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Enlarge Image Creepy, yet calming. Maggots' excretions soothe inflamed wounds, speeding healing. Credit: Cory Doctorow Yes, maggots are creepy, crawly, and slimy. But that slime is a remarkable healing balm, used by battlefield surgeons for centuries to close wounds. Now, researchers say they've figured out how the fly larvae work their magic: They suppress our immune system. Maggots are efficient consumers of dead tissue. They munch on rotting flesh, leaving healthy tissue practically unscathed. Physicians in Napoleon's army used the larvae to clean wounds. In World War I, American surgeon William Baer noticed that soldiers with maggot-infested gashes didn't...

Genetic differences that make some people susceptible to developing meningococcal meningitis and septicaemia, and others naturally immune, are revealed in a new study of over 6,000 people, published today in Nature Genetics. The research, led by Imperial College London and the Genome Institute of Singapore, is the largest ever genetic study of meningitis and septicaemia caused by meningococcal bacteria. It suggests that people who develop these diseases have innate differences in their natural defences that leave them unable to attack meningococcal bacteria successfully. Although several different bacteria and viruses cause meningitis, meningococcal bacteria cause one of the most devastating forms...

Scientists report further progress in study of complement reactionResearchers have teased out the molecular process that can shut down a marauding, often deadly immune response that kills thousands each year who suffer battlefield casualties, heart attacks, strokes, automobile accidents and oxygen deprivation, according to an article published in the January edition of Molecular Immunology. The article provides additional detail about the enormously complex biomechanics of a reaction first observed in the lab by Neel Krishna, Ph.D., and Kenji Cunnion, M.D., while conducting pediatric research at Children's Hospital of The King's Daughters (CHKD) and Eastern Virginia Medical School (EVMS) in Norfolk,...

Research presented Sept. 6 at European complement conferenceA harmless shard from the shell of a common childhood virus may halt a biological process that kills a significant percentage of battlefield casualties, heart attack victims and oxygen-deprived newborns, according to research presented Sunday, September 6, 2009, at the 12th European meeting on complement in human disease in Budapest, Hungary. Introducing the virus's shell in vitro shuts down what's known as the complement response, a primordial part of the immune system that attacks and destroys the organs and vascular lining of people who have been deprived of oxygen for prolonged periods, according...

Scientists say they have identified a genetic variation that substantially raises the risk of age-related macular degeneration, the leading cause of severe vision loss in the elderly. The finding, being reported independently by three separate research groups, sheds light on the cause of the disease and could provide clues to how to develop treatments or strategies to prevent the condition. The genetic variation "explains a lot of the risk," said Dr. Albert O. Edwards, an ophthalmology researcher in Dallas who led of one of the studies. "There's a primary biological explanation for A.M.D. now. It gives you some obvious avenues...