Many proteins have multiple roles. Often, the key to effective therapy is specificity. Not only does the treatment need to be specific for a particular physiological target, often a protein, but the therapeutic effects involve only a single function or subset of the target’s functions or needs to affect the target only within a specific … Read more
Cancerous tumors must evade immune destruction to survive. They can achieve this by preventing the immune cells from gaining access to the tumor (“immune cold”) or by tipping the balance of immunoactivating and immunosuppressing signals toward immunosuppression. Immunosuppression means that, even if the immune cells penetrate the tumor, they cannot kill the cancer. The cytotoxicity … Read more
Unlike osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune disease (1). The body’s own immune system attacks the joints, causing swelling, pain, heat, redness, immobility, and tissue damage that can cause deformation (Figure 1). Because rheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune disease, some types of immunomodulatory agents are specifically useful for treating this condition. Although both types of arthritis … Read more
One of the challenges to building artificial organs is finding or creating suitable materials for use in such devices. If the device contains living cells, then those cells need to receive nutrients from, exchange gases with, and send cellular waste products into blood. In addition, the cells should also respond appropriately to circulating regulatory signals, … Read more
What is a vaccine? A vaccine may be described as medicine that stimulates an immune response with a “memory.” Many people also consider a vaccine to be a medicine that prevents a disease caused by a pathogen. Indeed, the first vaccines were ones that prevented infectious diseases, such as polio and measles. Some vaccines have … Read more