Immunology And Microbiology Archives

UNC School of Medicine researchers Angela Wahl, PhD, Balfour Sartor MD, J. Victor Garcia, PhD, and colleagues created a germ-free mouse model to evaluate the role of the microbiome in the infection, replication, and pathogenesis of HIV and Epstein-Barr virus, the virus that can cause mononucleosis and other serious diseases.

The 7.5-million grant from the NIH National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases will help researchers pinpoint specific factors that lead to a better immune response through HIV vaccination.

Researchers in the UNC School of Medicine's Department of Microbiology and Immunology and the UNC-NC State Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering have developed a new strategy to improve drug-delivery into chronic wounds infections.

Adam Rosenthal, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, shows that genetically identical cells within a bacterial community have different functions, with some members behaving more docile and others producing the very toxins that make us feel ill.

UNC School of Medicine researchers Jack Griffith, PhD, and Taghreed Al-Turki, PhD, found that telomeres at the tips of chromosomes contain sufficient genetic information to produce two small proteins with potentially potent biological properties.

Led by researchers in the UNC School of Medicine lab of Blossom Damania, PhD, a study in Nature Communications shows how Kaposi sarcoma-associated herpesvirus and Epstein-Barr virus hijack a human protein to help the viruses evade innate immune detection to spread undeterred.

This research, led by UNC School of Medicine scientists Laura Kincer, Sarah Joseph, PhD, and Ron Swanstrom, PhD, with international collaborators, shows that in addition to HIV’s ability to lay dormant in the blood/lymphoid system, the virus may also lay dormant in the central nervous system, delineating another challenge in creating a cure.

Led by Jessica Thaxton, PhD, MsCR, UNC School of Medicine scientists and colleagues found that targeting key proteins that control the T cell response to stress could help researchers develop more potent cancer immunotherapies.

Vice Dean for Research Blossom Damania, PhD, was among the 2020 inductees to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences honored this fall in person after a two-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

UNC Lineberger's Chad V. Pecot, MD, published a paper that found inflammatory monocytes, immune cells that build clots to promote wound healing, also make it possible for tumor cells to migrate to other parts of the body.

Chad Pecot, MD, associate professor of medicine and member of the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, will lead the new center dedicated to the investigation of the many roles of RNA in health and disease.

The American Society for Microbiology selected Miriam Braunstein, PhD, in the UNC Department of Microbiology & Immunology, as a distinguished lecturer for a two-year term.

Mauro Calabrese, PhD, Nilu Goonetilleke, PhD, and Adam Hantman, PhD, were selected as Yang Family Biomedical Scholars in the sixth installment of this annual School of Medicine award.

Category: Immunology And Microbiology

Gut Microbiome Can Increase Risk, Severity of HIV, EBV Disease

De Paris Receives Grant to Study HIV Vaccination in Infant Disease Models

Breaking Through Bacterial Barriers in Chronic Treatment-Resistant Wounds

New Research Shows That Bacteria Get “Hangry,” Too

Scientists Make Stunning Discovery, Find New Protein Activity in Telomeres

Scientists Pinpoint Protein that Helps Cancer-Causing Viruses Evade Immune Response

Scientists Document Two Separate Reservoirs of Latent HIV in Patients

Why Don’t T Cells Destroy Solid Tumors during Immunotherapy?

Damania Honored as AAAS Inductee

UNC Lineberger Creates RNA Discovery Center

Braunstein Named ASM Distinguished Lecturer

UNC School of Medicine Names 2021-22 Yang Family Biomedical Scholars