MABRA: B cell responses in ageing
Research type
Research Study
Full title
MABRA - Multiscale analysis of B cell responses in Ageing
IRAS ID
155921
Contact name
Deborah Dunn-Walters
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
King's College London School of Medicine
Research summary
Older people have poor immune systems, they don’t make good responses to vaccines and infections and they have higher levels of autoantibodies, such as those found in autoimmune disease. In our previous studies, on people vaccinated against flu and pneumonia and on normal people with no vaccination, we have shown that there are differences in the repertoires of cells that make the antibodies. We cannot be entirely sure if this is a fault with the early immune response or the memory immune response, since in the UK flu and pneumonia is very common and even if people haven’t had the infection they might have been in contact with it and made an immune response. Hence we would like to check the older immune response using a vaccine for something that is not endemic in the UK. \nMore people over the age of 60 are travelling abroad to places requiring the yellow fever vaccine. Hence we will recruit some of these people into our study. We will take blood samples before and after their travel vaccine so we can study the antibody repertoire in a first immune response. \nWe will study the antibody repertoire by high throughput sequencing of the antibody genes, we will study the cells that make antibodies by staining them to analyse different cell surface markers, and we will measure the anti-yellow fever antibodies that are produced in the serum. \nFrom our large data sets we will identify antibody sequences of interest – for example that might be prevalent at a young age but rare in older people, and we will clone and express the genes so that we can make the antibody in the laboratory and look to see what it binds to. [COVID-19 amendment – 16/04/2020] Revised Protocol, new Consent Form and Particpant Information Sheet.
REC name
London - Camberwell St Giles Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
14/LO/1221
Date of REC Opinion
29 Jul 2014
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion