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UA Study’s Findings Key to Understanding Immunity as We Age

UA researchers have discovered that two separate defects combine to contribute to reduced T cell responses with aging.

Researchers at the University of Arizona College of Medicine – Tucson have found a key to understanding the aging immune system’s decreased response to infectious diseases, which remain among the leading causes of death in older adults.

Aging profoundly affects the immune system’s T cells – the types of white blood cells that defend against intracellular pathogens, such as viruses, intracellular bacteria or parasites, such as malaria. Newly encountered pathogens are attacked by what are known as naïve T cells, some of which then learn and remember, becoming memory T cells that prevent reinfection when they encounter the same pathogen again. But naïve T cells become depleted with age, leading to less effective immune responses against new infections. (more…)

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