The role of lipid metabolism in mitochondrial function and interlinked T cell ageing

Summary

The world is currently facing a health crisis caused by an ageing population with poor health. In 2025, about 1.2 billion people will be over the age of 60, and this will increase to 2 billion by 2050. While an increase in lifespan may be desirable, this does not coincide with an increase in healthspan (the length of time an individual is able to maintain good health), and the elderly suffer from frailty and poor health.

Ageing particularly affects a type of immune cell called a T-cell, whose primary function is to kill virally-infected or malignant cells. This leaves older individuals susceptible to infections by viruses such as Influenza (that causes flu) and SARS CoV2 (that causes COVID-19). The functional decline of the immune system during ageing is termed ‘immunosenescence’, and identifying and utilising markers of immunosenescence in healthy volunteers will aid our understanding of how the immune system declines during ageing, with the ultimate goal of preventing or reversing the onset of immunosenescence.

At present it is not known if markers of immunosenescene can be used in a clinical setting to provide information on health or disease.

Participation: For this study we require 80 volunteers from the BioResource to give a 50 ml blood sample. Eligible participants will be recalled to our S2 clinical research facility in Cambridge.

Organisation: This study is organised by Prof. Christoph Hess  at the Department of Medicine in the Jeffrey Cheah Biomedical Centre situated on the Addenbrooke’s hospital site in Cambridge. 

Ethical approval: 08/H0308/176