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Herd immunity has been considered by some countries as a strategy to combat the current COVID-19 crisis. However, rushing toward herd immunity by ignoring risky behavior in the hope that infected people will survive, become resistant and reduce the susceptible population is an approach that will increase deaths and disability, in expert opinion.

Plants have a unique ability to safeguard themselves against pathogens by closing their pores—but until now, no one knew quite how they did it. A new study reveals that a protein called OSCA1.3 forms a channel that leaks calcium into the cells surrounding a plant’s pores, and determined that a known immune system protein triggers the process.

Kanazawa University researchers have discovered that as gastric cancer spreads throughout the peritoneal cavity, inflammatory protein IL-17A induces tissue fibrosis, causing severe side effects and also hampers chemotherapy.

A new study has revealed that a protein that helps bacteria to synthesize cysteine has a characteristic hourglass shape that results in a sophisticated mechanism for the uptake of the molecules needed for cysteine synthesis.

A new approach, based on mass spectrometry and advanced bioinformatics, identifies the components of the microbiota of any animals sampled in nature and characterizes how this microbiota functions. This could have many applications including determining animal and environmental health.

New research reveals a mechanism through which the right combination of bacteria can lead to microbiome resiliency to dietary perturbations.

SARS-CoV-2 can infect human neural progenitor cells and brain organoids, as shown by researchers from the Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology (SIAT) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and their collaborators from The University of Hong Kong (HKU).

Scientists think that asthma results from the behavior of unhealthy cells within the human airway. But now, researchers at Northeastern have found that the way those cells trigger asthmatic attacks isn’t only a result of how they communicate with one another.

Researchers have discovered which gut bacteria help our immune system battle cancerous tumors and how they do it, which may provide a new understanding of why immunotherapy works in some cases, but not others.

A collaborative team of researchers from the University of Toronto Engineering and the University of Michigan have redesigned a naturally occurring enzyme that has demonstrated the ability to promote nerve regrowth in nerve damage models, increasing its activity and stability.