Summary
The proposed research is relevant to public health because it interrogates how immune aging impairs functional response to vaccination and how dysregulation of CD4+ T cells drives advanced immune aging, leveraging Down syndrome as a genetic model. This knowledge would establish the foundation to identify the patients, both with and without Down syndrome, who would benefit from altered vaccination strategies, and novel therapeutics to attenuate advanced immune aging, with likely utility across a broad spectrum of immune- related conditions. Thus, the proposed research is relevant to the part of NIH’s mission pertaining to reducing illness and disability.