Elodie Ghedin, an assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and co-director of the project says that their work has already helped transform the scientific understand of how viruses develop. That better understanding could play a key role in advancing new therapies as well as …

A team of scientists from the Whitehead Institute and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have identified a key set of genes that lie at the heart of autoimmune disease; findings that may help scientists develop new methods for manipulating immune system activity. Their work hinges on a greater understanding of the way regulatory T cells control the frontline T cells that attack pathogens. A failure of regulatory T cells can lead the front line white blood cells to attack the body's tissues, …

In a new study, researchers used a patch to deliver an Alzheimer's vaccine to mice that spurred their immune systems to recognize beta amyloid protein and destroy it. That protein is linked to the formation of beta amyloid plaque in the brain that characterizes the memory-wasting disease. The researchers say that the decision to deliver the vaccine transdermally could help avoid incidences of inflammation and death in a study involving an injected vaccine. If a follow-up study finds that …