Impact of human immunosenescence on the development of solid and hematopoietic malignancies

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Leo Alexander Hansmann
• Subject Area: Hematology, Oncology
• Term: from 2012 to 2015
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 219259984

The incidence of cancer increases exponentially with age. Aging reflects the sum of all changes that occur in living organisms with the passage of time that leads to functional impairment and increased pathologies. Within the immune system, many age-related changes occur, referred to generally as “immunosenescence”. The progressive deterioration of the immune system with age is likely to be of fundamental importance for the increased incidence of cancer in the elderly, especially because cancer has an important inflammatory component.Recently, Professor Davis and his group described a systems approach to human aging, combining data on mRNA expression profiles from whole blood, white blood cell subsets, cytokine/chemokine levels in blood sera, levels of pSTATs in different cell types at baseline and after stimulation with different cytokines. These data led to the identification of new biomarkers, characterizing an “immunosenescent phenotype” in older people. People showing features of immunosenescence were on many medications and suffering from chronic diseases. Based on these findings we hypothesize that immunosenescence correlates with and also influences development, therapy response and prognosis of late onset cancers. We will focus on plasma cell myeloma, colorectal cancer and breast cancer that are predominantly cancers of older age that often develop from pre-cancerous diseases, namely monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance, colorectal adenoma and ductal/lobular carcinoma in situ respectively.We choose a global approach and combine the findings and techniques from a recent immunosenescence study with new technologies such as Cytometry by Time-Of-Flight (CyTOF) to enhance our understanding of cancer development and therapeutic response.

• DFG Programme: Research Fellowships
• International Connection: USA
• Host: Professor Mark M Davis, Ph.D.