Latest news with #WeizmannInstituteofScience
News18
4 days ago
- Health
- News18
Why Doesn't The Immune System Attack Food? Israeli Scientists Have Found The Answer
Last Updated: Researchers from an Israeli institute have identified special immune cells that help the body treat food as harmless, preventing inflammation from everyday meals Why doesn't our immune system attack the food we eat? To solve this mystery, scientists in Israel have discovered a group of special immune cells that help the body digest food safely, without triggering a harmful response. These newly identified cells play a crucial role in preventing the immune system from attacking food, a process known as oral tolerance. According to news agency Xinhua, researchers from the Weizmann Institute of Science (WIS) in Israel found that these immune cells ensure food is treated as harmless, thus preventing inflammation caused by everyday meals. This discovery could pave the way for better understanding and treatment of food-related conditions. A Step Closer to Curing Food-Related Illnesses The findings may open new possibilities for treating diseases such as food allergies, intolerances, and coeliac disease. By understanding how this immune tolerance works, scientists hope to identify what goes wrong when the immune system mistakenly treats food as a threat. What Experts Say Dr Ranit Kedmi from Weizmann's Department of Systems Immunology explained the discovery using an analogy: 'It's like a peace agreement. If an attacker crosses the border and fires a bullet, the army will still respond—despite the agreement. Similarly, the immune system has a mechanism that allows it to tolerate food, but it can still respond when needed." For years, scientists believed that certain immune cells called dendritic cells were responsible for oral tolerance. But when these cells were removed in animal studies, the immune system continued to tolerate food, suggesting that other cells were involved. In a study published in the Journal Nature, researchers identified a rare group of immune cells known as ROR-gamma-T cells as key players in this process. These cells trigger a chain reaction involving four types of immune cells, which ultimately prevents the body's attacking cells—called CD8 cells—from responding to food proteins. What Happens When the System Fails? When this system doesn't function properly, it can lead to conditions like food allergies or autoimmune responses to foods, such as gluten in coeliac disease. Interestingly, the researchers also found that during infections, the body can temporarily override oral tolerance to fight harmful microbes. Dr Kedmi also mentioned: 'It turns out the immune system has a much more divided structure than we thought. It's not just dendritic cells deciding whether to attack or not, some highly specialised cells are responsible for starting the process that allows us to eat safely." First Published: May 28, 2025, 16:07 IST
The Star
5 days ago
- Health
- The Star
Researchers uncover how body tolerates food without immune system attack
JERUSALEM, May 27 (Xinhua) -- Israeli scientists have pinpointed a crucial network of immune cells that allows humans to digest food safely without triggering harmful reactions, the Weizmann Institute of Science (WIS) announced Tuesday. This discovery sheds new light on oral tolerance, the body's ability to recognize food as harmless and prevent an immune system attack. This vital system stops everyday foods from causing inflammation while still letting the immune system fight off infections. The breakthrough could pave the way for new treatments for food allergies, sensitivities, and disorders like celiac disease. By understanding how this system works, scientists hope to correct what goes wrong when the body mistakenly attacks food. For a long time, scientists believed certain immune cells called dendritic cells were responsible for oral tolerance. However, even when these cells were removed in animal studies, the body still tolerated food. Now, WIS researchers, in a study preprinted by Nature, have identified another group of immune cells, called ROR-gamma-t cells, as the real drivers of this process. These rare cells kick off a chain reaction involving four different cell types, ultimately preventing the body's attack cells, known as CD8 cells, from reacting to food. When this system fails, it can lead to food allergies, sensitivities, or diseases where the body mistakenly attacks food proteins, such as gluten. The researchers also found that during an infection, the immune system can temporarily override food tolerance to fight off microbes, before returning to its normal peacekeeping role.
Yahoo
01-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Cyclones on Jupiter and a moon with flowing magma: NASA Juno probe's latest discoveries are awesome
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. A flurry of new discoveries from NASA's Juno mission Jupiter have taken us beneath the surface of the gas giant's volcanic moon, Io, and into the world of cyclones playing bumper cars at the north Jovian pole. Juno arrived at the Jupiter system in 2016, but a failed thruster meant that it is now stuck in a wide, polar orbit that brings it close to Jupiter and its moons every 53 days. Still, during those flybys, Juno has amassed a bevy of high-quality data about Jupiter's atmosphere, including at the planet's poles, which had not previously been studied in detail. At Jupiter's north pole is a cap of stratospheric haze, which Juno has measured to be cooler than its surroundings by 52 degrees Fahrenheit (11 degrees Celsius). Around the polar cap are jet streams blowing faster than 100 miles per hour (161 kilometers per hour). Below the haze, the north polar region is inhabited by one giant, central cyclone about 1,864 miles (3,000 kilometers) across, surrounded by its "groupies" — eight smaller cyclones between 1,490 and 1,790 miles (2,400 and 2,800 kilometers) in size, far surpassing any similar phenomena we have on Earth. Juno has been tracking the motion of this system of cyclones in visible and infrared light (in the guise of heat coming from deeper within the atmosphere) since 2016, using its JunoCam and Jovian Infrared Aurora Mapper (JIRAM), respectively. These two instruments have shown that each of the eight cyclones drift towards the pole via a process called "beta drift." The same process occurs to cyclones on Earth, and is the result of the Coriolis force interacting with the whirling wind pattern belonging to each cyclone. However, on Earth, cyclones never get anywhere near the poles. That's because the closer they get to cold, dry poles, the more they run out of the warm, moist air that gives them energy. On Jupiter, the atmospheric dynamics are different, and this is not a problem. But once at the pole, Jupiter's cyclones start bumping into each other. "These competing forces result in the cyclones 'bouncing' off one another in a manner reminiscent of springs in a mechanical system," said Yohai Kaspi, a Juno co-investigator from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, in a statement. "This interaction not only stabilizes the entire configuration, but also causes the cyclones to oscillate around their central positions, as they slowly drift westward, clockwise, around the pole." Meanwhile, away from Jupiter's atmosphere, Juno has recently been making recurring fly-bys of the innermost Jovian moon, Io — the most volcanic body in the solar system. During Juno's flyby of Io on Dec. 27, 2024, the spacecraft spotted what has turned out to be the most energetic volcanic eruption ever recorded on Io. When Juno returned on March 2, the volcano was still spewing lava, and it is expected to still be active during Juno's next flyby, which takes place on May 6 at a distance of 55,300 miles (89,000 kilometers) from the surface of Io. But it's what lies below the surface of Io that has got Juno's science team excited. By combining the spacecraft's Microwave Radiometer (MWR) with JIRAM, scientists were able to measure the underground temperature on Io, revealing the presence of subterranean magma flows. "The Juno science team loves to combine very different datasets from very different instruments and see what we can learn," said Shannon Brown of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "When we incorporated the MWR data with JIRAM's infrared imagery, we were surprised by what we saw: evidence of still-warm magma that hasn't yet solidified below Io's cooling crust. At every latitude and longitude, there were cooling lava flows." Related Stories: — NASA's Juno spacecraft watches most powerful volcanic event ever seen on Jupiter's moon Io — NASA's Juno probe sees active volcanic eruptions on Jupiter's volcanic moon Io (images) — NASA's Juno probe spots massive new volcano on Jupiter moon Io Juno has previously ruled out the existence of a large magma ocean beneath Io's surface that could feed the volcanoes, but these cooling, rising flows could explain how Io's volcanoes erupt. The science team calculates that about 10% of the moon's subsurface has these cooling flows, which tells us more about how heat is transported from Io's hot interior to its surface, allowing the world to frequently resurface itself through lava flows spilling out above ground. "Io's volcanoes, lava fields and subterranean lava flows act like a car radiator, efficiently moving heat from the interior to the surface, cooling itself down in the vacuum of space," said Brown. The latest Juno results were presented on April 29 at the European Geosciences Union General Assembly in Vienna.
Telegraph
12-03-2025
- Health
- Telegraph
Team behind immunity breakthrough plan to unleash ‘natural antibacterials' on AMR superbugs
The team that uncovered an untapped source of natural antibiotics hidden in our cells have set their sights on tackling some of the world's deadliest superbugs. Researchers in Israel conducted a series of experiments focusing on the proteasome – a tiny, barrel-shaped structure found inside every cell. They found that as well as recycling the body's proteins, it can reassemble them into natural antibiotics (proteasome-generated defence peptides) when given the right prompt. The findings, published in the journal Nature, could help end the hidden pandemic of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) by providing 'alternatives to conventional antibiotics in combating antibiotic-resistant infections,' the researchers said. Professor Yifat Merbl, from the Weizmann Institute of Science and a co-author of the paper, said the focus was now on how to turn their discovery into a new class of treatments for drug-resistant infections. Such infections already kill well over a million people annually and are expected to kill nearly 40 million by 2050 unless solutions are found. 'One thing that we now have to tackle is to take the really nasty bugs – the 'superbugs' that are killing patients in hospitals and so on – and try to see which of these peptides may perform against resistant bacteria,' she told The Telegraph. New drugs are badly needed to kill bacteria that, after decades of overuse, have become resistant to the strongest medicines available, such as those being detected on the battlefields of Ukraine. The World Health Organization's priority pathogens list – a repository of the most dangerous diseases and infections – now includes 15 families of drug-resistant bacteria, and the researchers believe their discovery could lead to medicines that can treat even the most concerning strains. 'We'll have to have some funding and support to do it,' Prof Merbl said. 'But we believe it's doable, it's tractable.' In their experiments, the researchers tested the peptides on mice with pneumonia and sepsis, as well as on bacteria grown in the lab and found that their 'natural antibacterials' were comparable to some established antibiotics. They then went a step further and used an algorithm to analyse all the proteins made by the human body, searching for previously unknown peptides that could be released – creating what the researchers believe is 'an untapped reservoir of natural antimicrobial agents'. 'A very important scientific discovery' The discovery in Israel, alongside advancements in the use of AI, have raised the possibility that the biggest single obstacle to solving the crisis of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) has been overcome – simply put, we are running out of effective antibiotics and there are too few on the horizon. But will it really be enough to turn the tide against a major threat to global health security which already kills more people every year than HIV/Aids and malaria combined? Prof Merbl said turning their findings into effective treatments will take time. 'We still don't understand the rules,' she said. 'We know that, even for different types of bacteria, it (the proteasome) may operate differently. 'The basic mechanism is similar – you have this barrel that produces different peptides, but which peptide will affect what pathogen? We still don't understand and therefore we need to screen for that.' Professor Daniel Davis, the head of life sciences at Imperial College London, said it was too early to say whether the discovery in Israel would turn out to be a panacea for AMR. 'This is a very important scientific discovery with the potential to become medically important,' he told The Telegraph. But 'as with any scientific discovery, other labs should pursue it, confirm it, and perform related experiments to verify the findings that it's producing a lot of molecules that can directly attack bacteria,' he said. What's also unclear is the extent to which the discovery will help resolve another major hurdle in efforts to tackle AMR – the reason why antibiotics development has stalled since the 1990s is because they are not an attractive business proposition for the drug makers. Developing new antibiotics is expensive, fraught with risk and, because they have to be used sparingly to be effective, doesn't offer returns that are nearly as attractive as investments in other areas – like malaria, for example. There are also fewer subsidies and other incentives aimed at encouraging investment. The result of this is that, ten years after the WHO declared AMR a global emergency and called for greater investment to develop new drugs, efforts to discover new antibiotics have waned – the last time a new class of antibiotics was discovered was in 1987. There is hope that the discovery of this new feature of the immune system will open up a whole field of potential development, kick-starting a second Golden Age of Antibiotics like the one that followed the discovery of Penicillin. But the Israeli researchers say their discovery could have ramifications that go well beyond the battle against AMR. Prof Merbl said her team focused on infectious diseases but that their findings could be relevant to 'other medical conditions where the immune system is compromised,' such as in transplants or cancer. The fact that these 'natural antimicrobials' are generated inside the body also opens up a host of possibilities, she added. 'Because it's produced by our body, it is less likely to alarm the immune system, potentially making it less toxic, and more tolerable,' she said. 'We didn't prove it in humans yet, but if it is indeed going to be more tolerated by the body, as we saw in the mouse, then definitely this may be a game changer.' In the short-term though, much of the excitement around this new discovery is centred on its relevance to the battle against drug-resistant infections. Speaking at a conference on AMR late last year, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO's Director General, said the crisis was 'equally as urgent as climate action'. AMR, he said presciently, 'is right here and right now, but so are the solutions'.
Yahoo
12-03-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Team behind immunity breakthrough plan to unleash ‘natural antibacterials' on AMR superbugs
The team that uncovered an untapped source of natural antibiotics hidden in our cells have set their sights on tackling some of the world's deadliest superbugs. Researchers in Israel conducted a series of experiments focusing on the proteasome – a tiny, barrel-shaped structure found inside every cell. They found that as well as recycling the body's proteins, it can reassemble them into natural antibiotics (proteasome-generated defence peptides) when given the right prompt. The findings, published in the journal Nature, could help end the hidden pandemic of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) by providing 'alternatives to conventional antibiotics in combating antibiotic-resistant infections,' the researchers said. Professor Yifat Merbl, from the Weizmann Institute of Science and a co-author of the paper, said the focus was now on how to turn their discovery into a new class of treatments for drug-resistant infections. Such infections already kill well over a million people annually and are expected to kill nearly 40 million by 2050 unless solutions are found. 'One thing that we now have to tackle is to take the really nasty bugs – the 'superbugs' that are killing patients in hospitals and so on – and try to see which of these peptides may perform against resistant bacteria,' she told The Telegraph. New drugs are badly needed to kill bacteria that, after decades of overuse, have become resistant to the strongest medicines available, such as those being detected on the battlefields of Ukraine. The World Health Organization's priority pathogens list – a repository of the most dangerous diseases and infections – now includes 15 families of drug-resistant bacteria, and the researchers believe their discovery could lead to medicines that can treat even the most concerning strains. 'We'll have to have some funding and support to do it,' Prof Merbl said. 'But we believe it's doable, it's tractable.' In their experiments, the researchers tested the peptides on mice with pneumonia and sepsis, as well as on bacteria grown in the lab and found that their 'natural antibacterials' were comparable to some established antibiotics. They then went a step further and used an algorithm to analyse all the proteins made by the human body, searching for previously unknown peptides that could be released – creating what the researchers believe is 'an untapped reservoir of natural antimicrobial agents'. The discovery in Israel, alongside advancements in the use of AI, have raised the possibility that the biggest single obstacle to solving the crisis of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) has been overcome – simply put, we are running out of effective antibiotics and there are too few on the horizon. But will it really be enough to turn the tide against a major threat to global health security which already kills more people every year than HIV/Aids and malaria combined? Prof Merbl said turning their findings into effective treatments will take time. 'We still don't understand the rules,' she said. 'We know that, even for different types of bacteria, it (the proteasome) may operate differently. 'The basic mechanism is similar – you have this barrel that produces different peptides, but which peptide will affect what pathogen? We still don't understand and therefore we need to screen for that.' Professor Daniel Davis, the head of life sciences at Imperial College London, said it was too early to say whether the discovery in Israel would turn out to be a panacea for AMR. 'This is a very important scientific discovery with the potential to become medically important,' he told The Telegraph. But 'as with any scientific discovery, other labs should pursue it, confirm it, and perform related experiments to verify the findings that it's producing a lot of molecules that can directly attack bacteria,' he said. What's also unclear is the extent to which the discovery will help resolve another major hurdle in efforts to tackle AMR – the reason why antibiotics development has stalled since the 1990s is because they are not an attractive business proposition for the drug makers. Developing new antibiotics is expensive, fraught with risk and, because they have to be used sparingly to be effective, doesn't offer returns that are nearly as attractive as investments in other areas – like malaria, for example. There are also fewer subsidies and other incentives aimed at encouraging investment. The result of this is that, ten years after the WHO declared AMR a global emergency and called for greater investment to develop new drugs, efforts to discover new antibiotics have waned – the last time a new class of antibiotics was discovered was in 1987. There is hope that the discovery of this new feature of the immune system will open up a whole field of potential development, kick-starting a second Golden Age of Antibiotics like the one that followed the discovery of Penicillin. But the Israeli researchers say their discovery could have ramifications that go well beyond the battle against AMR. Prof Merbl said her team focused on infectious diseases but that their findings could be relevant to 'other medical conditions where the immune system is compromised,' such as in transplants or cancer. The fact that these 'natural antimicrobials' are generated inside the body also opens up a host of possibilities, she added. 'Because it's produced by our body, it is less likely to alarm the immune system, potentially making it less toxic, and more tolerable,' she said. 'We didn't prove it in humans yet, but if it is indeed going to be more tolerated by the body, as we saw in the mouse, then definitely this may be a game changer.' In the short-term though, much of the excitement around this new discovery is centred on its relevance to the battle against drug-resistant infections. Speaking at a conference on AMR late last year, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO's Director General, said the crisis was 'equally as urgent as climate action'. AMR, he said presciently, 'is right here and right now, but so are the solutions'. Protect yourself and your family by learning more about Global Health Security Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
