As people age, the immune system weakens and there are difficulties in fighting diseases and new viruses. The cause is in hematopoietic cells or adult stem cells responsible for producing lymphocytes, which defend the body against any new threat.
Stanford University School of Medicine researcher Irving Weissman isolated these adult stem Cells from mice and humans in the late 1980s. If we can revitalize the aging human immune system as we did in mice, it could save lives when the next pandemic comes, says one of the authors.