Related topics: immune cells · immune system · cells

T cells use force to destroy cancer cells

As a part of our immune defenses, cytotoxic T cells—or killer T cells—seek out and destroy cells that are infected or cancerous. This process is essential for the body's defense against diseases.

Road signs for immune defense cells

Organisms are constantly invaded by pathogens such as viruses. Our immune system swings into action to combat these pathogens immediately. The innate non-specific immune response is triggered first, and the adaptive or acquired ...

Secrets of thymus formation revealed

The thymus is a crucial organ of the immune system. In the thymus, the well-known T cells mature: As killer cells, they recognize and destroy virus-infected or malignant cells, and as so-called helper T cells they assist ...

Metabolism found to regulate production of killer cells

In a recent study from Lund University in Sweden, researchers discovered that metabolic changes affect how blood cells are formed during embryonic development. They found a previously unknown metabolic switch with a key role ...

Natural killer cells coordinate wound healing

Natural killer cells do not just kill cancer cells or cells infected with viruses, they also mediate a trade-off between wound healing and bacterial defense in skin wounds. If the healing process is accelerated, the immune ...

Removal of a gene could render lethal poxviruses harmless

The removal of one gene renders poxviruses—a lethal family of viral infections that are known to spread from animals to humans—harmless, a new study in the journal Science Advances reports.

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