Research context and project: Growing evidence indicates that disease in the elderly is related to changes of the immune system competence with ageing, characterized by quantitative and qualitative alterations of immune cells, and a hyper-inflammatory status, referred to as immunosenescence and inflammaging, respectively.
Our research tackle immunological questions pertaining to the induction of effective human T-cell responses in older humans, and individuals with cancer or infected by viruses (e.g HIV, CMV or SARS-CoV-2). The project will aim at uncovering impairments of antigen specific ab and gd T-cells with old age or aging associated pathologies, and develop strategies to improve T-cell priming and vaccine efficacy in settings of ‘compromised’ immunity.
The successful candidate will benefit from an excellent scientific environment and state-of-the-art research facilities within the ImmunoConcept Laboratory. This project will require a wide variety of techniques including multi-parametric flow cytometry, microculture approaches, single cell molecular profile analyses and T-cell receptor repertoire analyses applied to the study of human cohorts.