The immune system ages, just like every other tissue. With age, the two “halves” of your immune system (the lymphoid and the myeloid) become unbalanced, resulting in immune dysfunction that makes us vulnerable to infection and the onset of inflammatory diseases. Why does this happen, and is there any way to rejuvenate an aged immune system? In this study, famed Stanford stem cell biologist Irv Weissman addresses this question and proposes a simple solution in the form of an antibody drug that skews the immune stem cells back to a more youthful balance.
However, in medicine, a drug that alleviates a problem is never as good as a drug that prevents the problem from arising. So, much work remains to be done. What is happening at the molecular level that causes the stem cell imbalance in the first place, and can we leverage this knowledge to intervene therapeutically?
