Category: Blog
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Our Innate Immune Proteins May Have Originated From Bacterial Anti-phage Proteins
Evolutionary biologists believe that advanced eukaryotic life evolved from less advanced life forms, and no I’m not talking about those hairy apes. Rather dial back the clock even further — way back to the point of genesis and we have our very first forefathers, the single-celled prokaryotic bacteria! Our eukaryotic cells share a huge deal…
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Re-directing the STING Pathway in Diabetic Wounds Could Accelerate Healing
The body’s movement of nutrients obtained from food is calculated wisely. Our cells are blessed to be able to use and drag them without any help most of the time. However, there are instances when the cells need a boost from an external friend to do such a job. One example is the energy nutrient…
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Immune System and Teeth – How NF-kB Activation Affects Bone Loss in Periodontitis
Picture credit: Biorender Teeth serve many functions in our daily lives; eating, talking, and communicating emotions through smiling. This dental practice advertisement sums up their aesthetic importance in our lives perfectly: Without a doubt, maintaining oral hygiene is as important (if not more) as bodily hygiene. Diseases of the gums can not only take away…
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A New Hope for Endometriosis
Endometriosis is a chronic disease that affects around 10% of people having a woman’s reproductive system. It is an extremely painful disease that very often goes undiagnosed. For years, we have been dependent on pain medications or hormonal medications (having numerous side effects) as a route for relief, but there was no cure. Thankfully, in more…
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The Intestinal Immune System and Clinical Depression
Over the past two decades, we are growing to recognize the importance of mental health, which has historically been ignored. Today, in many parts of the world, mental health is given almost equal priority to physical health. Clinical depression, also known as major depressive disorder, is one of the most common mental health disorders, affecting…
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The Hunger games- The quest for survival of B cells in the germinal center
The journey of constantly going back and forth, from the dark side to the light side, is not one that’s reserved just for the strongest Jedis of the galaxy but one that’s also shared by the maturing B cells in our immune system. But unlike the former, it’s not the galaxy testing their fate, but…
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Q&A with Lauren Stafford: Transfer of antibodies from vaccinated mothers to breastfeeding children
Disclaimer: The interview transcript has been modified into a blog-friendly format. The actual interview audio is available at the end of the blog. We were lucky enough that one of the authors of the article “Detection of SARS-CoV-2 IgA and IgG in human milk and breastfeeding infant stool 6 months after maternal COVID-19 vaccination”, Lauren…
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Probiotics – a dietary supplement that may control food allergies
We have always been told the only way to prevent a specific food allergy from happening again is by eliminating that food from our diet! Let’s take a step back to define what food allergy is and why the body is reacting against something that is supposed to be harmless (and tasty). Food allergy is…
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Is Chlamydia killing you from the inside out?
When you think of Chlamydia you usually think of the human sexually transmitted disease. Well, other types of Chlamydia can infect humans and animals, which are not sexually transmitted. Chlamydia psittaci is one such bug that mainly infects poultry where it causes respiratory and digestive tract infections. In other animals, like cattle and sheep, it…
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Bridging the “gap” between CAR and solid tumors
Picture credit: flickr.com Since first approved by the FDA in 2017, T cells with chimeric antigen receptors (CAR T) have revolutionized the treatment of blood cancers like leukemia and lymphoma. Since then, research has been focused on improving the CARs to treat a wide range of cancers including solid tumors – that have proved to…
Antibuddies 