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The re-establishment of co-stimulation in CD8+ T cells from elderly individuals

Reference	BBS/B/04528
Principal Investigator / Supervisor	Professor Arne Akbar
Co-Investigators / Co-Supervisors	Dr Fiona Plunkett, Professor Michael Salmon
Institution	University College London
Department	Immunology and Molecular Pathology
Funding type	Research
Value (£)	438,398
Status	Completed
Type	Research Grant
Start date	01/02/2004
End date	31/03/2008
Duration	50 months

Abstract

Elderly individuals are susceptible to infection suggesting that defective immunity develops during ageing. Two major changes occur in elderly CD8+ T cells. These are loss of telomerase inducibility and loss of surface costimulatory receptor expression. Our hypothesis is that telomerase induction is dependent on co-stimulatory signals and loss of these receptors from CD8+ T cells during ageing leads to telomere erosion, replicative senescence and thus defective immunity. In this project we will induce the re-expression of fully validated novel chimeric receptors that contain co-stimulatory domains back into CD8+ T cells from elderly individuals to determine if this re-establishes the ability of these cells to upregulate this enzyme.

Summary

unavailable

Committee	Closed Committee - Biochemistry & Cell Biology (BCB)
Research Topics	X – not assigned to a current Research Topic
Research Priority	X – Research Priority information not available
Research Initiative	X - not in an Initiative
Funding Scheme	X – not Funded via a specific Funding Scheme

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