Recent Comments

    thymus tagged posts

    The thymus hosts more ‘cellular teachers’ than we thought, study finds

    October 31, 2025, Categories  Biology/Biotechnology, Health/Medical

    The thymus has more 'cellular teachers' than we thought
    scRNA-seq reveals heterogeneity in thymic DCs. (A) scRNA-seq of CD11c+ and CD11b+ FACS-sorted cells from the thymus of 7-wk-old C57BL/6 mice. UMAP plots show the analysis of 11,586 transcriptome events, with dashed lines representing clusters expressing Flt3, Csf1r, and Csf3r. (B) Feature plots showing the normalized expression of Flt3, Csf1r, and Csf3r in the clusters defined in A. (C) UMAP plots show the analysis of 8,514 transcriptome events and identify 16 clusters of thymic myeloid cells. Violin plots show the normalized expression of signature genes in these clusters. (D) Representative flow cytometry gating strategy for pre-gating thymic myeloid cells...
    Read More

    New Clue into the Curious Case of our Aging Immune System

    August 16, 2024, Categories  Biology/Biotechnology, Health/Medical

    Pictured are the cells that form clusters in the thymus with age. On the left, the thymus from a two-month-old mouse has few age-associated (in blue) clusters. On the right, the thymus from a 24-month-old mouse shows many clusters. Researchers have found these clusters form ‘scars’ in the thymus which prevent the organ from restoring itself after damage.

    A WEHI study could help solve a long-standing mystery into why a key immune organ in our bodies shrinks and loses its function as we get older.

    The thymus is an organ essential for good health due to its ability to produce special immune cells that are responsible for fighting infections and cancer.

    In a world-first, researchers have uncovered new cells that drive this ageing process in the thymus — significant findings that could unlock a way to restore function in the thymus and prevent our immunity from waning as we age.

    At a glance

    The thymus is an organ essential for our immune defence but it shrinks and weakens as we get older. The reason for this loss remains a long-standing mystery.

    A new study has been able to visualise, for the first time, how two cell types d...

    Read More

    Burst of Accumulated Zinc shows how the Mineral Boosts Immune Function, suggesting ways to Improve Health

    April 2, 2022, Categories  Biology/Biotechnology, Health/Medical

    Dudakov Lab postdoctoral fellow Dr. Lorenzo Iovino discovered two ways that zinc helps boost the immune system.Photo by Robert Hood / Fred Hutch News Service

    In mice, zinc helps thymus of the immune system regrow and immune-cell recovery after bone marrow transplant. Zinc’s immune-boosting properties are well-established, but scientists haven’t known exactly how it works. In a new study published online March 25 in the journal Blood, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center scientists reveal two ways the mineral supports immunity and suggest how it could be used to improve health.

    Using mice, the team discovered that zinc is needed for the development of disease-fighting immune T cells and prompts regeneration of the thymus, the immune organ that produces T cells.

    “This study adds ...

    Read More

    Scientists build whole functioning Thymus from Human Cells

    December 15, 2020, Categories  Biology/Biotechnology, Health/Medical

    Images of stages of the researchers repopulating the scaffold.

    Scientists at the Francis Crick Institute and University College London have Rebuilt a human Thymus, an essential organ in the Immune system, using human stem cells and a bioengineered scaffold. Their work is an important step towards being able to build artificial thymi which could be used as transplants.

    The thymus is an organ in the chest where T lymphocytes, which play a vital role in the immune system, mature. If the thymus does not work properly or does not form during fetal development in the womb, this can lead to diseases such as severe immunodeficiency, where the body cannot fight infectious diseases or cancerous cells, or autoimmunity, where the immune system mistakenly attacks the patient’s own healthy tissue.

    In their proof-of-concept study, published in Nature Comm...

    Read More