virus

Researchers have identified the primary player of the biochemical bugle call that musters the body’s defenders against viral infection. Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have shown that a key molecule, MDA5, is essential for producing enough interferon (the bugle call) to rally virus-fighting cells during certain viral infections.

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have received a $3 million grant from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to develop a triple threat in the fight against cancer: a single virus equipped to find, image and kill cancer cells, all at once.

Innate differences in immunity can be detected at birth, according to new study from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. First author Kaharu Sumino, MD, and her colleagues say babies with a better innate response to viruses have fewer respiratory illnesses in the first year of life.

Results of a new study from Washington University’s Drug Discovery Center demonstrate the feasibility of a novel strategy in drug discovery: screening large numbers of existing drugs — often already approved for other uses — to see which ones activate genes that boost natural immunity.

A parasite and a virus may be teaming up in a way that increases the parasite’s ability to harm humans, scientists at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland and Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis report this week in Science.

A workhorse of modern biology is sick, and scientists couldn’t be happier. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and other institutions have found that the nematode C. elegans, a millimeter-long worm used extensively for decades to study many aspects of biology, gets naturally occurring viral infections.

Five decades after the discovery of a rare but potentially pivotal immune cell, scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found a way to eliminate it in mice. The finding, which appears in the journal Immunity, will enable more detailed investigations of the important roles the plasmacytoid dendritic cell (pDC) plays in fighting viruses and causing autoimmune diseases like psoriasis and lupus.

A single dose of inactivated 2009 H1N1 influenza vaccine in people with asthma is safe, according to results from a national clinical trial with a site at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

Scientists have shown that a specific virus can interact with a mutation in the host’s genes to trigger disease. The observation may help explain why many people with disease risk genes do not actually develop disease.

National Science FoundationBuilding on plant virus research started more than 20 years ago, a biologist at Washington University in St. Louis and his colleague at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in St. Louis have discovered a technology that reduces infection by the virus that causes Rice Tungro Disease, a serious limiting factor for rice production in Asia.