immune system

We all get sick from time to time. Wintertime, in particular, brings with it colds and flus.

The function of the immune system is to protect an individual against becoming sick from an infection. Infections are usually...

Florence Nightingale, who was born 200 years ago, is rightly famed for revolutionising nursing. Her approach to caring for wounded soldiers and training nurses in the...

There are many different viruses. Coronaviruses are a group of viruses that cause diseases in birds and mammals. They are all similar in their shape, and...

The Kiwi Innovation Network (KiwiNet) is a network of public research organisations who collaborate to commercialise science to grow the New Zealand economy. Commercialising science can...

Fighting acne? Would you consider rubbing a milk product on your face? Epiology Skincare is a solution that uses a combination of natural milk proteins and...

Microbes – friend or foe? Some microbes are essential to life, while others cause sickness in plants and animals, including humans. For decades, we have kept...

Manurewa High School’s Health Science Academy took Achievement Standard 90926 Report on a biological issue to a whole new level. Instead of the usual research, discuss...

MacLab is a successful biotechnology company that extracts bioactives from New Zealand green-lipped mussels (Perna canaliculus) for the biopharmaceutical industry. The company has a strong commitment...

In this video conference, find out how bacteria are being used to fight sore throats. Join 'Supervader' and participants from Wellington’s 2006 Kids’ Conference as they...

Citizen science and the local community Rongomai Primary School is leading a Healthy Homes, Healthy Futures project. The project is part of the Participatory Science Platform...

Our homes are supposed to be our safe places, but for nearly a third of New Zealanders, damp homes can have a serious effect on our...

What’s going on inside us when we get sick? What do germs have to do with us getting sick? How does our body help us to...

Find out how and why we use bacteria to improve our lives, and discover how the DNA revolution has led to new uses for bacteria. Making...

By choosing appropriate genes to introduce into bacteria, scientists have developed bacteria with characteristics that are useful to humans – such as the ability to make...

Like other organisms, bacteria use double-stranded DNA as their genetic material. However, bacteria organise their DNA differently to more complex organisms. Bacterial DNA – a circular...

The bacterium Escherichia coli (E. coli for short) is crucial in modern biotechnology. Scientists use it to store DNA sequences from other organisms, to produce proteins...

Using modern laboratory techniques, it is relatively easy to add pieces of foreign DNA to bacteria. To do this, scientists first package their DNA of interest...

Bacteria can produce foreign proteins from introduced genes, using their own gene expression machinery. Producing proteins in bacteria has greatly simplified the study of how proteins...

In a bacterial library, many different DNA sequences are introduced into the cells of a bacterial culture. Libraries are powerful tools for improving protein function. What...

Proteins are the key working molecules and building blocks in all cells. They are produced in a similar two-step process in all organisms called protein synthesis...

In this article, you can learn about bacterial shapes, bacterial habitats and bacterial DNA – and about how bacteria that act together in biofilms can affect...

The results of a US clinical trial on acne by New Zealand-based biotechnology company Quantec Ltd have proved positive, according to researchers who presented the results...

The Malaghan Institute is trying to isolate the asthma immune response in the hope of developing a vaccine. In this RNZ programme, Researching an asthma vaccine,...

In 2012 scientists from New Zealand identified key compounds in honey that stimulate the immune system, paving the way for a range of new wound-healing products....

There is a worldwide shortage of deceased organ donors. In this theme, we explore ways of increasing the availability of cells, tissues and organs for transplants....