Alex C.Y. Chen, Ph.D., and Debattama (Deb) Sen, Ph.D., of the Mass General Brigham Cancer Institute, are the lead and senior authors, respectively, of a paper published in Cell titled, “CRISPR screens identify targets to rescue age-related T cell dysfunction in cancer.”

As a person gets older, their immune system becomes worse at fighting disease. This age-related immune decline, also known as immune aging, is a critical barrier to successful cancer immunotherapy. However, it is not fully understood what causes immune aging, making it difficult to identify drug targets that could help overcome this barrier.