Scientists found the emergency repair crew hiding inside our cells

When bacteria punch holes in our cells with toxins, the cell fights back. Yuan Chi and colleagues at Juntendo University in Japan discovered a built-in rescue system: the wounded cell releases a fatty signal molecule that flips a switch called BLT2, pinching off the punctured membrane into tiny bubbles and rebuilding the cell's skeleton to hold it together. Cells with the system switched on survived attacks that killed cells without it. The finding, published in the Journal of Cell Biology, points to a new kind of medicine — one that strengthens our own cells instead of just attacking germs.