When I worked as an epidemiologist, one of my jobs was with a program that prevented perinatal hepatitis B infections. That’s when a woman with …
Category: Immunology
Paradox: Antibiotics may increase contagion among Salmonella-infected animals
Make no mistake: Antibiotics have worked wonders, increasing human life expectancy as have few other public-health measures (let's hear it for vaccines, folks). But about …
Stanford Medicine magazine traverses the immune system
If you want to understand the human immune system, try studying humans - not mice. That's what Mark Davis, PhD, urges in a special report …
Ivy and Bean help encourage kids to get vaccinated
Last week, I took my two little boys to get their shots, including the MMR vaccine that protects against measles, mumps and rubella. Although, as …
Study: Pregnancy causes surprising changes in how the immune system responds to the flu
When pregnant women get influenza, they tend to get really sick. Flu complications such as pneumonia are more common in pregnant women than other healthy …
Gut bacteria may influence effectiveness of flu vaccine
Past research has shown that the microbes living in your gut can dictate how body fat is stored, hormone response and glucose levels in the …
Side effects of childhood vaccines are extremely rare, new study finds
As you may have heard about elsewhere, a new paper published today on the safety of childhood vaccines provides reassurance for parents and pediatricians that …
Double vision: How the brain creates a single view of the world
About a decade ago, Stanford Bio-X director Carla Shatz, PhD, found that some proteins from the immune system seemed to be playing a role in …
Discovered: Why so many people with schistosomiasis (there's a lot of them) are so vulnerable to bacterial co-infection
More than a billion people worldwide - almost all of them in developing countries - are infected by worm-like parasitic organisms called helminths. Organisms making …
Examining how microbes may affect mental health
Over on the NIH Director's Blog today, there's an interesting post about research efforts aimed at determining how the colonies of bacteria in our gut …
Eating nuts during pregnancy may protect baby from nut allergies
Thank goodness I ate so much peanut butter while I was pregnant. That was my first reaction to new research, published today in JAMA Pediatrics, …
The latest buzz on the evolution of allergies
Like a vestigial sting from our evolutionary past, an allergic reaction is a jab to the system. Its most extreme form, anaphylaxis, causes a rapid …
Another big step toward building a better aspirin tablet
Neuroinflammation - inflammation of the brain and spinal cord - is a major driver in a broad spectrum of neurological disorders, from acute syndromes like …
Ocean organism settles down, digests its proto-brain and loses its individuality
Last week, Science published a research report from Stanford scientists on the discovery of a single gene in a primitive marine organism that determines whether that …
Best thing since sliced bread? A (potential) new diagnostic for celiac disease
Something approaching 1 percent of people of European ancestry have celiac disease: an autoimmune intolerance to gluten, a protein found in wheat, barley and rye. …
Collaboration between Stanford and UCSF aims to advance arthritis research
More than 50 million adults and 300,000 children in the United States suffer (.pdf) from arthritis. There's no known cure for the disease, which breaks down …