PhD Scholarship in Age-related immune dysfunction, inflammation & nutritional status

This project seeks to pinpoint cellular and molecular epigenetic mechanisms that drive age-related immune-senescence and inflammation, critical to the decline in immune function and ability to respond to vaccines, infections and cancers in the elderly. The scholarship has been designed to unravel cellular and molecular epigenetic mechanisms that drive age-related immune dysfunction and chronic inflammation. Additionally, nutritional status measured by dietary inflammation indexes and plasma nutritional biomarkers will be assessed to understand the influence of nutrition on immune response. The project will use various cohorts from human trials to understand the role of immune dysfunction, inflammation, and nutritional status on modulation of infections, cancers, and vaccine-generated immune responses in older individuals. Understanding the molecular epigenetic changes that drive age-related immune dysfunction will provide leads for novel therapeutic strategies and help explain suboptimal responses to vaccination in the elderly.