Title: Seeking Windows of Opportunity to Shape Lifelong Immune Health: A Network-Based Strategy to Predict and Prioritize Markers of Early Life Immune Modulation
| Authors: | Jolanda H. M. van Bilsen, Remon Dulos, Mariël F. van Stee, Marie Y. Meima, Tanja Rouhani Rankouhi, Lotte Neergaard Jacobsen, Anne Staudt Kvistgaard, Jossie A. Garthoff, Léon M. J. Knippels, Karen Knipping, Geert F. Houben, Lars Verschuren, Marjolein Meijerink and Shaji Krishnan |
| Published: | 2020 |
| Journal: | Frontiers in Immunology |
The immune system is not fully developed at birth, but matures over the first few years of life.
The first 1000 days – from conception up to two years of age – are key for the development a healthy immune system and lays the foundation for lifelong health.
Early life presents a unique window of opportunity to influence the development of the immune system, including training it to elicit the appropriate immune response to external stimuli.
Understanding molecular drivers and their function during early life immune development is key to identify strategies to strengthen and build immune health.
A new publication in Frontiers describes a “network-based approach that provides a science-based and systematical method to explore the functional development of the early life immune system through time. The systems approach aids the generation of a testing strategy for the safety and efficacy of early life immune modulation by predicting the key candidate markers during different phases of early life immune development.”
The publication is a collaboration between the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO), Arla Foods Ingredients, the Utrecht Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences (Utrecht University), the Danone Food Safety Center and Danone Research & Innovation.
Please click here for the full publication:
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fimmu.2020.00644/full