A vaccine protects more than 100 million infants each year from severe tuberculosis (TB), including the fatal brain swelling it can cause in babies and toddlers. But the vaccine doesn’t prevent adults from developing the more common form of TB that attacks the lungs, which still kills 1.25 million people each year. Scientists from Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University, The University of Utah, and other institutions took a new approach to understanding why this is. Their genetic study in mice reveals that TB bacteria can “play dead” in the face of an immune system primed to attack—a finding that may pave the way for better vaccines and therapies for the world’s deadliest infectious disease.

While humans can regularly replace certain cells, like those in our blood and gut, we cannot naturally regrow most other parts of the body. For example, when the tiny sensory hair cells in our inner ears are damaged, the result is often permanent hearing loss, deafness, or balance problems. In contrast, animals like fish, frogs, and chicks regenerate sensory hair cells effortlessly.

MUSC Hollings Cancer Center researchers have discovered a hidden feedback loop that helps leukemia cells survive and have developed a new immunotherapy that can break that loop. The loop is between a protein called IL-33 and its receptor IL1RL1, which together help acute myeloid leukemia cells grow and evade treatment. To disrupt this loop, the researchers created a bispecific antibody that both kills leukemia cells carrying IL1RL1 and activates immune cells that can fight off cancer. In lab and animal models, the therapy significantly slowed disease progression, reduced immune suppression and improved survival without major side effects. The research offers a potential new off-the-shelf treatment for leukemia and other cancers with similar tumor environments.