https://phys.org/ en-us Phys.org internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. A new study from North Carolina State University found that neutrophils—white blood cells that are a key part of the immune system—play a role in the early stages of atopic dermatitis flares in dogs. The work is a first step toward understanding the role that these immune cells may play in the early stages of allergic skin response, and could have implications for human sufferers of atopic dermatitis. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-explores-role-neutrophils-canine-atopic.html Veterinary medicine Wed, 17 Dec 2025 13:30:18 EST news685200601 It's hard to be a horse. It's especially hard to be a newborn foal, dropped into a world of microbes and bacteria with your sole initial defense against devastating infections being the antibodies you get from your mother's milk, or colostrum. Researchers at North Carolina State University wanted to learn whether a biomarker that correlates with severe infection in humans could do the same in foals, to potentially identify sick foals early. https://phys.org/news/2024-08-cell-free-dna-early-sepsis.html Plants & Animals Mon, 26 Aug 2024 14:36:27 EDT news643901781 Ribonucleic acids (RNAs) are the ultimate cellular insiders. They perform several critical jobs, such as ferrying genetic instructions from a living organism's DNA to its protein-making machinery (a process key to cellular processes) and controlling which genes are activated. All of these processes are conducted within the safe confines of the cellular membrane. https://phys.org/news/2024-01-rnas-cells-immune.html Cell & Microbiology Mon, 22 Jan 2024 12:04:29 EST news625147467 The first line of defense in our immune systems are white blood cells, 40% to 70% of which are neutrophils. These cells rush to sites of injury or infection, producing proteins to promote inflammation and attack invading microbes. At the time of response, the proteins are decorated with carbohydrate molecules—called glycoproteins—yet scientists do not know when or how these complex molecules appear. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-immune-cell-reveals-subcellular-response.html Biochemistry Mon, 02 Oct 2023 10:48:31 EDT news615462505 White blood cells called neutrophils have an unappreciated role in eradicating solid tumors, according to a surprise discovery from a team led by Weill Cornell Medicine scientists. https://phys.org/news/2023-03-neutrophils-key-antitumor-weapons.html Cell & Microbiology Thu, 30 Mar 2023 17:13:02 EDT news599415171 A nanoparticle therapy developed by investigators at University Hospitals (UH) and Case Western Reserve University targets overactive neutrophils, a specific kind of white blood cell, to prevent almost all types of blood clots while causing no increased risk for bleeding. The preclinical findings, published in Science Translational Medicine, may lead to safer ways to care for patients impacted by blood clots. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), roughly 900,000 people in the U.S. suffer from life-threatening blood clots each year. https://phys.org/news/2022-09-reveal-strategy-blood-clots.html Bio & Medicine Fri, 30 Sep 2022 12:02:45 EDT news583758160 Neutrophils are a type of white blood cell that helps fight illness and disease by traveling to the body's infected site to seek and destroy harmful pathogens. https://phys.org/news/2022-07-specifically-block-disease-associated-white-blood.html Bio & Medicine Tue, 26 Jul 2022 16:27:17 EDT news578071632 Inside all of us is an army of cells called neutrophils, primed and ready to take out any invader, be it bacteria in a wound or viruses entering our airways. As the first line of defense for the immune system, neutrophils attack and call in reinforcements in a coordinated effort to prevent infection. https://phys.org/news/2022-07-unique-neutrophil-chemical-messaging.html Cell & Microbiology Mon, 18 Jul 2022 16:10:06 EDT news577379402 Medicinal microrobots could help physicians better treat and prevent diseases. But most of these devices are made with synthetic materials that trigger immune responses in vivo. Now, for the first time, researchers reporting in ACS Central Science have used lasers to precisely control neutrophils—a type of white blood cell—as a natural, biocompatible microrobot in living fish. The "neutrobots" performed multiple tasks, showing they could someday deliver drugs to precise locations in the body. https://phys.org/news/2022-07-white-blood-cells-medicinal-microrobots.html Bio & Medicine Wed, 13 Jul 2022 08:00:02 EDT news576916282 Using a protein nanoparticle they designed, scientists at the University of Illinois Chicago have identified two distinct subtypes of neutrophils and found that one of the subtypes can be used as a drug target for inflammatory diseases. https://phys.org/news/2022-04-newly-neutrophil-subset-therapeutic-inflammatory.html Bio & Medicine Tue, 05 Apr 2022 16:37:08 EDT news568395425 Researchers at UC Davis have discovered a signaling mechanism that allows bacteria like Salmonella to evade destruction by the host's immune system. https://phys.org/news/2022-02-intracellular-bacteria-sophisticated-hack-evade.html Cell & Microbiology Wed, 09 Feb 2022 15:59:06 EST news563644743 The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the devastating impact of acute lung inflammation (ALI), which is part of the acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) that is the dominant cause of death in COVID-19. A potential new route to the diagnosis and treatment of ARDS comes from studying how neutrophils—the white blood cells responsible for detecting and eliminating harmful particles in the body—differentiate what materials to uptake by the material's surface structure, and favor uptake of particles that exhibit "protein clumping," according to new research from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. The findings are published in Nature Nanotechnology. https://phys.org/news/2021-12-blueprint-nanoparticles-white-blood-cells.html Bio & Medicine Mon, 27 Dec 2021 16:09:09 EST news559843741 There is no antidote or specific treatment for freshwater stingray venom, although accidents involving these animals are frequent on rivers in the Amazon and other regions. https://phys.org/news/2019-06-freshwater-stingray-venom-varies-sex.html Plants & Animals Thu, 06 Jun 2019 06:59:40 EDT news479023171 The fungus Aspergillus fumigatus is everywhere, and is extremely dangerous for people with weakened immune systems. It occurs virtually everywhere on Earth, as a dark grey stain on damp walls or in microscopically small spores that blow through the air and cling to wallpaper, mattresses and floors. Healthy people usually have no problem if spores find their way into their body, as their immune defence system will protect them. However, the fungus can threaten the lives of people with a compromised immune system, such as AIDS patients or people who are immunosuppressed following an organ transplantation. https://phys.org/news/2019-02-fungus-cripple-immune.html Biochemistry Fri, 08 Feb 2019 09:30:03 EST news468839886 Engineers at the University of California San Diego have developed neutrophil "nanosponges" that can safely absorb and neutralize a variety of proteins that play a role in the progression of rheumatoid arthritis. Injections of these nanosponges effectively treated severe rheumatoid arthritis in two mouse models. Administering the nanosponges early on also prevented the disease from developing. https://phys.org/news/2018-09-neutrophil-nanosponges-proteins-rheumatoid-arthritis.html Bio & Medicine Mon, 03 Sep 2018 11:00:04 EDT news455182773 A study by researchers at Karolinska Institutet, the University of Manchester and Chalmers University of Technology published in CHEM shows that our immune system handles graphene oxide in a manner similar to pathogens, paving the way for safer biomedical applications of this two-dimensional material. https://phys.org/news/2018-01-graphene-oxide-specialised-cells-immune.html Nanomaterials Fri, 26 Jan 2018 09:50:50 EST news436182417 A surprise finding suggests that an injection of nanoparticles may be able to help fight the immune system when it goes haywire, researchers at the University of Michigan have shown. The nanoparticles divert immune cells that cause inflammation away from an injury site. https://phys.org/news/2017-11-nanoparticles-limit-inflammation-distracting-immune.html Bio & Medicine Wed, 08 Nov 2017 16:06:19 EST news429379518 Neutrophil-like cells must balance speed against chemotactic accuracy to win a chemotaxis maze race in the inaugural Dicty World Races, a worldwide competition, according to a study published June 22, 2016 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Monica Skoge from Princeton University, Daniel Irmia from the Massachusetts General Hospital, and colleagues. https://phys.org/news/2016-06-worldwide-chemotaxis-competition-cell-lines.html Cell & Microbiology Wed, 22 Jun 2016 14:00:05 EDT news385804201 Neutrophils, a type of white blood cell, are the immune system's all-terrain vehicles. The cells are recruited to fight infections or injury in any tissue or organ in the body despite differences in the cellular and biochemical composition. Researchers from Brown University's School of Engineering and the Department of Surgery in the Warren Alpert Medical School collaborated to devise a new technique for understanding how neutrophils move in these confined spaces. https://phys.org/news/2014-12-technique-reveals-immune-cell-motion.html Biochemistry Fri, 19 Dec 2014 16:09:17 EST news338227601 Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago have developed a system for precisely delivering anti-inflammatory drugs to immune cells gone out of control, while sparing their well-behaved counterparts. Their findings were published online Feb. 23 in Nature Nanotechnology. https://phys.org/news/2014-02-nanoparticles-anti-inflammatory-drugs.html Bio & Medicine Sun, 23 Feb 2014 13:00:28 EST news312294382 White blood cells, or leukocytes, are the immune system's warriors. So when an infection or disease attacks the body, the system typically responds by sending more white blood cells into the fray. This means that checking the number of these cells is a relatively easy way to detect and monitor such conditions. https://phys.org/news/2013-03-white-blood-cells-home-portable.html Analytical Chemistry Tue, 26 Mar 2013 09:45:01 EDT news283509894 Neutrophils, critical components of the immune system's response to bacteria and other pathogens, throw out tube-like tethers that act as anchor points, controlling their speed as they roll along the walls of blood vessels during extremely fast blood flow en route to an infection site, according to research presented on Dec. 17 at the American Society for Cell Biology Annual Meeting in San Francisco. https://phys.org/news/2012-12-immune-cells-tethered-swept.html Cell & Microbiology Mon, 17 Dec 2012 13:00:01 EST news274960878 (Medical Xpress) -- A team of scientists has developed a promising new strategy for "reactivating" genes that cause cancer tumors to shrink and die. The researchers hope that their discovery will aid in the development of an innovative anti-cancer drug that effectively targets unhealthy, cancerous tissue without damaging healthy, non-cancerous tissue and vital organs. The research will be published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry. https://phys.org/news/2012-05-strategy-genes-suppress-tumors-inhibit.html Biochemistry Mon, 21 May 2012 08:35:51 EDT news256808101 Infection with some strains of strep turn deadly when a protein found on their surface triggers a widespread inflammatory reaction. https://phys.org/news/2011-04-strep-protein-trigger-toxic.html Biochemistry Wed, 06 Apr 2011 13:00:08 EDT news221313584 A team led by Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) scientists has developed a new microfluidic tool for quickly and accurately isolating neutrophils - the most abundant type of white blood cell - from small blood samples, an accomplishment that could provide information essential to better understanding the immune system's response to traumatic injury. The system, described in a Nature Medicine paper that received advance online release, also can be adapted to isolate almost any type of cell. https://phys.org/news/2010-08-microfluidic-device-analysis-hard-to-handle-immune.html Biochemistry Mon, 30 Aug 2010 13:20:47 EDT news202393219 An international study based at the University of Pittsburgh provides the first identification of a human enzyme that can biodegrade carbon nanotubes—the superstrong materials found in products from electronics to plastics—and in laboratory tests offset the potentially damaging health effects of being exposed to the tiny components, according to findings published online in Nature Nanotechnology. https://phys.org/news/2010-04-human-enzyme-potentially-toxic-nanomaterials.html Bio & Medicine Wed, 07 Apr 2010 15:14:11 EDT news189872027