BGU Professor Discovers How Toddlers Fight Colds
BGU Professor Discovers How Toddlers Fight Colds
August 21, 2023
Medical Research, Research News
Professor Tomer Hertz performing a clinical trial to test an efficient group-testing based approach for SARS-CoV-2 detection. (Credit: Ben Gurion University of the Negev)
The Jewish Press — Anyone who has had children remembers how many colds they got during their first three years of life. Whether novel respiratory viruses like SARS-CoV-2 or routine respiratory viruses, they lack repeated exposures that provide long-term immune protection. Nevertheless, they manage to recover remarkably well. How they do so has remained elusive, however.
Now, a team of scientists led by Ben-Gurion University of the Negev’s Professor Tomer Hertz in collaboration with Columbia University and others has identified what they believe could be the mechanism by which children recover from colds.
“What is a more universal challenge than the common cold? By amplifying collaborations like the one between Ben-Gurion University and Columbia University, we’re showing that partnerships with Israeli institutions can unlock the potential of jointly developed technologies and solutions to benefit all of humanity,” said Doug Seserman, CEO of Americans for Ben-Gurion University (A4BGU).
They identified bronchus-associated lymphoid tissue (BALT) – a novel immunological site, which develops during infancy and can be found around airways during childhood. While this has been previously demonstrated in mice, this study was the first to show that BALT exists in humans. The study found that BALT starts to decline around age 4 or 5 and is replaced by memory T cells. The BALT structures promote germinal center formation, B cell differentiation, class switching, and somatic hypermutation, which, in turn, promotes immune protection.
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