The Journal of Immunology has published a special collection on “Aging’s Impact on the Immune System,” curated by guest editor Patricia Gearhart, Ph.D., a senior investigator at the National Institute on Aging, NIH. The collection addresses several crucial questions about how the immune system changes as it ages: why novel pathogens are more lethal in older people; the relation between the immune system and the changes Alzheimer’s disease makes in the brain; and newly recognized, intrinsic differences between young and old immune cells.
Dr. Gearhart says that the “upshot” to the new data generated by novel techniques is that “aging is not homogeneous among humans. We age at different rates.” The five reviews in the collection, led by Michelle Linterman, Bonnie Blomberg, Nan-Ping Weng, Aymeric Silvin, and David Furman, address aging B cells and T cells and their interactions with multiple systems; biomarkers; brain macrophage heterogeneity; and cellular clock theories.
This important collection of articles features a commentary by Michael Cancro, a Distinguished Fellow of AAI who passed away earlier this year. An expert in B cell biology, Dr. Cancro discovered and characterized Age-Associated B cells (ABCs). Here, he provides important historical context on the how age-related changes to the immune system have been understood.
The Journal of Immunology regularly publishes special collections on topics of particular interest or urgent concern.
