The treatment provides a needed boost to immune cells called T cells, which coordinate immune responses and kill infected cells. As people age, their ability to produce T cells wanes, and the ones they have become less effective. T-cell ageing helps to explain why vaccines are sometimes less effective in older people than in young adults, and why cancer treatments that unleash the immune system against tumours don't work as well in older adults, says Maria Mittelbrunn, an immunologist at the Spanish National Research Council in Madrid. Flagging T-cell immunity is also linked to the chronic inflammation associated with many age-related diseases, including some forms of cardiovascular disease. How to make an old immune system young again'T cells, in particular, are one of the cell types that change the most during ageing,' says Mittelbrunn, who was not involved in the study. 'To rejuvenate them could have immense consequences.' T cells are produced in the bone marrow and then travel...
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