Scientists know that a number of factors can affect the body's immune system: poor diet, certain steroids, chronic stress. Now researchers at Michigan State University have discovered that an appetite-controlling hormone also affects the immune system, while natural versions of certain steroids do not.

That the cell nurturing growth factor interleukin-7 can help ramp up the ability of the immune system to remember the pathogenic villains it encounters is well known.

Immunologists have discovered how to manipulate the immune system to increase its power and protect the body from successive viral infections.

All multicellular animals have an innate immune system: When bacteria, parasites or fungi invade the organism, small protein molecules are released that eliminate the attackers.

A research team at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City has identified two genes that may be crucial to the production of an immune system cytokine called interleukin-10 (IL-10).

A mechanism which can lead to hay fever and other allergic reactions, by preventing the immune system from regulating itself properly, has been discovered by scientists.

A researcher funded by the Lupus Research Institute (LRI) has discovered an entirely new and powerful molecular switch that controls the inflammatory response of the immune system.

When the alert goes out that a virus has invaded the body, cells that have yet to be attacked prepare by "armoring" themselves for combat, attaching specific antiviral molecules to many of their own proteins to help resist the invader.

New research identifies a previously unknown enzymatic mechanism that subverts the early host immune response and promotes pathogenicity by manipulating a common signaling pathway in host cells.

The HIV/AIDS epidemic in Sub-Saharan Africa is decimating populations, depressing economies, deepening poverty and destabilizing traditional social orders. Various programs to prevent and treat HIV/AIDS have been developed, but few have demonstrated the capacity to make an on-going difference to a large number of affected individuals, their families and their communities.

A multinational team of researchers has shown for the first time that the immune system can stop the growth of a cancerous tumor without actually killing it.

A mechanism that creates an “invisibility cloak” for certain cancer cells and allows them to hide from the immune system has been uncovered by a team of researchers at the University of British Columbia.