Author Archives: Kristi Pollum

Inside the human body, many enemies hide. Brian Conlon hunts one of those lurking pathogens and is looking for better ways to kill them. Persister bacteria, they’re called. Some cause deadly infections. Even though an antibiotic wipes out the majority of bacteria causing an infection, a small percentage survives. Those persisters escape...

A study now published in Nature Communications Earth & Environment, reveals how global warming could exacerbate lung diseases by dehydrating and inflaming human airways. UNC Marsico Lung Institute members Brian Button, PhD, is senior author and Alessandra Livraghi-Butrico, PhD, is co-author.

Jeffery L. Dangl, a biologist at UNC-Chapel Hill, was part of an award-winning trio of researchers who received the 2025 Wolf Prize in Agriculture “for groundbreaking discoveries of the immune system and disease resistance in plants.”

Aravinda de Silva, PhD, MPH, a member of the Institute for Global Health and Infectious Diseases, has designed a new blood test to accurately diagnose dengue and Zika Viruses, to improve surveillance and advance vaccine development.

Researchers have discovered that RNA in Zika virus can freeze itself in time to further its spread in the body, revolutionizing how researchers study disease-causing viruses.

Preclinical research findings from UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center identified a cocktail of three different drugs that can be used to generate more robust immune system CAR-Ts (chimeric antigen receptor-T cells) to fight cancer. This finding may have a significant impact on improving the production of CAR-T cells for clinical...