The Trudeau Institute has received a five year federal grant to study how aging affects the immune system’s response to influenza vaccines.
The Trudeau Institute is a biomedical research center in Saranac Lake that does fundamental research on immunity to create vaccines and treatments for diseases like the flu and tuberculosis. This week the National Institute of Health’s National Institute on Aging announced that the Trudeau Institute will receive a five year nine million dollar grant to study why aging leads to reduced immune response to vaccines. Trudeau Principal Investigator Dr. Laura Haynes.
The research could lead to vaccines targeted to specific age groups. Dr. Haynes says they are currently doing basic animal studies.
This is one of the National Institute on Aging’s largest program grants to be funded this year. Chief of the Aging Physiology Branch Dr. Rebecca Fuldner says they want to develop new therapies and strategies to overcome the elderly’s increased susceptibility to infections and diseases. Fuldner calls the Trudeau research groundbreaking.
The research at the Trudeau Institute will be done with mice. As the research continues, human trials will be developed at the University of Connecticut Health Science Center and the University of Massachusetts Medical School.
