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Hacking the immune system could slow ageing — here’s how

Our immune system falters over time, which could explain the negative effects of ageing.
  1. Alison Abbott

    1. Alison Abbott is a writer based in Munich, Germany.

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Senior men play a game of chess while partly submerged in the waters of the Szechenyi Baths in Budapest

Researchers think that the immune system could be the key to healthy ageing. Credit: Ami Vitale/Panos Pictures

Stem-cell researcher Carolina Florian didn’t trust what she was seeing. Her elderly laboratory mice were starting to look younger. They were more sprightly and their coats were sleeker. Yet all she had done was to briefly treat them — many weeks earlier — with a drug that corrected the organization of proteins inside a type of stem cell.

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Nature 629, 276-278 (2024)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-01274-3

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