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Eilis Dowd, Professor of Pharmacology and Therapeutics, University of Galway

Parasitic worms could hold the key to treating immune system diseases – here’s what we know

Roundworms. MRAORAOR/Shutterstock.com

For millions of years, parasitic worms have had to survive inside animals without being destroyed by their hosts’ immune systems. To do that, they have evolved remarkably effective ways of dampening the immune response.

Scientists are now trying to understand those tricks and work out whether they could be turned into medicines for diseases resulting from overactive immune systems.

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