Jim White, PhD | Duke University School of Medicine
Competition Sponsor: National Academy of Medicine
Awardee Year: 2024
With aging, brings a decline in T cell number, but more critically the capacity to identify and eliminate dysfunctional cells is markedly reduced. A percentage of the T cell population are considered senescent or “exhausted”, referring to their lack of plasticity in epitope recognition of senescence and malignant cell markers. Over the past decade, approaches to enhance function of the aging immune system to improve identification and clearance of senescent and malignant cells have been attempted with moderate success. Lymphocytes, in particular, T cells, known to identify and clear such cells have been a popular therapeutic focus to enhance the aged immune system. Therefore, the objective of the proposed experiments are to rejuvenate T cell function in aged mice to help improve immune function and overall healthspan.