Tag Archives: Immune System

Flu: A New Season Coming this Fall

Nowadays, influenza virus commonly know as the flu is treated relatively as minor illness. However, knowing that flu pandemics have caused death of millions of people in the past ,  people should be more cautious, specially those at a higher risk: children, pregnant woman, the elderly. Additionally, influenza infections can be prevented by annual vaccination.

What is Influenza?

Source:  The Medscape Network Description: Influenza virus structure and its different components and surface proteins.

Influenza is a disease caused by influenza viruses that infect the respiratory system of many animals, birds and humans. In humans, some of the symptoms that characterize these infections are cough, fever, runny nose, sore throat and headache. Interestingly, these symptoms usually appear two or three days after infection and typically do not last more than a week. The three types of influenza virus, include: A, B and C; where influenza A and B  viruses usually infect a large numbers of individuals within a population at the same time.

History of Influenza virus

An influenza pandemic occurs because of antigenic shift,  a process in which two or more viruses combine together to form a new subtype of influenza virus that spreads worldwide. Through history, influenza A viruses are responsible for all the pandemics that have occurred and they represent the greatest threat to the population. For example, the deadliest flu pandemic is the Spanish flu, it took place in 1918, causing between 40 and 100 million deaths worldwide. In 1918, there were no vaccines available against influenza, neither were there antibiotics to treat secondary infections associated with influenza infection.  According to the article published by Peter Palese, influenza viruses type A and B are responsible for the death of approximately  50,000 people in the U. S. every year.

Video: “Flu virus”  Source:  National Geographic| YouTube

Why is the influenza virus a threat to people?

According to the article published by Declan Butler,  vaccines are required to be developed each year because some regions of the outer proteins of influenza virus can undergo high mutation rates during replication. This explains why influenza viruses avoid detection by the immune system. When a person gets infected with the flu, their immune system will mount responses  based on the first encounter the person had with the virus, so the response in a second or third encounter will be stronger and it will be against the unchanged regions of the virus. However, because the virus has changed structurally the antibodies against the previous version of the virus will not be of much help.

What is the best solution?

Development of new vaccines every year that best match the strains predicted for the incoming influenza season. Flu vaccines are able to reduce the risk of serious flu complications that can result in hospitalization or even death. While the efficacy of annual flu vaccinations were not very high for the 2017-2018 flu season: 17% in Canada, 10% in Australia and 25% in the U.S.,  but they are better than nothing.

Source: Las Vegas Sun Newspaper Description: Tips to prevent the spread of the flu.

-Mariana Paspuel

Stem Cells Remember Past Injuries of Tissues

YouTube Preview Image

“What are stem cells? – Craig A. Kohn”  Video Source: TED-Ed Youtube Channel

What are stem cells?

Stem cells are your body’s internal repair system and seemingly remember past injuries of tissues by retaining memories of old injuries for improvement of  healing in the future. Studies have indicated that stem cells also have behavioral roles of responding to the environment and sensing it.

As living beings, there are times we encounter various kinds of injuries through some traumatic events. These can be simple from paper cuts to serious injuries like the loss of limbs infarction. The body has a mechanism of healing these damaged tissues. Some organisms like earthworms have the ability of regrowth of complete body parts after an injury but human beings have no such ability. Stem cells are known to replenish such types of injuries by focusing on the healing of other cell types.

” What is a Stem Cell“ Source:Relievus

How can stem cells repair injuries?

In the healing context, repair refers to restoring tissue function and architecture after an injury. This is based on the processes of replacement and regeneration. Research has indicated that these stem cells also have the ability of remembering past inflammation and wounds. The suggestion from studies of the gut, airways and the skin is that together with the immune system, stem cells use the memories for the improvement of tissue responses to later assaults by pathogens which are bacteriums, viruses that can cause disease.

“VESC system in the liver” Source: MedicalExpress

The repair of tissues can lead to restoration of some of the original structures of the tissue damaged like epithelial layers but in complex healing of organ functions. Additionally, when the responses of the stem cells fail to go in the right way, they can lead to various enduring health problems based on chronic inflammation. It thus means that stem cells directly communicate with the immune system to facilitate healing but the stem cells have a central role of making tissues adapt to preservation.

(Word count:334)

Wenyu Zhao

Stress Not…

Nowadays, it is very common to hear phrases like “I’m stressed out ” or “I don’t know if I can handle the stress”. However, the prevalence of stress in our society should not be accepted due to the negative impact that stress can have on people’s health.

Stress  is an organism’s response to any environmental or physical factor that is perceived as threatening harm ,

Pathway for Cortisol release in response to stress. Source: Top 10 Home Remedies

where the body experiences biochemical changes such as the release of hormones to prepare the system to confront danger or avoid it . Although, some amount of stress can be expected in any healthy individual, prolonged  stress has become a damaging condition in modern environment.  

According to Statistics Canada, in 2014 about 73% of adults between 20 and 64-years-old suffer from some level of stress. These findings, are indicative of increasing stress levels that could have long-term consequences on people’s health.

Source: Canadian Community Health Survey, 2014.
In 2014, 23% of Canadians reported that most days were “quite a bit” or “extremely stressful”. Additionally, females were more likely to report that most days were “quite a bit” or “extremely stressful”

According to the review Human behaviour: A cooperative instinct , stress in small doses enables people to adapt faster to unexpected changes in environmental conditions. Likewise, the presence of danger triggers a response called “fight-or-flight” where the body defenses increases: adrenalin secretion increases, blood flow to the brain and muscles increases. Nevertheless, the experience of being overwhelmed and in constant stress causes damage to health, decrease in productivity and life quality. 

What is the link between stress and the immune system?

According to the article published by GM Lewitus and M Schwartz, cells from the immune and nervous system interact together during stress episodes to secrete memory cells that will help people cope with stress-situations in the future. In other words, this mechanism is used by your body to protect you from possible danger. 

What are the causes of stress? 

When encountering a stressful situation, cortisol is released, it maintains bodily functions consistent. However, when stress is present for an extended period of time, high levels of cortisol inhibit some immune responses causing more susceptibility to infections and does not control properly inflammatory responses.

What are the effects of stress?

Some of the effects include: problems with the digestive and reproductive systems, increase the risk of heart attack  and stroke. In addition, a review article shows that stress can even rewire the brain, leaving people more vulnerable to anxiety, depression, and other mental health problems.

 The skin condition know as psoriasis appears to be linked to constant stress periods rather than medication or diet reasons. Researchers suggest that psoriasis is caused by the regulation of cortisol becoming dysfunctional leading to poor control of inflammatory responses causing this condition.

Therefore, being aware of the negative consequences that stress has on people’s health, will allow to reduce its prevalence in society.  

Effects of stress on the body Source: Live Love Fruit.

Mariana Paspuel

Gut Bacterium Puts an End on Desperate Search for Type-O!

Long quest of the universal blood type

The idea of an ultimate universal blood type have dragged many intrigued life scientists into decades-long search for a routine productive type-O conversion. Now UBC’s Prof. Withers says his Lab made a leap towards the clinical use of universal blood group.

(Getty images; BBC )

So what is a blood type?

Since the discovery of quadruple blood types A,B, AB and O, medical scientists and a bit later immunologists have shared a long trail of hopeless struggle with the blood transfusion challenges. Recipient’s intense and potentially life-threatening immune responses are triggered by administering the incompatible blood types. The basic distinction among these blood types is the so called chemical molecules, so called markers, on the surface of the red blood cells; type-O red blood cells, however, completely lack these markers and thus could be safely transfused regardless of recipients’ blood types. In the case of type-O, the recipient’s immune system will not respond because it detects no markers on donor’s red blood cells.

(Kristine Ho;ubyssey website)

Pioneers of universal blood type

Back in 80’s, scientists took the initiative to remove those signatures from A, B and AB red blood cells, using a few enzymes, and turn these types into type-O to make it available to everyone in need particularly in emergency scenarios where there is a critically limited time to characterize patient’s blood type. The biggest obstacle, though, was impracticality and inefficacy of use of then-candidate enzyme. Besides, there was no technique for mass production of the key enzyme at the time.

And … the leap of faith!

UBC Withers’s Lab recently gained promising results by manipulating a number of common signature-removing enzymes that made the invented enzymes more robust and efficient than original ones. The new enzymes are found in a gut bacterium and was easily modified in this bug. The newly found enzymes have shown a significant competency in removing the red blood cell signatures. The last barrier to overcome is to enable this enzyme to cut out remaining forms of signatures in A and B red blood cells. Everything worked out in the laboratory, yet Withers group now looks into potential side effects and safety facets of their achievement.

by: Jamaledin Adel