A team of Canadian and Finnish scientists has identified a protein able to stimulate the production of T-cells, the white blood cells involved in the recognition and the elimination of infectious agents.

Findings just published in the scientific journal Immunity by researchers at the Trudeau Institute shed new light on how a previously-unknown messaging mechanism within the human immune system prompts specific influenza-fighting cells to the lung airways during an infection.

It’s long been known that patients with sickle cell disease have malformed, “sickle-shaped” red blood cells – which are normally disc-shaped – that can cause sudden painful episodes when they block small blood vessels.

Targeted immune suppression using human umbilical cord blood cells may improve the pathology associated with Alzheimer’s disease, a new study in a mouse model of this currently untreatable neurodegenerative condition reports. The study, led by researchers at the University of South Florida, is published online in the peer-reviewed journal Stem Cells and Development.

Researchers are identifying innovative therapeutics for sickle cell anemia that focus on specific factors in the disease's progression, such as the important role of hydration of the red blood cells.

Beta-thalassemia is a serious, potentially life-threatening disease that affects red blood cells, cells that carry oxygen via hemoglobin throughout the body. As part of the SardiNIA Study of Aging, supported by the National Institute on Aging (NIA), a component of the National Institutes of Health, scientists have found a genetic variant in the BCL11A gene that can explain why some people with beta-thalassemia seem to be protected from most dangerous symptoms.

MIT scientists have found a way to induce cells to form parallel tube-like structures that could one day serve as tiny engineered blood vessels.

Almost immediately after it is donated, human blood begins to lose a key gas that opens up blood vessels to facilitate the transfer of oxygen from red blood cells to oxygen-starved tissues.

All blood cell production in adults depends on the steady work of a vital gene that if lost results in early bone marrow failure, Dartmouth Medical School cancer geneticists have found. Their research reveals an unexpected role for the gene in sustaining the adult blood-forming system, and opens novel strategies for targeting the gene, which is often involved in a type of childhood leukemia.

A blood cell known as a troublemaker for triggering the itch and inflammation in allergy attacks, the mast cell, can also calm down the flare-ups, researchers from Stanford University School of Medicine have found.

The recently identified protein tescalcin is known to be highly expressed in hematopoietic cells, but its function in these cells had not been determined.

MicroRNAs became the stars of the RNA universe when, in 2001, scientists found that these short RNAs can control whether or not genes are expressed. This month, scientists at Rockefeller University and the Wellcome Trust cast new light on the genesis of these key biological regulators and how they carry out their function.