News & Announcements

Expression of a growth factor after heart injury activates the lymphatic system, spurring leukocytes to help clear away dying cells, according to a recent study.

Stephen Miller, PhD, the Judy Gugenheim Research Professor of Microbiology-Immunology, has been named an American Association of Immunologists’ 2022 Distinguished Fellow.

Northwestern Medicine investigators have discovered that a microtubule regulatory protein inhibits early HIV type 1 (HIV-1) infection.

In a new Northwestern Medicine study in mice, researchers took one of the current vaccines, which is based on the novel coronavirus’ infamous spike protein, and added a different antigen, the nucleocapsid protein, to form a new, potentially improved version of the COVID vaccine. The nucleocapsid protein, which is an internal RNA-binding protein, may help kick the immune system into high gear much more quickly than the spike protein is capable of since it is among the most rapidly and highly expressed proteins in coronaviruses.

“At this point, we’re just trying to figure out ‘What should the 2.0 vaccines be?’” said senior and corresponding study author Pablo Penaloza-MacMaster, PhD, assistant professor of microbiology-immunology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “It seems like adding nucleocapsid to the vaccine renders it more protective, relative to having only the spike.”

Inhibiting a specific protein complex in SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, may be a promising therapeutic target for treating the disease, according to a Northwestern Medicine study.

"There is great need for new approaches to drug discovery to combat the SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 pandemic and infections from future coronaviruses," said Karla Satchell, professor of Microbiology-Immunology at Feinberg, who leads an international team of scientists to analyze the important structures of the virus.