Date: December 5, 2012 By:
Will those hard-working humanized mice help get us to an AIDS vaccine? Scientists are sounding more optimistic.
“Allen led a recent study that caused a small stir in AIDS vaccine research circles. He and his colleagues found that BLT mice infected with HIV mounted cellular immune responses that closely mirrored those observed in HIV-infected humans, and moreover that HIV also escaped from those responses in a manner very similar to natural infection. Finally, Allen and his team found that BLT mice carrying a human immune-related gene associated with enhanced control of viral replication suppressed the virus in a way that was virtually identical to how humans who express that same gene control the virus. Allen said his lab is now looking at the potential to induce human HIV-specific immune responses in the humanized mice through vaccination.”
Dr. Todd Allen featured in VAX magazine article (Dec 2012).
A collaborative effort between researchers from Uganda, Tanzania, the US, Spain, and Denmark has resolved a longstanding question in malaria research: Do individuals living in regions with continuous malaria transmission develop broadly neutralizing antibodies (BnAbs) against the malaria parasite? The answer is yes.
Researchers at the Ragon Institute of Mass General Brigham, MIT, and Harvard have uncovered critical insights into how aging impairs the immune system’s ability to fight cancer.
