How one pathogen evades the immune system

An LMU research team led by Nicolai Siegel has uncovered a mechanism that enables the parasite that causes sleeping sickness in humans to escape the attention of the immune system. The finding may also be relevant to other ...

Cracking the code of a shapeshifting protein

A shapeshifting immune system protein called XCL1 evolved from a single-shape ancestor hundreds of millions of years ago. Now, researchers at the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) discovered the molecular basis for how this ...

A step toward a universal flu vaccine

Each year, the flu vaccine has to be redesigned to account for mutations that the virus accumulates, and even then, the vaccine is often not fully protective for everyone.

Cryo-EM study yields new clues to chicken pox infection

Despite decades of study, exactly how herpesviruses invade our cells remains something of a mystery. Now researchers studying one herpesvirus, the varicella zoster virus (VZV) that causes chicken pox, may have found an important ...

Scientists identify ancient origin for key hormone system

A key set of proteins that help regulate hormones necessary for many essential functions in humans and other vertebrates have ancient origins in much simpler creatures such as sea cucumbers, says a new study published today ...

Predicting the evolution of genetic mutations

Quantitative biologists David McCandlish and Juannan Zhou at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory have developed an algorithm with predictive power, giving scientists the ability to see how specific genetic mutations can combine ...

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