Jorg Goronzy, M.D., Ph.D.

Department of Medicine

• M.D., University of Aachen, Germany, 1979
• Ph.D., University of Bonn, Germany, 1979

Research Interests: Our laboratory has been interested in understanding how humans generate, select and maintain functional T cells as they progress in age and lose the ability to replenish T cells from the thymus. We are pursuing the hypothesis that an accelerated aging process of the immune system predisposes individuals to develop a variety of diseases that not only include infections and cancer but also autoimmunity and acute coronary syndromes. We are studying thymic function in healthy elderly and in patients, and we are developing assay systems that let us evaluate T-cell homeostasis and assess the balance between generation of novel T cells and replication of mature T cells. Our aim is to understand the functional consequences of T cell aging in normal individuals and the mechanism of accelerated immunosenescence in patients. These studies have implications for vaccine strategies in the elderly population, as exhaustion of the immune system will limit the opportunity to induce protective immunity (Goronzy JJ, Weyand CM. T cell development and receptor diversity during aging. Curr Opin Immunol In press)