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A New Discovery on Immunity by Australian Scientists

Acclaim is given to two Australian scientists, Walter and Eliza Hall, who have changed ideas about the memory of the immune system. B cells make antibodies to fight infection. These cells do not die after doing their job and this is not the normal run of things. A pro-survival proteins is responsible for the cells' continuing existence. It has been proven that the Mcl-1 protein does this, not the Bcl-xL protein as was accepted in the past. Tests blocked the activity of Bcl-xL which showed that Mcl-1 stopped apoptosis - death. Cancer cells survive due to Mcl-1, so there are new possibilities for cancer research. It could also have repercussion for future treatment of the resistance response in organ transplant patients. Health by Ty Buchanan http://www.adventure--australia.blogspot.com/ http://www.tysaustralia.blogspot.com/ http://adventure--australia.blogspot.com/atom.xml http://www.technorati.com/blogs/ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Corneal Transplants Under Scrutiny

Corneal transplants (grafts) are assumed to be very successful, but until now the procedure has not been fully examined. A survey of nearly five thousand patients, 4499 to be precise, was done. After a year 92 per cent of transplants were deemed to be successful. An astonishing 1,395 patients had failed results after seven years. Plain rejection was the major detrimental cause in a third of failed operations. Infection impacted on 18 per cent, with glaucoma affecting 9 per cent. A worrying point is that 10 per cent of recipients did not have any improvement in vision and only a fifth of these experienced rejection. Indeed, some had poorer vision. It seems too much time is spent on lessening rejection and not enough time is targeted at improving overall patient outcomes. Having to do the operation again is a real tragedy for a patient. He/she would not be in a positive frame of mind after a failure the first time. http://www.adventure--australia.blogspot.com/ http://www.tysau