/PRNewswire/ If you want to track a person s activities for a day, you could call them up every ten minutes and ask what they re doing. Easier, though,.
The human immune system, that marvel of complexity, subtlety, and sophistication, includes a billion-year-old family of proteins used by bacteria to defend them
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The Science Behind Vaccines
Carolina Lucas, Ph.D. is a member of the 2018 class of the Pew Latin American Fellows Program. She is a postdoctoral fellow at Yale University, focusing on virology and immunology.
Felicia Goodrum, Ph.D. is a member of the 2008 class of the Pew Biomedical Scholars Program and a 2017 Innovation Fund investigator. She is a researcher and professor at the University of Arizona and BIO5 Institute, focusing on molecular virology and cell biology.
For centuries, vaccines have safeguarded people against infectious disease. Today, roughly 7 out of 10 Americans believe vaccination is important yet recent studies show that vaccination rates in more than half of U.S. states have been on the decline. And with the current push to develop and distribute vaccines in response to COVID-19 the disease caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 many people have questions about vaccine reliability, safety, and development.
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IMAGE: A new study by UC San Diego biologists has revealed insights on the intricate, adaptive mechanisms of a protective system employed by the cells of mammalian immune systems. These defenses. view more
Credit: Brian Tsu, Daugherty Lab, UC San Diego
Scientists are opening new windows into understanding more about the constantly shifting evolutionary arms race between viruses and the hosts they seek to infect. Host organisms and pathogens are in a perennial chess match to exploit each other s weaknesses.
Such research holds tantalizing clues for human health since the immune system is on constant alert to deploy counter measures against new viral attacks. But unleashing too much of a defensive response can lead to self-inflicted tissue damage and disease.