Potential target for MS therapy discovered

21-Feb-2025 - Researchers from Bonn and Erlangen identify the protein MLC1 as a target antigen in multiple sclerosis: Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic inflammatory disease of the central nervous system caused by the immune system. B cells, which are a type of white blood cell, play a role in the ...

Immunotherapy against cancer: How therapeutic antibodies do their job

A new super-resolution microscopic method

13-Jan-2025 - A new look at cancer cells: Thanks to an innovative method of super-resolution microscopy, researchers from the University of Würzburg have observed for the first time with molecular resolution in 3D how therapeutic antibodies attack and alter B cells, thereby inducing their destruction. The ...

The secret of stable dust

Findings open up new ways of treating sick children

28-Nov-2024 - For small children, it acts like a protective elixir against asthma and other allergies from birth: the dust from the traditional cowshed. Researchers are keenly interested in exactly what causes this effect. However, deciphering it in terms of allergy prevention is a lengthy process, but one ...

How a “date” between immune cells makes rheumatism disappear

Major success: New approach for treating autoimmune diseases

06-May-2024 - Dates don’t always work out the way you would like. This is the premise on which scientists at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) have developed a new approach towards treating autoimmune diseases. They brought two types of immune cells, B cells and T cells, together at one ...

New findings on the immune system: Hope for highly effective vaccines and new therapies

Underlying mechanism for the development of T follicular helper cells deciphered

05-Mar-2024 - T follicular helper cells (Tfh) are essential for strong antibody-mediated reactions of our immune system during infections and vaccinations. However, if they get out of control, this can cause diseases such as autoimmunity, allergies or cancer. Researchers from the University Hospital Bonn (UKB) ...

Possible trigger for autoimmune diseases discovered

B cells teach T cells which targets must not be attacked

28-Feb-2024 - Immune cells must learn not to attack the body itself. A team of researchers from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU) has discovered a previously unknown mechanism behind this: other immune cells, the B cells, contribute to the "training" ...

Revolutionary cell therapy: rebooting the immune system stops autoimmune diseases

Single infusion of CAR-T cells replaces immunosuppressive drugs

23-Feb-2024 - In March 2021, doctors at FAU treated a young woman with a severe autoimmune disease with chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells for the first time in the world. Today, almost three years later, they have now been able to publish a pilot study in the New England Journal of Medicine and show that ...

Keeping organ rejection in check with killer cells

Therapeutic potential not only for transplant medicine

06-Dec-2023 - A donated organ always remains foreign to the body and is fought against by the immune system. In order to prevent rejection, the entire immune defence must be suppressed for a lifetime. An MHH research team is now using genetically modified killer cells against precisely those immune cells that ...

Hemophilia: Training the immune system to be tolerant

Study elucidates an important immune mechanism

02-Nov-2022 - Hemophilia A is the most common severe form of hemophilia. It affects almost exclusively males. The disease can usually be treated well, but not for all sufferers. A study at the University of Bonn has now elucidated an important mechanism that is crucial for making the therapy effective. The ...

Molecular structure of one of the most important receptors in the immune system unraveled

Researchers publish the three-dimensional structure of the B cell antigen receptor, shedding new light on its composition

21-Oct-2022 - The surface of B cells is covered with antigen receptors with which they recognize invading pathogens such as bacteria and viruses. When a B cell receptor binds to an antigen, that is, to a foreign structure, the B cell is activated and triggers the production of antibodies. Antibodies are ...