Warren symposium follows legacy of geneticist giant

If we want to understand how the brain creates memories, and how genetic disorders distort the brain’s machinery, then the fragile X gene is an ideal place to start. That’s why the Stephen T. Warren Memorial Symposium, taking place November 28-29 at Emory, will be a significant event for those interested in neuroscience and genetics. Stephen T. Warren, 1953-2021 Warren, the founding chair of Emory’s Department of Human Genetics, led an international team that discovered Read more

Mutations in V-ATPase proton pump implicated in epilepsy syndrome

Why and how disrupting V-ATPase function leads to epilepsy, researchers are just starting to figure Read more

Tracing the start of COVID-19 in GA

At a time when COVID-19 appears to be receding in much of Georgia, it’s worth revisiting the start of the pandemic in early 2020. Emory virologist Anne Piantadosi and colleagues have a paper in Viral Evolution on the earliest SARS-CoV-2 genetic sequences detected in Georgia. Analyzing relationships between those virus sequences and samples from other states and countries can give us an idea about where the first COVID-19 infections in Georgia came from. We can draw Read more

GIFTs

Mix-and-match immune regulators

Go check out the article on the Emory Office of Technology Transfer’s site on Jacques Galipeau and the artificial chimeric immune stimulators he’s invented. He and his colleagues take one immune regulatory molecule, GM-CSF, and stick it onto others, creating a series of potent immune stimulants he calls “fusokines.” According to Galipeau, one of them turns antibody-producing B cells into The Hulk. Another is like a five hour energy drink.

These super-stimulants may be especially ray ban outlet effective in the realm of cancer, where the immune system is not responding to a stealthy threat. But in dealing with autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis or inflammatory bowel disease, it is more necessary to rein in over-enthusiastic immune cells. Galipeau has devised a fusokine that apparently reprograms cells into being more orderly.

 

Posted on by Quinn Eastman in Immunology Leave a comment