The Ageing Immune System and Health

The present book intends to provide an update on immunosenescence and how deficiencies in the immune system contribute to a higher susceptibility to infections, decline in organ function, reduced vaccination responses, age-related disease and the ageing process itself, negatively affecting longevity. Our focus is on the main changes in immune system cells and their products occurring during the ageing process and the possible consequences for health and disease. This includes: discussion of the modulatory and/or suppressive mechanisms associated with the alterations in T regulatory cells, B regulatory cells and Myeloid Derived Suppressor cells; changes in the immune system observed in chronic neurodegenerative diseases, cancer, lung disease and frailty will also be discussed. Most importantly we provide recent literature information about possible interventions (focusing on physical activity) that could alleviate the negative effects of immunosenescence.

The Ageing Immune System and Health is a comprehensive guide on the field intended to all physicians, researchers, professors and students interested on relationship between immune system, ageing and health. 

Valquiria Bueno: BSc, PhD. MSc and PhD in Immunology by the Federal University of São Paulo (UNIFESP). Post-doctoral fellow by the University of Oxford (2001). Professor and Researcher (since 2006) at UNIFESP; Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Parasitology. Grants obtained (Brazilians institutions FAPESP, CNPq, and CAPES). Supervision of master students (n=5) and undergraduated students (n=13). Articles in Web of Science (n=35) and factor H=9, book chapters (n=5), Editorial Board Member (Plos One, Trends in Vector Research and Parasitology, Journal of Hematological Malignancies). Major interests: Ageing and Immune System, Cancer, Autoimmunity, Transplantation. 

Janet M Lord: BSc Human Biology at Oxford Brookes University, 1979 and PhD in Biological Sciences at Aston University, 1983. Founded her group with a Royal Society University Research Fellowship held from 1989 to 1998. In 2004 appointed Professor of Immune Cell Biology at Birmingham University and in 2013 became Head of the School of Immunity and Infection and Director of the MRC-ARUK Centre for Musculoskeletal Ageing Research and Director of the Medawar Centre for Healthy Ageing Research. Lord Cohen medal for outstanding contribution to ageing research, 2014: Glenn Foundation award for basic biological mechanisms of ageing.

Thomas Jackson: Dr Jackson is a consultant geriatrician at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham and also a Clinical Research Fellow at the University of Birmingham funded by AGE UK and the British Geriatrics Society. His main area of research is in Delirium and Dementia and in particular in the diagnosis of dementia in patients with delirium. He is also researching the biological basis of delirium in older adults, focussing on the role played by the endocrine-immune axis and inflammation.