Respiratory infections and diseases, like asthma, are common in children and impact their quality of life. While vaccines can help prevent respiratory illness and improve health outcomes, the responsiveness of children to vaccines varies. Entitled Immune Development in Early Life (IDEAL), an international NIH-supported collaborative project spearheaded by Boston Children’s Hospital aims to discover modifiable cellular and molecular pathways of the developing infant immune system to improve infant vaccine responsiveness and prevent respiratory disease.
The team is led by Ofer Levy, MD, PhD, director of Boston Children’s Precision Vaccines Program, Jessica Lasky-Su, ScD of Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Paolo Palma, MD, PhD Director of the Clinical Immunology and Vaccinology Unit at Ospedale Pediatrico Bambino Gesù in Rome, Italy. The five-year study will evaluate the immune systems of infants from across the globe, including North America, Africa, Europe, and Australasia.
Dr. Palma will lead the IDEAL Clinical Core which will recruit a longitudinal prospective cohort in Rome to characterize the immune system and microbiome from birth and across the first five years of life.
“The immune system is distinct at birth and evolves during a lifetime of exposure to multiple foreign challenges throughout childhood and adulthood. Several biological mechanisms are involved in immune development. The IDEAL project provides a unique opportunity to dissect early-life immunity and understand development of protective or detrimental immune responses. We are honored to partner in pursuing this ambitious goal as members of this prestigious international collaboration!”
Dr. Lasky-Su will use systems biology to identify biomarkers that predict vaccine responsiveness, respiratory infection proneness, and asthma susceptibility.
“Multiple snapshots of the epigenome, proteome, metabolome, and microbiome throughout early life will give us a glimpse into immune development during this critical period, from which we hope to identify further distinguishing biological mechanisms leading to healthy immune function. By understanding this, we may optimize immune development, particularly for those susceptible to dysregulated immune functioning.”
Dr. Levy will test whether manipulating key molecular biomarkers in human infant white blood cells outside the body can direct immune development towards that associated with improved vaccine responsiveness and lower proneness to respiratory infection/disease. The team’s goal is to accelerate discovery and development of new approaches for preventing childhood diseases.
“We are thrilled to have NIAID’s [the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases] support to apply the most powerful tools to assess early life immune development in relation to vaccine responses and respiratory diseases. This work will define modifiable molecular pathways to redirect infant immune development towards health and away from disease,” says Dr. Levy.
The project includes additional collaborators: Joann Arce, PhD, Simon van Haren, PhD, and Hanno Steen, PhD of Boston Children’s Hospital, Michael Pichichero, MD of Rochester General Hospital Research Institute; William Mohn, PhD and Scott Tebbutt, PhD of the University of British Columbia; and Tobias R. Kollmann MD, PhD and David Martino, PhD of University of Western Australia and Telethon Kids.
The study is supported by the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) through grant number 1U19AI168643-01.
About Boston Children’s Hospital
Boston Children’s Hospital is ranked the #1 children’s hospital in the nation by U.S. News & World Report and is the primary pediatric teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School. Home to the world’s largest research enterprise based at a pediatric medical center, its discoveries have benefited children and adults since 1869. Today, 3,000 researchers and scientific staff, including ten members of the National Academy of Sciences, 25 members of the National Academy of Medicine, and 10 Howard Hughes Medical Investigators, comprise Boston Children’s research community. Founded as a 20-bed hospital for children, Boston Children’s is now a 485-bed comprehensive center for pediatric and adolescent health care. For more, visit our Answers blog and follow us on social media @BostonChildrens, @BCH_Innovation, Facebook, and YouTube.
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