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The thymus gland—which produces immune T cells before birth and during childhood— is often regarded as nonfunctional in adults, and it's sometimes removed during cardiac surgery for easier access to the heart and major blood vessels. New research has uncovered evidence that the thymus is in fact critical for adult health generally and for preventing cancer and perhaps autoimmune disease. Five years after surgery, 8.1% of patients who had a thymectomy died compared with 2.8% of those who did not have their thymus removed, equating to a 2.9-times higher risk of death. Also during that time, 7.4% of patients in...

A new study confirms the health benefits of moderate calorie restrictions in humans—and identifies a key protein that could be harnessed to extend health in humans. Dixit started by analyzing the thymus, a gland that sits above the heart and produces T cells, a type of white blood cell and an essential part of the immune system. The thymus ages at a faster rate than other organs. By the time healthy adults reach the age of 40, said Dixit, 70% of the thymus is already fatty and nonfunctional. And as it ages, the thymus produces fewer T cells. They found...

Zinc's immune-boosting properties are well-established, but we're still untangling how it works. The team discovered that zinc is required for development of a specialized type of immune cell and prompts a critical immune organ to regenerate after damage. People whose zinc levels are too low have little to no infection-fighting T cells and the thymus, the organ in which T cells develop, is nearly non-existent, Iovino said. When zinc-deficient people are given extra zinc, their thymuses grow and start pumping out these immune cells. The thymus is quite delicate. Many stressors cause it to shrink and its T-cell production to...

(CNSNews.com) - A group of government researchers working for a National Institutes of Health laboratory in Montana made “humanized mice” by implanting the mice with tissues cut from human livers and thymuses taken from babies at 17 to 22 weeks gestational age. The researchers then published a paper describing how they constructed this particular type of “humanized” mouse, saying they hoped their description of the process would help other researchers seeking to make such mice in the future. The same government researchers had collaborated on another journal article about the “humanized” mouse with an NIH-funded researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital--which...

After a century of scrutinizing the laboratory mouse, one might imagine that scientists would know the creature's body like the back of their own hands. Think again, because German researchers say they have discovered a whole new organ. Common knowledge holds that in mice, the thymus, a pinkish-grey lump of tissue that helps to produce the infection-fighting T cells of the immune system, is roughly the size of a pea and nestles in the chest above the heart. Now Hans-Reimer Rodewald at the University of Ulm in Germany, and his colleagues say they have discovered a smaller, second thymus hidden...

IN a world first, Melbourne scientists have successfully grown an organ from stem cells. A team from Monash Medical School grew a functioning thymus, a small organ that is critical to the immune system. Human trials could begin within two years. Stem cells are the body's building blocks and have unlimited capacity to grow and replace all the cells within a particular tissue or organ. "When I realised what we had finally done after 15 years of research, I went weak at the knees," Professor Richard Boyd said. He said understanding the thymus, located near the heart, was the...