Vaccine immunity and inflammation in the aging person living with HIV

Persons living with HIV (PLWH) are at increased risk of chronic inflammation and the associated adverse health outcomes. There is considerable evidence that chronic inflammatory conditions like metabolic disease and autoimmune disorders are associated with weakened vaccine responses and existing vaccine studies in

PLWH do not adequately sample older individuals who are disproportionately affected by this “inflammaging.” We hypothesize the effect of age on poor vaccine responses is greater among PLWH given the additional burdens of HIV driven inflammation. The overall project goal is to examine this premise by measuring the

impact of HIV status, age, and chronic immune activation on conjugate pneumococcal vaccine responses. We will study acute (30 day) and longer-term (2-year) immune responses following PCV20 vaccination, among a cohort of participants including 4 groups: a) older PLWH, age ≥50 (n=100), b) older HIV uninfected controls,

age ≥50 (n=50), c) younger PLWH, age