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.  

An international modelling challenge is calling on experts across disciplines to help tackle one of Europe’s — and the world’s — most pressing health threats: highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI). The initiative, which is now open for applications, seeks to improve outbreak modelling readiness and to foster international collaboration among researchers and decision makers from academic, government, and other backgrounds worldwide. Modelling teams from academia, public health, the private sector or other backgrounds are warmly invited to participate and participation is free.

Basophils, a type of white blood cell, promote recovery from acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) in mice, according to researchers at Science Tokyo. In a mouse model of ARDS, basophils were found to release interleukin-4 (IL-4), which suppresses inflammatory neutrophils in the lungs during the recovery stage. The study suggests that targeting the basophil–IL-4–neutrophil pathway could offer a new therapeutic approach for ARDS, a condition with high mortality rates and no dedicated treatments.

A pioneering study by researchers from Finland and the UK has demonstrated for the first time that myocardial infarction may be an infectious disease. This discovery challenges the conventional understanding of the pathogenesis of myocardial infarction and opens new avenues for treatment, diagnostics, and even vaccine development.