Medical, Disease | featured news

Genetically altering a patient’s immune cells has, for the first time, produced remissions in adults with a deadly type of acute leukemia. In one patient, all trace of the disease vanished in 8 days.

How can a cancer come back after it’s apparently been eradicated? Three new studies are bolstering a long-debated idea: that tumors contain their own pool of stem cells that can multiply and keep fueling the cancer, seeding regrowth.

The new class of drug, which can be taken orally, is designed to protect the brain by combating the damaging effects of inflammation. Results from early stage clinical trials have yet to be announced, but studies on animals suggest the therapy could be effective against a wide range of conditions which also include motor neurone disease and complications from traumatic brain injury.

Scientists have found a master regulator gene needed for the development of M cells, a mysterious type of intestinal cell involved in initiating immune responses.

Medical science efforts to harness the power of the immune system against cancer are beginning to bear fruit after decades of frustration, opening up a hopeful new front in the long battle against the disease.

The tantalising prospect of treating a range of brain diseases, such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, all with the same drug has been raised by UK researchers.

Health officials are concerned about the trend at a time when many infectious diseases are making a comeback.

In just three weeks, gamers deciphered the structure of a key protein in the development of AIDS that has stumped scientists for years.

Mayo Clinic researchers have developed a genome-based immunization strategy to fight feline AIDS and illuminate ways to combat human HIV/AIDS and other diseases. The goal is to create cats with intrinsic immunity to the feline AIDS virus.

Finding that disease-bearing mosquitoes are drawn to foot odor, researchers in Africa, which accounts for 90% of malaria deaths worldwide, are planning to use the smell from sweaty socks in traps.