This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American The very first line of defence against any ...

Innate lymphoid cells, which curiously behave like T cells even though they don’t recognize specific antigens, show promise as a potential cancer therapeutic. In the years that followed, other groups ...

Northwestern Medicine investigators have uncovered a missing link behind the harmful effects of autoantibodies linked to ...

SARS-CoV-2 has an enzyme that can counteract a cell's innate defense mechanism against viruses, explaining why it is more infectious than the previous SARS and MERS-causing viruses. The discovery may ...

The field of cancer immunology has seen significant advancements in recent years, particularly with the emergence of immunotherapy as a key pillar in the ...

Unlike transient innate immune activation, trained immunity is characterized by long-lasting but reversible functional reprogramming of monocytes, macrophages, natural killer (NK) cells, and ...

Macrophages, the immune system’s front-line scavenger cells, do more than simply digest dead cells. A new study published in ...

Long Covid patients suffer from chronic symptoms such as fatigue or shortness of breath. As researchers have discovered, this is to some extent due to a part of our immune system called the complement ...

The human body’s defensive lineup is impressive—from made-to-order antibodies to natural-born killers. Here’s how it wards off sickness in every season. When pathogens invade our bodies—in the form of ...

Cancer immunotherapies, including cancer vaccines, harness and amplify the immune system’s natural ability to detect and attack cancer cells. In this illustration, immune T cells (pink) attach to a ...