The brain’s immune system has long been thought to exist independently from the rest of the body, complete with its own specialized immune cells and a blood-brain barrier that limits what can travel into the brain.

New research from Keele University and the University of Aberdeen has found that men with cardiovascular disease are at higher risk of cancer and death from cancer than women. The study found this pattern across all cancer subtypes, with lung cancer and colorectal cancers accounting for the highest risk.

An international team of researchers has developed an innovative strategy for producing new vaccines. They created a genetically modified version of the chikungunya virus that replicates only once yet still trains the immune system to defend itself without causing disease. In tests conducted on mice, a single dose of the formulation containing the modified immature virus was sufficient to generate antibodies and protect the rodents against lethal infection.

THIK-1, a two-pore domain K+ (K2P) channel, plays important roles in microglia and macrophages. Although previous reports have indicated that steroids, including cholesterol, estradiol and progesterone, modulate several K+ channels, the effect of steroids on THIK-1 channels remained unknown. Working under the hypothesis that steroids might regulate THIK-1 channel function, the research group investigated this possibility.

A human kidney is built once, before birth, and the rules guiding its construction have been largely inferred from animal models. Researchers at Penn Medicine have now read those rules directly in human tissue. They found that developing cells are steered by soluble signals released by their neighbors—and identified insulin-like growth factor 2 (IGF2) as a key signal that sustains the kidney’s stem-like cells.