The Evolution of Diet
Nutrition plays an important role in so-called “diseases of affluence” such as obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease - now epidemic in developed countries. Widespread prevalence of these diseases of affluence...
Research Highlights: A Selection from the Scientific Fiction Literature
Science Editorials on Televised Immunology is pleased to present this special edition of Research Highlights in conjunction with the Science and Nature Television Association. In this issue, we address evolutionary...
CRISPR in the Red Queen’s Court: The Evolutionary Arms Race with Phage and Other Adventures in Wonderland
The CRISPR/Cas system (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats/CRISPR-associated sequences) is an adaptive immune system found in archaea (extremophiles) and bacteria. Briefly, acquired CRISPR-driven immunity is based on integration of...
Breaking Up is Hard to Do: Post-Ebola Syndrome Offers Insight into Viral Evolution
[caption id="attachment_1708" align="alignleft" width="359"] Digitally-coloured SEM of Ebola particles budding from the cell surface. Image Credit: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), 2014.[/caption] On October 19th, 2014, Dr....
Cinematic Immunology: Walking the Line of Scientific Accuracy
Introduction Science fiction (sci-fi) is a broad genre of motion pictures (movies) characterized by the depiction of scientific or technological advances that have not yet been appropriately peer-reviewed, and are...
A Necessary Evil: Are Parasites More Useful Than You Think?
Cleanliness is overrated In 1989, British epidemiologist David P. Strachan reported a relationship between decreasing family size and increasing incidence of allergies in industrialized countries, suggesting that early exposure to...
Harnessing 450 Million Years of Evolution: Lamprey Antibodies for Modern Biomarker Technology
[caption id="attachment_1529" align="alignleft" width="369"] Image courtesy of ancestryimages.com.[/caption] Research into the immunobiology of jawless vertebrates has identified an adaptive immune system of clonally diverse lymphocytes expressing the variable lymphocyte receptor...
Paleo-Immunology: Looking back to the future of our immune system
In 1856, a curiously shaped early human skull with cranial features morphologically distinct from modern humans was discovered in Germany. Homo neanderthalensis, commonly known as the Neanderthal, thus became the...
Finding Treasure in the Comb Jelly Genome
Recently, Nature published the genome sequence of the marine invertebrate ctenophore Pleurobrachia bachei1. Ctenophores, better known as “comb jellies”, are delicate creatures that superficially resemble jellyfish, yet occupy a distinct...
Viruses and Us: Evolving by Infection
It’s easy to understand our preoccupation with infectious disease. For millennia, viruses have been a leading cause of premature death and even in the modern world are still significant contributors...
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