This is how our age affects the response to vaccines

Three-year-old changes weaken vaccine effectiveness in adults, but new findings point to next-generation vaccines.

This age affects our response to the vaccine

Age-related changes in T cells have weakened the immune response in older adults, but the new findings work for this next generation.

Vaccines are not just for children

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Log in Not everyone reacts the same way when they receive a vaccine.And the one factor that determines this reaction the most is age.It is known that the immune response is weaker in the elderly aged 65 and over than in the rest of the population.A study published in the journal Nature now offers both an explanation and a possible solution.

A team from the Allen Institute (USA) discovered that our T cells, key elements in the coordination of immune responses, undergo profound and specific changes as we age.Far from being a coincidence or byproduct of disease and chronic inflammation, such changes are an essential feature of healthy aging and occur in all people as they age.

These findings open the door to the design of effective vaccines.

"We were surprised that inflammation is not the cause of healthy aging," said Claire Gustaleson, one of the lead authors. "We believe that inflammation is caused by factors independent of age."

The US has canceled nearly half a billion dollars in subsidies for mRNA vaccines

Health Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr.It announced on Tuesday the termination of 22 contracts and questioned the safety of the technology

These changes explain why vaccines, including the annual flu and Covid-19 boosters, are less effective in the elderly.

T cells are an important part of our immune system because they help train white B cells called antibodies to respond to viruses and vaccines.

But this study shows that memory T cells in older adults undergo a dramatic shift to a Th2-like state, a change in gene expression that alters how these cells respond to threats.

The researchers found that this change directly affects the B cells' ability to generate strong antibody responses.

In other words, the figsu vaccine still contains the correct viral component, but if the memory cell is not attacked properly, the body has certainly changed it.

Using this information, doctors could use a person's immune profile to predict their response to a vaccine.

Artificial vaccines

Because scientists can learn how cells lose their effectiveness with age, they can design new vaccine formulas or treatments to address these issues.

Because older T cells behave differently, scientists can modify vaccine regimens to compensate for age-related changes, rather than using a one-size-fits-all approach.Gene editing machines such as Crispr can also be used to modify T cells

The researchers hope that this work will improve and reveal how our immune system changes and how viruses interact with aging.Additionally, it opens the door to interventions such as new therapies to restore critical immune cells.

More than 96 healthy adults over 25 years of age, over 96 years of age, used techniques such as single-cell RNA testing, proteomics, and feedback flow analysis.

Using this data, they created ATLAs information on human immune health, an online resource that describes the different types of immune cells, how they change over time, and the significance of those changes.We use this ATLAs to study more than 16 million people of healthy age for the world around the world to support a higher immunity system during aging.This resource is the largest of its kind and is freely available to researchers around the world.

The importance of this work is that it provides a roadmap to aging, where immune dysfunction develops over time, suggests specific targets for intervention, and can become concrete throughout the human lifespan.

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