The Atlantic: How to Cure The Diseases That Nobel-Winning Drugs Cannot
“…No one is entirely sure what [the bacterium Wolbachia] does in the worms, but it is clearly essential. The nematodes cannot complete their life cycles without these microbes. They couldn’t trigger intense disease, either. When the worms die, they release their Wolbachia into their hosts. And while these bacteria can’t infect us, they can trigger inflammation. Mark Taylor from the University of Liverpool thinks that it’s the combination of immune responses against the worms and their bacteria that leads to the intense symptoms of filarial diseases…” (Yong, 10/7).