Presenter
Ashton Trotman-Grant, Synthetic Biologist at 50 Years
Ashton Trotman-Grant is a Synthetic Biologist at Fifty Years, where he supports partnerships with bio founders daring to change the world for the better. Ash has a PhD (ABD) from the lab of Dr. Juan Carlos Zúñiga-Pflücker at the University of Toronto, Canada, where he studied thymic regeneration and T cell development. Inspired by the potential of living medicines, he co-founded Notch Therapeutics, a company that designs and manufactures therapeutic T cells from pluripotent stem cells...
Summary:
Ashton Trotman-Grant, Synthetic Biologist at 50 Years, spoke about the immune system and how it changes with age. Thymic involution, repertoire reduction, and inflammaging are some of the hallmarks of the aging immune system. These changes make it more difficult to respond to disease, eliminate cancerous or senescent cells, and heal wounds as you get older. A stem cell transplant is the best way to regenerate the thymus at this point in time, but it’s an ineffective process. Ashton proposes four new methods – targeting the epithelial microenvironment, modulating hormones and metabolism, focusing on cell therapies, and targeting hematopoietic progenitor cells for thymic regeneration.
