'Pep talk' can revive immune cells exhausted by chronic viral infection
Wednesday, December 14, 2011 - 15:30
in Health & Medicine
Chronic infections by viruses such as HIV or hepatitis C eventually take hold because they wear the immune system out, a phenomenon immunologists describe as exhaustion. Yet exhausted immune cells can be revived after the introduction of fresh cells that act like coaches giving a pep talk, researchers have found.