OxTalks will soon move to the new Halo platform and will become 'Oxford Events.' There will be a need for an OxTalks freeze. This was previously planned for Friday 14th November – a new date will be shared as soon as it is available (full details will be available on the Staff Gateway).
In the meantime, the OxTalks site will remain active and events will continue to be published.
If staff have any questions about the Oxford Events launch, please contact halo@digital.ox.ac.uk
The Akbar group has identified multiple novel mechanisms that induce immune decline during ageing. They discovered a new inhibitory protein complex in aged T cells that is regulated by sestrins, which can be blocked to enhance vaccine responsiveness in mice. In addition they showed that defective immunity to viruses in the skin of old humans arises from excessive inflammation, that could be reversed by treatment with an anti-inflammatory p38 MAPkinase inhibitor in vivo. This Showed unequivocally that immune decline can be reversed during ageing both at the cellular level and in respoinse to antigen challenge in vivo. This has considerable implications for strategies to enhance immunity after severe infections and vaccination that are reduced during ageing.