Original story: Texas Public Radio
By: Bonnie Petrie
(June 15, 2025) — As we age, our immune systems age too. They can start sending off false alarms and attacking the body’s healthy cells, while becoming less responsive to actual threats. Ann Griffith, PhD, is an associate professor in the Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics in the Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long School of Medicine at UT Health San Antonio, and she studies what that means for human health.
“We’re interested in the ways that our immune system changes with age,” Griffith said. “Part of that is becoming less responsive to infections and vaccines and also becoming over-responsive to ourselves.”
We’ve seen how that can play out during the COVID pandemic. The immune systems of older adults didn’t fight off the novel virus as well as those of younger people. They also didn’t respond as well to vaccines, leaving this already vulnerable population without complete protection. Additionally, over-responsiveness to healthy cells can lead to autoimmunity, which can cause damaging chronic inflammation.
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