Discoveries

In little moments like when sipping coffee or licking an ice cream cone, it doesn’t seem like your body is pulling off a biological miracle. But it is. That ice cream is not you—yet when you put it in your mouth, your body is able to tolerate it and process it without any detriment to your health in a process called oral tolerance. 

Jamie Blum, PhD, is an oral tolerance expert, and her latest research identified new bits of food proteins that tell gut immune cells when to tolerate certain foods. They found three of these protein segments, called epitopes—one each from soybean, corn, and wheat. These epitopes interact with specialized immune cells called regulatory T cells to inform that tolerance-or-rejection decision. The findings are an enormous step forward in understanding food tolerance and may inform future immunotherapies for people with food allergies.

Read news release

Naked mole rats keep kingdoms underground. One queen bears all the children, while other mole rats maintain complex subterranean tunnels, forage for food, take care of newborns, and perform other necessary upkeep. This society hinges on the central pillar of a singular queen. For years, the prevailing view has been that succession in naked mole rat colonies is violent and chaotic. 

New research led by Janelle Ayres, PhD, suggests it does not have to be that way. Her team found that when reproduction is impaired in an established queen, peaceful succession is possible within an established naked mole rat colony. The study illuminates a new layer of social complexity for naked mole rats, which are important models in biomedical research on socialization, aging, adaptation, fertility, and more. The findings also help answer broader questions about biological resilience, potentially revealing principles that can explain human health and disease.

Read news release