As people age, they lose the ability to efficiently activate anti-viral responses. This results in increased viral infection rates and severity of disease in older adults. The reasons for this decreased anti-viral immunity with ageing is poorly understood. Normally during a viral infection, the immune system produces lots of a type of protein called type I interferons, which when produced can go on to turn on strong anti-viral responses in our immune cells. Indeed as they have such potent anti-viral actions, type I interferons have been used to treat viral infections clinically, including hepatitis B and C, yet older people do not respond as well to this therapy. We therefore hypothesize that the immune cells from older people are less responsive to the actions of type I interferons and hence why older people have reduced anti-viral immunity. This project aims to examine type I interferon immunity in older people. To do this, immune cells will be taken from young and old people and exposed to type I interferon. We will then measure the ability of the immune cells to turn on anti-viral responses using several key assays. Results generated during this project could therefore explain why older people have compromised anti-viral immunity and potentially create methods to identify older people who may be at high risk of viral infection.
