T cells tagged posts

When it comes to priorities in life, oxygen tops the list. Humans can go weeks without food and days without water. Take away the ability to breathe, however, and the clock starts ticking within minutes as the brain begins shutting down. But the life-giving gas does even more heavy lifting than you might think.

The immune system, which battles cancer with the help of specialized fighters, such as T cells, relies on oxygen to mount its attack.

Now, Bouvé College of Health Sciences professor and director of the pharmaceutical and biomedical sciences graduate program Stephen Hatfield and his colleagues are ...

Results from an early-stage clinical trial, published in Nature Communications, showed encouraging outcomes among patients with newly diagnosed cancer whose tumors had spread to distant organs. Most strikingly, one patient experienced a pathologic complete response—meaning no viable cancer cells could be found—and remains cancerfree for more than two years without further treatment. These findings offer an important signal that a new approach may be able to overcome one of the disease’s greatest challenges: its resistance to immunotherapy.

“We desperately need new tools in our arsenal,” said Gulam Manji, MD, PhD, a medical oncologist specializing in pancreatic cancer and lead investigator of the trial...

Scientists have developed a way to turn the body’s own immune cells into cancer-fighting agents—without removing them from the body—by using red blood cells to deliver genetic instructions. Current CAR (chimeric antigen receptor) therapies typically involve collecting a patient’s T cells, genetically modifying them in the laboratory, and then reinfusing them in a process that can take weeks. The new strategy aims to bypass that step.

In a study published in Science Translational Medicine, researchers at Westlake Laboratory of Life Sciences and Biomedicine in Hangzhou, China, report that they used engineered erythrocytes, or red blood cells, to carry messenger RNA—mRNA—that reprograms myeloid cells into tumor-targeting cells inside the body.

“Engi...

An international research team focused on aging reports that urolithin A at 1,000 mg per day shifted human immune profiles toward a more naive-like, less exhausted CD8+ state and increased fatty acid oxidation capacity, with additional functional gains.

Urolithin A is a metabolite produced by gut bacteria after breaking down ellagic acid from certain foods, such as pomegranates and walnuts. While produced naturally through microbial digestion, it is in much smaller quantities than available as a supplement or used in the study.

Aging bodies face reduced production of mature T cells, shrinking naive T cell pools and chronic low-grade inflammation...