Worms strike see-saw balance in disease resistance
Friday, March 4, 2011 - 11:30
in Biology & Nature
New research has shown that nematode worms have to trade-off resistance to different diseases, gaining resistance to one microbe at the expense of becoming more vulnerable to another. This finding reveals that the worms, called C. elegans, have a much more complex immune system than was previously thought and shows how important such trade-offs are across the animal kingdom.