Dr Emma Chambers

Lecturer

Research Interests

Ageing, Lung, Senescence, immunology, viruses

Although senescent cells, cells which have undergone irreversible cell cycle arrest, have shown to accumulate in all tissues of the body in mice, there is limited data available in humans and to date only skin, liver and kidney have been extensively studied in humans. Recently my lab has shown that there is an increase in senescent cells in the lungs of older humans as compared to young – this increase is localised in the alveolar stromal cells. As older adults are at increased risk of morbidity and mortality to infectious diseases such as influenza and COVID-19 – the overall aim of this project is to investigate if senescent stromal cells alter antigen-specific immunity in the lungs of older adults. Utilising chip-on-chip technology to build lung models which represent older and younger lungs.