Fundamental theory about education of immune police questioned by researchers
Wednesday, October 8, 2014 - 13:30
in Health & Medicine
A fundamental theory about how our thymus educates our immune police appears to be wrong, scientists say. The finding provides more insight into immunity that could one day enable a new approach to vaccines that steer the thymus to produce more of whatever T cell type a patient needs: more effector cells if they have a bad infection or cancer, more regulatory T cells if they are experiencing autoimmune diseases like arthritis and multiple sclerosis.