How infants' immune system forgets to kill bacteria
Tuesday 24 January, 2017

How infants’ immune system forgets to kill bacteria

Published On: Thu, Jun 12th, 2014 | Children's Health | By BioNews

Know why does your infant get infections every now and then? It has nothing to do with weak immunity but his/her immune system may have forgotten to act on time.

Forgetful immune systems leave infants particularly prone to infections, according to a study.

“Infants’ immune systems actually respond to infection with more speed and strength than adults but the immunities they create fail to last,” researchers from Cornell University said.


“No such vaccine exists because we have not understood why infants rapidly lose immunities. Our finding could change the way we immunise infants and ultimately lead to more effective ways of enhancing immunity in early life,” explained immunologist Brian Rudd from Cornell University’s college of veterinary medicine.



The team found that newborn T cells generated in response to infection met dramatically different fates.


“So the immune system is forced to start the learning process over again when infected by the same pathogen later in life,” Rudd said.

The research was published in the Journal of Immunology.

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