Assessing Quality of Anti-viral Responses in Ageing - AQUARIA
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Assessing Quality of Anti-viral Responses in Ageing - AQUARIA
IRAS ID
208195
Contact name
Mark Wills
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and the University of Cambridge
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 1 months, 7 days
Research summary
Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) infection is carried for a life time and in healthy people is kept under control by cells of the immune system (white blood cells). HCMV has a profound effect on these immune cells generating very high numbers which are specific to this virus and in some studies in older people this has been associated with an ’Immune Risk Phenotype’, suggesting that long term carriage of HCMV is harmful to health. This dysfunction of immune cells has been associated with an increased risk of mortality and poor responses in older age to new pathogens and vaccines and potentially, a loss of control of HCMV infection itself. Some healthy people carry more than one strain (genotype) of HCMV, which is commonly seen in people with weakened immune systems. We have established a functional assay which measures the anti-HCMV activity of immune cells, which will allow us for the first time to measure the effectiveness of these cells from older and younger donors, enabling us to determine if anti-HCMV immune cell responses are impaired in older age. We also will measure whether older healthy people who may have weakened immune responses carry multiple strains of HCMV compared to younger healthy people.
REC name
North of Scotland Research Ethics Committee 1
REC reference
17/NS/0110
Date of REC Opinion
31 Oct 2017
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion