Daniela Frasca
University of Miami, FL·Microbiology & Immunology
Both aging and HIV wear down the immune system. They cause long-lasting low-grade inflammation, sometimes called inflammaging, and constant immune activation.
- Fields
Microbiology & Immunology
Medicine & Clinical Research
- Topics
people living with HIV
aging
immunosenescence
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jun 2029
What they work on
- Evaluate how aging changes the blood metabolite profile of people with HIV and how this relates to the function, features and gene activity of B cells, T cells and monocytes, using MACS/WIHS Combined Cohort Study (MWCCS) samples.
- Assess how gut bacterial metabolism contributes to metabolic status and immune dysfunction in lean and obese people with and without HIV of different ages.
- Investigate the metabolic mechanisms and needs of immune cells, including glycolysis and oxidative phosphorylation, and how aging and HIV disrupt this metabolic rewiring.
- Test whether senolytics, drugs that remove senescent cells, and metabolic modifiers can restore immune cell function in lab experiments on cells from people with HIV.
More about the research
These lead to senescent cells, aged cells that stop dividing, and they weaken responses to infections and vaccines. Aging and HIV also disrupt metabolism, the chemical reactions that cells use to make energy. They reduce sensitivity to insulin, impair nutrient uptake and damage mitochondria, the cell's power plants. As a result, by-products of sugar and fat metabolism are released into the blood. Immune cells must rewire their metabolism to mount a response. They do this through glycolysis, which breaks down sugar without oxygen, and through oxidative phosphorylation, the mitochondria's oxygen-based energy production. How aging in people with HIV affects these pathways is largely unknown.
Why it matters
Older adults with HIV often respond poorly to infections and vaccines. By identifying senescence and metabolic pathways that weaken immune cells, this work could point to drug targets to improve immune function in aging people with HIV toward the levels seen in people without HIV. It may also guide strategies for people with obesity, whose altered metabolism may add to these immune defects.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Deborah R. Gustafson
SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University, NY·Public Health & Epidemiology
Investigate cardiovascular and pulmonary (heart and lung) health outcomes in people living with HIV, using decades of follow-up data from the Brooklyn site of the MACS/WIHS Combined Cohort Study (MWCCS).
Charles Rinaldo
University of Pittsburgh, PA·Microbiology & Immunology
Measure neutralizing antibody function and B lymphocyte responses after Pfizer or Moderna mRNA COVID-19 vaccination in 200 men and women with HIV and 50 HIV-negative controls from the MWCCS.
Cecile Lahiri
Emory University, GA·Medicine & Clinical Research·Early-career
Test whether markers of HIV persisting in rectal tissue are linked to whole-body inflammation, immune activation, and the presence and progression of early, symptom-free heart disease, using repeated heart imaging and paired blood and rectal biopsies in about 100 virally suppressed people with HIV.
The school
University of Miami: 30 labs on PI Pages, $559M a year on research, 297 research doctorates a year.
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