immune system

What do arthritis and COVID-19 have in common? A name that's all too familiar? An immune system gone haywire? Possibly more?

by Haim Moorefigures by Rebecca Senft How familiar are you with your immune system? You might be aware of its role in protection from external threats, but what if I told you that it does a lot more behind the scenes? New research is shedding light on…

Researchers at MIT and the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT, and Harvard are working on developing a universal flu vaccine.

Researchers have discovered how plants can physically prevent pathogens from entering by closing small openings on their leaves.

Why is it that some people get really sick from COVID-19, and others don’t? The answer may lie in a weakened innate immune response.

by Aleks Prochera figures by Jovana Andrejevic Imagine wading through the fresh waters of the Paleozoic era over 300 million years ago. You bump into various ancient marine creatures from fishes adorned with horseshoe-shaped…

by Aditya Misra and Shreya Mathurfigures by Wei Wu and Jovana Andrejevic 117 million U.S. adults have one or more preventable chronic diseases related to diet, such as cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, and type 2 diabetes. In an effort to…

by Catherine Weiner figures by Elayne Fivenson Every cell in our bodies is constantly on the edge of danger. Our DNA, the molecular blueprints that tell our cells how to function, brought us to life. But it is also just one error away from catastrophe.…

For a long time, scientists did not often carefully consider sex as a variable in their research, and often worked with only male or only female animals depending on the ease of housing and handling these animals. In 2016, the NIH began requiring grant…

by Sophia Swartz figures by Abagail Burrus It was only three weeks into the fall semester, and I was starting to sniffle. When I had woken up that morning with a tell-tale tickle in the back of my throat, I had tried to deny the obvious. However, by the…