Researchers at the Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute (VGTI) at Oregon Health & Science University have demonstrated how certain white blood cells literally eat virus-infected cells while fighting disease at the microscopic level. The research not only helps provide a clearer understanding of the body's immune system, it also offers hope of a new method for gauging vaccine effectiveness. The research is published in the current edition of the journal Nature Medicine.

If you've had a heart attack or stroke, paramedics, doctors, and nurses follow standardized protocols for what to do right away, and their efforts improve your odds for a full recovery. That's not the case if you have a body-wide infection known as sepsis, which can be fatal within a few hours and is often not diagnosed until it is too late.

Researchers at SUNY Downstate Medical Center and the Brooklyn VA Hospital have found that when a human protein, PNC-28, is administered to pancreatic tumor cells in animals, the tumors are destroyed. The research was reported in the October 1st edition of the International Journal of Cancer.

Scientists at the Gladstone Institute of Virology and Immunology (GIVI) have identified a previously unknown function of APOBEC3G (A3G), a protein that acts against HIV, a finding that may lead to new approaches for controlling HIV infection.

Premature birth was the underlying cause of nearly twice as many infant deaths than previously estimated, according to a new analysis by researchers at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Osteoarthritis, the degenerative inflammatory bone disease, may be a sign of faster "biological ageing," suggests research published ahead of print in the Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases.

One in three doctors agree that free drug samples influence prescribing, finds a small but representative US survey published in the Journal of Medical Ethics.

New research dismisses the notion that adult stem cells are necessary for successful animal cloning, proving instead that cells that have completely evolved to a specific type not only can be used for cloning purposes, but they may be a better and more efficient starting point. As proof, researchers report they created two mouse pups from a type of blood cell that itself is incapable of dividing to produce a second generation of its own kind.

Patients with symptomatic moderate asthma who were treated with anti-tumor necrosis factor alpha, an anti-inflammatory monoclonal antibody, experienced significantly fewer disease exacerbations than individuals taking a placebo.