Determinants of immune response following COVID-19 natural infection and vaccination in elderly residents of UK long term care home facilities

年龄和虚弱是COVID-19后预后的主要决定因素。在过去的18个月里，我们的研究团队一直是英国长期护理机构（护理院）工作人员和居民免疫反应的免疫学分析中心。这个VIVALDI财团现在已经获得了15000份血液样本，这些样本都存放在莫斯教授在伯明翰的研究小组里。我们建议提供博士培训机会，以评估老年人免疫反应的决定因素。这是伯明翰大学和Binding Site公司之间的iCASE合作项目。这很重要，因为免疫衰老和炎症脆弱限制了老年人保护性免疫的功效，我们的目标是确定潜在的机制和潜在的治疗机制。这项工作将有五个工作包。(1)对病毒蛋白的血清学和细胞反应分析(2)确定营养因素对免疫反应的影响(3)使用新型质谱法评估炎症谱(4)使用s-BCMA分析浆细胞周转(5)这些世界领先数据集的生物信息学分析此次合作结合了世界领先的学术免疫学团队和开发免疫检测的商业专业知识。结果将影响患者的预后，并提供一个优秀的培训机会。

Age and frailty are major determinants of outcome following COVID-19. Over 18 months our research team has acted as the hub for immunological analysis of immune responses in staff and residents of long-term care facilities (Care Homes) across the UK. This VIVALDI consortium has now acquired >15,000 blood samples which are housed within Professor Moss's research group at Birmingham.We propose a PhD training opportunity to assess the determinants of immune response in older people. This is an iCASE collaboration between University of Birmingham and The Binding Site company. This is important as immune senescence and inflammatory frailty limit the efficacy of protective immunity in older people and our aim is to identify underlying mechanisms and potential therapeutic mechanisms.The work will have five work packages.(1) Analysis of serological and cellular responses to viral proteins(2) Determination of how nutritional factors impact on immune responses(3) Assessment of inflammatory profile using novel mass spectrometry(4) Analysis of plasma cell turnover using s-BCMA assay(5) Bioinformatic analysis of these world-leading datasetsThis collaboration combines world-leading teams in academic immunology and commercial expertise in development of immune assays. The outcomes will impact on patient outcome and provide an outstanding training opportunity.