Influenza, Clinical Trial
Official title:
Influenza Immunity: Protective Mechanisms Against a Pandemic Respiratory Virus Research Project 2: T-cell and General Immune Responses to Influenza; Research Project 3: Single-cell Phospho-protein Signaling Analysis of the Response to Influenza Vaccination; Technical Development Project 1: Measuring the Immunome: Genomic Approaches to B-cell Repertoire
This study will investigate markers, mechanisms and define general predictors for immunological health. This goal is analogous to what has been achieved in cardiovascular medicine where the levels of different forms of cholesterol have provided useful benchmarks for cardiovascular health. In this context, immunization with FDA approved flu vaccines represents a safe and accessible opportunity to gauge the immune response in a particular individual as a function of age and genetics and then to try to find predictive biomarkers.
The investigators plan to study the immune response to different influenza vaccines much more broadly and deeply across different age groups and with different vaccine modalities and to probe the influence of genetics on these responses using monozygotic and dizygotic twins. The investigators plan to compare various immunological responses, identify age-specific biomarkers or clusters of markers, quantify the frequency of influenza-specific T-cells pre- and post-vaccination, and determine the effective breadth of T-cell repertoire to an influenza vaccine within an individual as a function of age and to what degree this is genetically determined. This work may help in the improved design of new vaccines, both for influenza and for other respiratory pathogens as well. ;
Allocation: Randomized, Intervention Model: Parallel Assignment, Masking: Open Label, Primary Purpose: Basic Science