The words "crystal" and "healing" in the same sentence do not, by and large, connote solid scientific ground for the approach being advocated. But there is an exception to every rule, and researchers at Ghent University have described Charcot-Leyden crystals (CLCs) as a targetable feature of some allergic diseases. CLCs are made up of the protein galectin-10. 

For the immune system, the self and non-self are something like the proverbial rock and a hard place. In order to be effective, the system as a whole needs to react vigorously to pathogens. But that vigorous reaction can also damage the organism it is meant to protect. The conundrum is on display in influenza infections.

Researchers at Stony Brook University have found a way to keep insulin-degrading enzyme (IDE) from deactivating insulin without affecting its role in degrading glucagon. 

SAN DIEGO – "Wherever I look, I see the ugly face of complement." That, complement researcher Jörg Köhl told the audience at the 2019 annual meeting of the American Association of Immunologists (AAI), was the comment of a research colleague who repeatedly stumbled across complement contributions to what had once seemed unrelated research.

SAN DIEGO – Almost exactly 10 years ago, on May 28, 2009, Steven Rosenberg was the first person to treat a patient with CAR T cells. That patient, a 48-year-old construction worker with metastatic non-Hodgkin lymphoma, is now 58 and remains in remission, as well as working full time. Two CAR T-cell therapies have been approved, and more than 1,000 patients have been treated with them.

Researchers at Pisa's Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna and King's College London have shown that therapeutic administration of miR-199 stimulated cardiac repair in pigs after experimentally induced heart attacks. 

PHILADELPHIA – "Because of our assumption that structure determines function, for a long time [low-complexity domains] were not considered important," J. Paul Taylor told the audience at the American Academy of Neurology (AAN) annual meeting's Frontiers in Neuroscience plenary session. Such low-complexity domains (LCDs) were thought of as junk parts of proteins, in analogy to junk DNA.

PHILADELPHIA – "We've gone from no randomized controlled trial to three," Sean Pittock told reporters at the American Academy of Neurology (AAN) annual meeting this week. "It's a glorious example of what you can do with precision medicine."

Researchers have discovered that the synaptic protein Bassoon accumulated in the neurons of mice with experimental autoimmune encephalitis, the closest animal model to multiple sclerosis (MS), causing neuronal damage in much the same way that protein aggregates damage neurons in neurodegenerative diseases.