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When friendly forces become enemies: Scientists blunt the impact of natural killer cells to increase vaccine effectiveness

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PD-1 dependent NK cell regulation of CD8 + T-cells. C57BL/6 mice were infected with an adenoviral vector encoding the HBV genome and treated with anti-NK1.1 (⍺NK) or isotype control antibodies prior to therapeutic vaccination. Intrahepatic lymphocytes were harvested 14 days after immunization. (A) Quantitative real-time PCR analysis of HBsAg mRNA extracted from the liver of infected mice. (B) Representative plot of CD8 + T-cells isolated from the spleen of CD45.2 PD-1KO or CD45.1 wild-type (WT) mice were transferred to recipients of opposite congenic mice one day before therapeutic vaccination. Examples of PD-1 and IFN . expressions you production in transferred PD-1KO and WT CD8+ T cells. *, pScience Translational Medicine (2022). DOI: 10.1126/scitranslmed.abi4670 Scientists have found that the body’s own natural killer cells can suppress the immune benefits of therapeutic vaccines, a problem that can predispose to inoculation against ch

AI model detects people's attitudes towards vaccines from their social media posts

People’s attitudes towards vaccines can now be detected from their social media posts with a smart AI model, developed by researchers at the University of Warwick. An AI-based model can analyze social media posts and determine the author’s attitude towards vaccines, by being ‘trained’ to recognize that attitude from a small number of sample tweets. As a simple example, if a post contains mention of distrust of health care institutions, fear of needles, or something related to a known conspiracy theory, the model can recognize that the person who wrote it may have negative feelings about vaccinations. The research, funded by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), will be presented today (12 July) at the North American Association of Computational Linguistics Annual Conference 2022. It is led by Professor Yulan He from the University’s Department of Computer Science, supported by a 5-year Turing AI Fellowship funded by the EPSRC. Professor He and his colleagues at the University of Warwick h

NIH launches clinical trial of Nipah mRNA virus vaccine

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image: Color transmission electron micrograph of mature extracellular Nipah Virus particles (red) near the periphery of infected VERO cells (green). see again Credit: NIAID The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, has launched an early-stage clinical trial evaluating the vaccine being studied to prevent Nipah virus infection. The experimental vaccine was manufactured by Moderna, Inc., (Cambridge, Massachusetts) and developed in collaboration with the NIAID Vaccine Research Center. It is based on platform messenger RNA (mRNA)—the technology used in several approved COVID-19 vaccines. NIAID is sponsoring the Phase 1 clinical study, which is being conducted at the NIH Clinical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. Nipah virus infection is a zoonotic disease, meaning that it is transmitted between animals and humans. Fruit bats are the natural hosts of this virus. The f

Universal flu vaccine enters phase 1 trial

A flu vaccine designed to protect against a different strain of virus — and eliminate the annual flu vaccine guessing game — has entered phase 1 clinical trials. A new vaccine candidate, designed to fight avian influenza or bird flu viruses, has been administered to healthy adult volunteers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Clinical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, the NIH announced. Researchers have long sought a universal flu vaccine to fight a rapidly mutating virus — not only to cover our base each flu season but also potentially pre-empt the next pandemic flu strain. “Influenza vaccines that can provide long-term protection against a variety of seasonal influenza viruses as well as those with pandemic potential would be an invaluable public health tool,” said President Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and Chief Medical Advisor. A new universal flu vaccine candidate is entering human trials to test its safety and imm

Universal influenza B vaccine induces broad and sustained protection, biomedical science researchers find

ATLANTA—A new universal flu vaccine protects against the influenza B virus, offers broad defense against different strains and enhances immune protection, according to a new study by researchers at Georgia State University’s Institute for Biomedical Sciences. The double-coated protein nanoparticle vaccine, prepared with a stable moiety of the influenza virus (stem hemagglutinin (HA), induces a broad reactive immune response and provides strong and sustained cross-protection against influenza B virus strains of both lineages. The findings are published in the journal. Biomaterials. Influenza epidemics pose a major threat to public health, and influenza type B coincides with several severe flu outbreaks. About a quarter of clinical infections are caused by the influenza B virus each year. Influenza B viruses are sometimes the dominant strain circulating during influenza season, such as the 2019-20 US flu season when influenza B caused more than 50 percent of infections. Influenza B has

The immune system uses two-step verification to defend against HIV

Human immunodeficiency virus 1, more commonly known as HIV-1, is known for its remarkable ability to evade the immune system. Scientists at Scripps Research and collaborators have now discovered how our innate immune system – the body’s first line of defense against foreign invaders – detects HIV-1, even when the virus is present in very small amounts. His findings, published on July 8, 2022, in molecular cell , revealing a two-step molecular strategy that jolts the innate immune response into action upon exposure to HIV-1. These discoveries could impact the development of drugs for HIV treatments and vaccines, as well as shape our understanding of how the innate immune response is involved in other areas – including neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s. “This study illustrates how the immune system can recognize a very cryptic virus, and then activate a downstream cascade that leads to immunological activation,” said Sumit Chanda, PhD, professor in the Department of Immun

Study offers insight into potentially problematic interactions between viruses and live vaccines

A study of the herpes virus infecting chickens offers new insight into the potentially problematic interactions between vaccines made from live viruses and viruses that are meant to be thwarted. Reported in the journal Virulence, the study offers direct evidence that vaccines and viruses can infect the same cells in live animals and share the molecular tools that allow the virus to infect other animals – in this case, chickens. The study focused on Marek’s disease, a viral infection that is spread when a chicken inhales flakes of dead skin or feather tissue from an infected chicken. “We’ve been trying to understand how the virus spreads from one host to another,” said University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign pathobiology professor Keith Jarosinski, who led the study. “Not only did we do it for the benefit of chickens in the poultry industry, but also because of a very similar mechanism used by the virus that causes chickenpox, where it enters through the respiratory tract and infects l