Ringel, who is also a core member of the Ragon Institute of Mass General Brigham, MIT, and Harvard, will draw on her background in cancer immunology to create a more comprehensive biomedical understanding of the cause and possible treatments for aging-related decline. 'It is such an honor to receive this grant,' Ringel says. 'This support will enable us to draw new connections between immunology and aging biology. As the U.S. population grows older, advancing this research is increasingly important, and this line of inquiry is only possible because of the W.M. Keck Foundation.' Understanding how to extend healthy years of life is a fundamental question of biomedical research with wide-ranging societal implications. Although modern science and medicine have greatly expanded global life expectancy, it remains unclear why everyone ages differently; some maintain physical and cognitive fitness well into old age, while others become debilitatingly frail later in life. Our immune systems are adaptable, but they do naturally decline as we get older. One critical component of our immune system is CD8+ T cells, which are known to target and destroy cancerous or damaged cells. As we age, our tissues accumulate cells that can no longer divide. These senescent cells are present throughout our lives, but reach seemingly harmful levels as a normal part of aging, causing tissue damage and diminished resilience under stress....

With respiratory illness season in full swing, a bad night's sleep, sore throat, and desire to cancel dinner plans could all be considered hallmark symptoms of the flu, Covid-19 or other illnesses. Although everyone has, at some point, experienced illness and these stereotypical symptoms, the mechanisms that generate them are not well understood. Zuri Sullivan, a new assistant professor in the MIT Department of Biology and core member of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, works at the interface of neuroscience, microbiology, physiology, and immunology to study the biological workings underlying illness. In this interview, she describes her work on immunity thus far as well as research avenues ' and professional collaborations ' she's excited to explore at MIT. Sickness itself arises from brain-immune system interaction. The immune system is talking to the brain, and then the brain has a system-wide impact on host defense via its ability to have top-down control of physiologic systems and behavior. People might assume that sickness is an unintended consequence of infection, that it happens because your immune system is active, but we hypothesize that it's likely an adaptive process that contributes to host defense....

Staff members at the United States's premier infectious-disease research institute have been instructed to remove the words 'biodefense' and 'pandemic preparedness' from the institute's web pages, according to e-mails Nature has obtained. The directive comes amid a broader shake-up at the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), one of 27 institutes and centres at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The NIAID is expected to deprioritize the two topics in an overhaul of its funded research projects, according to four NIAID employees who spoke to Nature on the condition of anonymity, because they are not authorized to speak to the press. NIH director Jay Bhattacharya explained the restructure at an event with other top agency officials on 30 January. 'It's a complete transformation of [the NIAID] away from this old model' that has historically prioritized research on HIV, biodefence and pandemic preparedness, he said. The institute will focus more on basic immunology and other infectious diseases currently affecting people in the United States, he added, rather than on predicting future diseases....

Tumours boost their own growth by attracting and then commandeering nearby sensory neurons, a study finds. By 'plugging into' tumour cells, these neurons can send a signal to the brain that subdues the protective activity of immune cells at the tumour site ' allowing the cancerous cells to proliferate unchecked. The study, published today in Nature1, pinpointed this signalling pathway, from the tumour to the brain and back again, in mice with lung cancer. 'The tumour hijacks the signalling axis and uses it for its own purpose,' says Anna-Maria Globig, a cancer immunologist at the Allen Institute for Immunology in Seattle, Washington. When the authors of the study used genetic engineering to inactivate, or 'knock out', the sensory neurons, they 'saw such a huge, dramatic reduction' in tumour growth ' more than 50% ' says co-author Chengcheng Jin, a cancer immunologist at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Researchers have long known that nerve cells reside in tumours. 'We know that nerves are there,' says Moran Amit, a head and neck surgeon at the University of Texas in Houston. But working out how these nerve cells affect a tumour's survival has been difficult, he adds....