Updates: Whatever Happened to Virus-Built Batteries?
Vendredi 24 Octobre 2008 - 05:00 - 2 mois, 2 semaines depuis
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Scientific American
Targeting Troublesome T CellsIn type 1 diabetes, renegade Tcells of the immune system kill the insulin-making beta cells of the pancreas. New beta cells could, in theory, cure diabetes, but because the misguided autoreactive Tcells would eventually destroy them as well, stopping the wayward attack is important [see “Insights: Putting Up with Self”; SciAm, December 2006]. Previously, Denise L. Faustman of Harvard Medical School had shown in mice that activating a natural compound in the body called tumor necrosis factor (TNF) could selectively kill the autoreactive Tcells and permit restored beta cell function. The same process can happen with human cells, as she and her colleagues show in a paper published online August 28 by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA. [More]