Researchers have discovered a new population of immune cells which are critical in maintaining the immune response against chronic infections and cancer. This population of T cells also mediates the response to immunotherapy using checkpoint inhibitors. The discovery may explain why immunotherapy fails in some people and could lead to the development of more effective new therapies for cancer or severe viral infections.
Completely unexpectedly, the enzyme ceramidase emerges as a new target structure for the therapy of SARS-CoV-2 infections. This is reported by Würzburg researchers in "Cells".
Poxviruses pose a threat to humanity that should be taken seriously, as the current outbreak of monkeypox shows. A research team from the University of Würzburg is now working on the development of new drugs.
Findings of the LMU University Hospital Munich, the German Center for Infection Research (DZIF) and the U.S. Military HIV Research Program in collaboration with the African Cohort Study (AFRICOS) Group suggest that blood-based biomarkers can often detect incipient Tuberculosis (TB) between six to twelve months earlier in people living with HIV before a sputum-based TB diagnosis is possible. The detection of TB disease activity within the body using sputum-independent biomarkers could provide a window of opportunity to identify active TB earlier. This would allow to directly start medical treatment and thus to prevent progression and transmission of the disease.
Similar to the vaccines against the coronavirus, RNA-based antibiotics could significantly improve modern medicine. Research teams from Würzburg have investigated the prerequisites that such antibiotics must meet for this strategy to work.
Two tranregios at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) have had their funding extended: the collaborative research center/transregio 154 “Mathematical modeling, simulation and optimization using the example of gas networks” is entering into its third funding period, whilst the CRC/transregio 241 “Immune-epithelial communication in inflammatory bowel diseases” has had its funding extended for the first time.
Researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have developed a film that not only protects wounds similar to the way a bandage does, but also helps wounds to heal faster, repels bacteria, dampens inflammation, releases active pharmaceutical ingredients in a targeted manner and ultimately dissolves by itself. This is all made possible by its dedicated design and the use of mucins, molecules which occur naturally in mucous membranes.
In old age, the performance of the immune system decreases, and older people are more susceptible to infections. Research teams from Würzburg and Freiburg have now discovered an approach that could be used to slow down this process.
The German government is providing about 2.4 million Euros for a new research group in infectious diseases at JMU Würzburg. Dr. Carmen Aguilar will use this grant to search for new therapeutic approaches against one of the most common and recurrent bacterial infections.
Life-like organ replicas - so-called 3D organoids - are a good way to research disease processes. A team from the University of Würzburg has now presented a kind of blueprint for such a model of the cervix.
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