Microbiology and Immunology

Is there any autoimmune disease which is known to be triggered by the "mumps" virus ?

I have an unknown microbe, and I think it's Proteus vulgaris, but I'm not sure that the hydrogen sulfide test is positive. After performing the H2S test, I get a yellow butt, with NO black color along line of stab inoculation, but a dark precipitate at the TOP of the medium. What does that mean??? A black color along the stab or throughout the medium is supposed to be positive, and no black is negative. Well I'm stuck somewhere in the middle. Please help, I've looked everywhere for this type of result and can't figure out what it means.

Has anyone in this particular forum have any knowledge on what specific element of the human immune system is viewable using a microscope? Additional informations are most welcome and specific tips are better.

hello everyone. my problem is that with the help of what methods, experiments, I can detect the expression, activation of TLR-4 and other downstream proteins such as IRAK1, IRAK4, TRAF6, RIP1, and so on. thanks in advance.

Can someone tell me or give a link to explain what MHC I and MHC II does?

There is protein, which is called carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA). It is a marker of some oncological deseases. Normally it exists only in antenatal organisms. My question is: what is the mechanism of producing this protein in the case of canser? Who produces it? Are this cancer cells, who do this? Or some other organism systems do this in response to cancer?

In this very interesting paper it is indicated that at least in Pseudomonas aeruginosa anitbiotic sensitivity accumlates faster than resistance. This indicates that there might not be a trend for accumlation of resistances. Quite the contrary as usually expected! Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, July 2006, p. 2506-2515, Vol. 50, No. 7

I thought this was worthy of a thread: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060623/ap_on_he_me/bird_flu It turns out H5N1 Avian Flu mutated in a family in Indonesia. It passed through the family by human transmission. Thankfully, the mutation didn't last long. It's gone. It just goes to show you how close we could have been to a pandemic, and that we desperately need to prepare.

http://www.mindistortion.net/games/infect This is a pretty well-designed game and it's fun to play, but they got one fundemental biological fact wrong. That is, they are saying antibiotics are killing viruses. To help prevent stop the spread of misinformation I'm going to send them an email ( mindistortion@gmail.com) but before I do I was wondering if anybody here wanted to add/subtract anything to my letter. I appreciate the help. To whom it may concern, I enjoyed playing your game "Infect, evolve, repeat" however this is one flaw in the game that I felt compelled to point out, in the interest of maintaining scientific integrity. That is the simple…

The Science Advisory Board (http://www.scienceboard.net) is launching a study designed to benchmark research on pathogens and toxins conducted by scientists working in Latin America. The study aims to understand the policies and protocols utilized to protect individuals, colleagues, and the public from potential life-threatening hazards. If you are a researcher working in Latin America with infectious viruses or bacteria and/or toxins and are interested in contributing to this important study please email Catherine Seguin, membership coordinator of The Science Advisory Board, at c.seguin@scienceboard.net

I do not know if this is the right place to post this but I would like to know more about some herbs I have recently started taking; Chinese Astragalus and also Elderberry(Sambu) Anybody have anything to say about taking such herbs to boost the immune system?

Hello all, Does anyone know if E. coli UT5600 is mutT negative? Or know where I can find out? Thanks in advance for your help.

I am trying to explain the following IgG subclass distribution: IgG1: low normal IgG2: ELEVATED IgG3: low normal IgG4: normal I understand that IgG2 is targetted primarily towards LPS antigen, which is the product of gram-negative bacteria. What I do not know is whether there is any other explanation (such as Th1/Th2 imbalance) that could account for the this distribution. Is the pattern a reliable indicator of gram-negative bacterial infection? Lacking any distinguishing symptoms, is there any way to ID the species behind it?

I have just been reading a blog entry in Gmo Food For Thought (http://www.gmofoodforthought.com/2006/08/genetically_modified_maize_vac.htm), and Gmo Africa Blog ( http://www.gmoafrica.org/2006/08/agricultural-biotechnology-is.html ), about a new genetically modified maize with a vaccine against the Newcastle Disease. The story first appeared in SciDev.net, two weeks ago. This is a very significant breakthrough, especially to developing countries. Many poor-resource farmers in developing countries depend on poultry for livelihood. In a country like Nigeria, there are whole communities that eke a living out of poultry farming. This new maize variety will save far…

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/space/07/17/shuttle.flies/index.html With the goal of understanding the contribution of gravity to the developing/matured immune system, NASA scientist sent up some drosophila eggs on the recent Discovery mission. Hatched in space, they will now be studied at NASA. I should note the Drosophilia shares an immune system similar to our own innate-immune system. Innate immunity in mammals is hallmarked by the presence of antigen sensing receptors called Toll-like Receptors (TLRs), humans have 10 of them with differing antigen molecule selectivity. TLRs namesake is derived from the Drosophila TLR ortholog "Toll" which has been shown t…

Hi all, I have a human-human hybridoma, but unfortunately very lazy one. It takes a lot of time to produce even small quantity of the mAb. Is there any way to increase hybridima’s productivity? Thanks in advance, Pery

Hi all, I need help please. I want to produce polyclonal Ab against the part of the variable region (CDR1 mostly) of human monoclonal Ab (IgG). In my previous trials I've injected mAb into the rabbit and cleaned the pAb on G-sepharose column. Eventually I’ve got the non specific pAb population i.e. it recognizes many common IgG determinants. I have very little quantity of the mAb so I cannot slice it in order to rid of the common parts (like Fc for example). Please advice if there are ways to produce determinant specific anti-Ab antibodies (poly or mono). Thanks in advance. Pery

Is Flu Pandemic being controlled now? if not how serious is it and does it pose a serious threat to we human man kind?

I was reading in New Scientist recently that the WHO is worried about people contracting a human flu at the same time as having avian flu, this is because the human and avian flu strains can combine and produce a virus which can transmit from human to human, while only bird to human and bird to bird transmission is possible at the moment. I was wondering, why aren't they also worried about a bird catching human flu while it is infected with avian flu, couldn't the same thing happen??

Ive heard a lot about these lately, that thery're really good for u and are present in lots of stuff like tea. But what exactly are they and how are they good for a person? Is it really that bad if you dont get a lot of intake? To me, the name 'antioxidant' sounds quite like a corrosion inhibitor, yet the body cannot corrode (well, not that i know of). Am i even on the right track?

Any ideas on experiments I can do to get to compete in the intel competition?

Has anybody been following this blood-based universal cancer marker called RECAF, discovered by "BioCurex" in collaboration with Dr. Phil Gold (the guy who discovered PSA test). The results they presented at the 2004 National Cancer Institute Workshop are...should I say...too good to be true. They're showing 90 - 100% sensitivty with 95%+ specificty and the amazing thing is it works on all types of cancers tested so far! If these results hold true, it could mean mass cancer screening via routine blood tests. Has anybody looked at the data published on their website? Hoax or something to get excited about???

Hi! And excuse my English. I'v read, that some phagocytes take foreign antigenes and present them to T-cells. But what for? If phagocyte has antigenes to present, then antigene source is already eaten and not dangerous. Is it reasonable? It comes out, that the role of phagocyte is to sometimes preventive eat every cell only to check if it is bad? Is it so? Or may be these phagocytes don't completely eat antigene source, but only scrape antigenes from the source? Is it can be so? Do antigenes regenerate on the source surface? Thanx.

Hi! Is it possible to somehow mark communicating immune cells? I'v read, that immune cells are communicating with each other, including communications while close contact. And that it is some kind of network of such communications. Are there some methods to trace this communication network with some cellular marks? For example, may be it is possible to make some radioactive mark, that trasfers from one cell to another when contacting. Or may be it is possible to invent some kind of low activity virus, that infect cells only when they are contacting and does not kill them, but only marking? Thank you and excuse my English!

Since monoclonal antibodies can be produced to allow the immune system to target virtually any compound, it can used to target specific compounds unique to cancerous cells. My question is, can it be used to allow the human immune system to target telomerase and to track down, this way, the tumor sites and cancerous cells?