Whole story here: https://www.uab.edu/medicine/pathology/news-events/archive/tyrrell-awarded-afar-grant-for-work-on-protein-s-t-cells-relation-to-aging

and here: https://www.afar.org/grantee-profiles/daniel-tyrrell

Understanding Gzmk+ CD8+ T Cell Development and Activity in Aging

Significant changes occur in the immune system with age. T lymphocytes are crucial for fighting infections and cancer but change considerably with age. There is a subset known as Age-Associated T cells (TAA cells) which are cytotoxic CD8+ T cells that express Granzyme K (Gzmk). These accumulate in old age and likely contribute to immunosenescence and disease in older adults. We are focusing on understanding what drives the development and function of Gzmk+ CD8+ TAA cells during aging. Dr. Tyrrell will explore the role of antigen exposure and Granzyme K on development and cytotoxicity of TAA cells. His team will examine TAA cells longitudinally across the lifespan to better understand TAA cell regulation, cytotoxic mechanisms, and their impact on healthy aging. This research aims to uncover insights into immune aging and potentially identify novel immunomodulatory therapeutic targets for disease in older adults.

Our summer student, Ja’Niyah is leaving us to go back to Savannah State University to finish her undergraduate studies. She did some awesome work optimizing our antibody staining for neuroinflammatory markers in a mouse model of dementia!

Md Akkas Ali, a GBS PhD student in the Tyrrell Lab, provided an in-depth overview of Illumina next-generation-sequencing during our lab meeting

Ali is a PhD student in the Graduate Biomedical Sciences (GBS) at that University of Alabama at Birmingham. He is also an Assistant Professor in the Department of Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology at Shahjalal University of Science and Technology (SUST) in Sylhet, Bangladesh, a position he as held since 2018. He has a Bachelor of Science (BSc) and Master of Science (MS) degrees in Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology from SUST in 2011 and 2013, respectively. His primary academic and research interests are focused on Cancer Immunology and Neuro-Oncology, specifically in relation to Glioblastoma. Ali has an interest specifically in T lymphocytes and has picked up flow cytometry very quickly since he has been in the lab:

We are excited to welcome Ali to the lab! We may never match him for his ability to eat spicy food. We’re looking forward to all of the great science to come! Welcome to the lab Ali!

Harry, Chase, Trey, Ali, and Dan went out for a monthly lab lunch at Yummefy in Birmingham, AL. Trey and Ali braved the “Indian Spicy” curry while everyone else went for less spicy options.

The proposal is: Determining cytotoxic T cell phenotype and function in the aging brain

Here’s a brief description of the project:

We know that a person’s age is the strongest clinical risk factor for most chronic diseases like cardiovascular disease and neurodegenerative disease (like Alzheimer’s disease). Obviously, we can’t change a person’s age, but we may be able to modify the biological changes that occur as we age. We know that T lymphocytes, the white blood cells of the adaptive immune system, change significantly as we age. We also know that T lymphocytes migrate into the brain during aging where we believe they contribute to damaging brain tissues and structures. We have found a population of T lymphocytes in the brain that we don’t know much about, so the question we’re trying to answer with this pilot award is simple. Very simply, we want to know why these cells move into the brain and what they are doing once they get there. If they are promoting disease, then we can try to target or remove them as a therapeutic approach.

Along with keynote speaker Stephen Kritchevsky (Wake Forest University) and invited speakers Arthur Arnold (UCLA), Toren Finkel (Univ. of Pittsburgh), Richard Holden (Indian University), Corinna Ross (Texas Biomedical Research Institute), and Jonathan Wanagat (UCLA).

We are fully up-and-running now! Doing flow cytometry, histology, and gearing up for a big sincle-cell RNA sequencing experiment! And we got this! Fancy C10 confocal, widefield imager and plate reader! This thing does it all! Automated imaging for histology and stitches the images together. 60X confocal microscopy, absorbance and fluorescent plate reading!