Complement, a component of the innate immune system, has been pinpointed by a research team at the Medical University of South Carolina as playing a key role in inflammatory responses that contribute to fetal neural inflammation and preterm birth, the latter of which represents the primary driver of complications and death in newborns. The team reports its findings in Cells.

Antibodies are the critical targeting agents of the immune system and the crux of immune therapy and vaccine development, but studying them is slow, expensive and labor-intensive. Now, researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have developed a new high-volume method that can rapidly build and test large numbers of antibodies at once. With it, they have already uncovered common aspects of how antibodies bind across variants of a key influenza target protein.  

Scientists from Auburn University and international collaborators have uncovered the strongest protein-protein bond ever recorded in nature. Their discovery explains why Staphylococcus aureus, a leading cause of skin infections, clings so stubbornly to human skin — and points to new ways of fighting antibiotic-resistant bacteria.