Improving vaccines for the elderly by blocking inflammation

By identifying why skin immunity declines in old age, a UCL-led research team has found that an anti-inflammatory pill could help make vaccines more effective for elderly people. The study, published today in The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology , found that an excessive inflammation reaction in older people can obstruct the immune system. "We know that the immune system declines with age, and people can be affected by pathogens they were once immune to. We found that when it comes to cutaneous immunity - specific to skin - the immune system was being obstructed by skin cells that were too prone to producing inflammation responses. We've now identified a way to block that inflammation in the short term," said the study's senior author, Professor Arne Akbar (UCL Infection & Immunity). To investigate immune responses, the researchers injected an antigen - a derivative of a pathogen that creates an immune response without inducing illness - into the skin of 175 participants (78 were over 65 years old and the rest were under 40). The pathogen was the varicella zoster virus (VZV), which causes chicken pox.