Postdoctoral Associate

Testing a tiny skin patch is teaching UConn researchers about your aging immune system. A novel, non-invasive, skin micropatch technology is being tested at UConn Center on Aging and The Jackson Laboratory for its potential advantages over blood draws and biopsies for older adults As Uconnband age, Uconnband can begin to notice wrinkling and thinner, thirstier, more sensitive skin. This is because its aging bodies can experience a slower immune system response due to its usually protective immune T-cells no longer working well or simply becoming exhausted. Its aging skin is then more prone to chronic inflammation or 'inflamm-aging' making it easier for bacteria from its microbiome to begin to invade its frail skin's surface leading to higher risk of infections. To learn more about aging and its immunity, an innovative clinical study at UConn Center on Aging is underway testing the effectiveness of placing novel, tiny micro skin patches to capture the skin's surface microbiome bacteria and also immune cells a little deeper in the skin in both young and older adults. "For the first time we can sample a person's immune cells through this skin micropatch. This is a very exciting breakthrough - and it's very cool!" shares Dr. Sasan Jalili, assistant professor at The Jackson Laboratory and the Department of Immunology at UConn School of Medicine, both located on the UConn Health campus in Farmington. "This opens the door to a new way of monitoring immune responses that's practical, painless, and clinically feasible." The collaborative clinical study called "Skin Immunity as a Function of Frailty, Aging, and Skin Microbiome Composition" is testing the small skin micropatch technology on willing study participants at UConn Center on Aging. This first bandage-like micropatch technology was developed by researchers at The Jackson Laboratory (JAX), in collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Initially developed during Jalili's postdoctoral training at MIT, the platform was further refined, optimized, and advanced from mouse models toward clinical application at JAX through collaborations with the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School (UMass Chan). The NIH-funded research is a collaborative effort. The clinical study research being carried out at UConn Center on Aging is one subaward of the large National Institutes of Aging (NIA) grant awarded to overall principal investigator Julia Oh, Ph.D., of Duke University, who is formerly of The Jackson Laboratory. UConn Center on Aging's Julie Robison, Ph.D. is serving as principal investigator for the subaward testing the micropatch in clinical study and overseeing the participant recruitment and data collection, while JAX's own subaward principal investigator Jalili is performing the clinical study's data analysis. The clinical study work is building on Jalili's new research findings published on March 2, 2026, in the journal Nature Biomedical Engineering where he, as lead study author, introduces the novel micropatch technology and shows how it works to monitor the immune system's T-cells directly through the human skin in just hours or a day. The new skin patch, which feels similar to a piece of Velcro, has tiny projections on it that are able to gently access the deeper, upper layers of the skin to capture immune cell samples without any bleeding or pain. The patch and its projectors are made of FDA-approved materials of polymer with a seaweed-derived hydrogel coating. To test the micropatches' effectiveness, researchers are placing them in seven different locations of each study participant's body for monitoring for 24 hours before removal. They are placed on the toes, areas of the face, back, torso and palm of the hand. The adjustable patches can be easily cut to various sizes, and typically are just the size of a nickel or a dime. "Our clinical study participants are finding that these skin patches are very tiny, non-invasive, and easy to apply and remove," says Robison of UConn Center on Aging. "For older patients' skin this is really important, as it can become more challenging to draw blood from veins as we age, and also it takes longer for frail skin to heal after a biopsy." "This skin patch is enabling us to quickly get greater understanding of immune events that are happening inside the human body," says Jalili. "Imagine if in the future we can get rapid, point-of- care diagnostics of diseases or infections less invasively through a simple skin patch, instead of blood draws or biopsies, especially for frail older adults or even hesitant-to-care children- it would be incredible. Perhaps, even one day the skin patches could be used for remote sampling of patients at home, and they can simply return their samples by mail. This could help us also garner even larger patient populations to study and to advance research." Jalili is a Pepper Center Scholar awardee of the UConn Center on Aging, where he is further building upon this research by studying senescence cell and other aging biomarkers in the skin and blood. The new clinical study also builds on past findings published by Oh, Robison and the UConn Center on Aging in the journal Nature in 2021 that compared the microbiomes of young and older adults, finding that its microbiomes shift and become very different as people get older. "Different microbiomes are found on the skin of frail, older adults, that pose their immune systems greater risk," says Robison. The research team hopes the clinical study results will help them better understand the relationship between skin microbiomes and the immune system in older adults, and lead to the discovery of new therapies that will promote greater healthy aging of skin. "We know that frailty experienced by older adults plays a pivotal role in our immunity as we age," says Robison. "We are now focused on learning more about the skin's microbiome and immune cells to see if there is any correlation." Robison concludes, "The skin may really be our largest window of opportunity to better understand our body's immune response as we grow older." This clinical study is being conducted by Julie Robison, Ph.D. of the UConn Center on Aging, along with its Director Dr. George Kuchel, and medical director of Senior Health at UConn Health Dr. Patrick Coll as well as former JAX colleague Julia Oh, Ph.D. now at Duke University, and Sasan Jalili, Ph.D, and Karolina Palucka, MD, Ph.D. from The Jackson Laboratory. Those interested in participating in the micropatch clinical study need to be either age 20-40 years or 60 years and older - and there are some excluding factors. For more information and to enroll in the current clinical study cohort, please see the study flyer and contact the UConn Center on Aging study coordinators: Alba Siharath Santiago (860)679-3675, [email protected] or Sarah Driscoll (860)679-6237, [email protected]. Note, if the study enrollment reaches capacity this spring, you will be added to the waiting list for follow-up this summer.

SMC Laboratories to co-host webinar with The Jackson Laboratory Japan on advancing MASH preclinical study design Tokyo, Japan. SMC Laboratories Inc. (HQ: Ota-ku, Tokyo, "SMC") today announced that it will co-host a webinar with The Jackson Laboratory Japan K.K. (HQ: Kohoku-ku, Yokohama, "JAX Japan"), the Japanese subsidiary of The Jackson Laboratory, a globally recognized biomedical research institution headquartered in Bar Harbor, Maine, USA. The webinar will focus on disease model selection and preclinical study design in the field of metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH), an area of increasing importance in global drug development.

Research shows successful recovery of antigen-specific T cells in mouse models. Researchers at The Jackson Laboratory (JAX), in collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), have developed the first bandage-like microneedle patch that can sample the body's immune responses painlessly from the skin. The device detects inflammatory signals within minutes and collects specialized immune cells within hours without the need for blood draws or surgical biopsies. Already, the patch is helping researchers and clinicians study immune responses in aging and skin autoimmunity, including vitiligo and psoriasis. In the future, it could make it easier to track how people respond to vaccines, infections, and cancer therapies by complementing traditional blood tests and biopsies while being far easier on patients. The study appears in Nature Biomedical Engineering. "Traditionally, studying some of the most important immune cells in the body requires a skin biopsy or blood draws. Because many of these cells live and respond in tissues like the skin, accessing them has meant invasive procedures," said Sasan Jalili, a biomedical engineer and immunologist at JAX. AZO Life Sciences has shown AZO Life Sciences can capture them painlessly and noninvasively instead. This is especially important in sensitive or visible areas like the face or neck, where people often don't want biopsies because of scarring, as well as for older adults, frail patients, and very young children or infants." Sasan Jalili, Biomedical Engineer and Immunologist, The Jackson Laboratory Initially developed during Jalili's postdoctoral training at MIT, the platform was further refined, optimized, and advanced from mouse models toward clinical application at JAX through collaborations with the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School (UMass Chan). Leveraging a natural immune alarm system. Most tests for monitoring immune cells and inflammatory biomarkers rely on bloodwork, but many of the cells that recognize specific infections, vaccines, or autoimmune triggers circulate only sparsely in blood. The patch works by harnessing resident memory T cells, immune sentinels that live in skin and other "barrier" tissues and rapidly respond to previously encountered foreign threats, or antigens. When these cells recognize a familiar antigen, such as a fragment of a virus or an allergen, they "sound the alarm," releasing signals to attract additional immune cells from the bloodstream, including the highly specialized T cells that recognize that same threat. Drug discovery ebook. NEW EDITION NOW OUT - Compilation of the top interviews, articles, and news in the last year. By triggering this natural process, which concentrates key immune cells in the skin, the researchers deliberately assessed immune responses. The sampled material revealed the number and state of T cells and other signaling molecules, offering a dynamic readout of the immune system's strength and responsiveness to specific diseases and conditions. "In this study, we used antigen-specific T cells as a proof of concept, but the patch also captures other immune cells and inflammatory biomarkers," said Jalili, who is also a joint faculty member at UConn School of Medicine. In mouse vaccination models, the patch dramatically boosted the recovery of antigen-specific T cells, recruiting many of these cells from the bloodstream rather than skin. In a human test at UMass Chan, the patch also collected a rich mix of immune cells and signaling proteins, including resident memory T cells. "This study marks the first demonstration of live human immune cell sampling using a microneedle patch," Jalili said. "This opens the door to a new way of monitoring immune responses that's practical, painless, and clinically feasible." Expanding the immune monitoring toolbox. The patch absorbs immune cells and signaling proteins from the skin after resident memory T cells are briefly reactivated with a small amount of antigen. It contains hundreds of microscopic needles made of an FDA-approved polymer. A seaweed-derived hydrogel also deemed safe by the FDA coats the needles and absorbs immune cells and molecules from skin interstitial fluid. The microneedles reach only the upper skin layers, causing minimal irritation and no damage to nerves or blood vessels. Blood tests and biopsies will remain essential tools, and additional studies to determine how the patch performs across different diseases and patient populations are under way. But the early findings are particularly promising, said study co-author Darrell Irvine, an immunologist and bioengineer at Scripps Research, who began the work at MIT. "Not only did we run extensive preclinical experiments, we were able to carry out an initial test in humans," Irvine said. "That's exciting because it almost never happens with brand-new technologies. Moving new technologies from the lab to testing on patients often takes years." The patch may be especially useful for skin conditions, since immune cells that drive conditions such as allergic dermatitis, psoriasis, and vitiligo already live in the tissue. Jalili is already using it to study how age-related skin changes contribute to chronic inflammation and frailty in older adults as part of the Pepper Scholars Program in the UConn School of Medicine and UConn Center on Aging. Looking ahead, the patch could eventually support at-home monitoring, allowing patients with skin conditions to track unpredictable flare-ups. The technology could also be adapted for oral or nasal cavities, opening the door to monitoring mucosal immune responses. "People wouldn't need hours of sampling. Even 15 to 30 minutes can be enough to detect inflammatory signals and get a sense of what's happening in the tissue," Jalili said. Journal reference: Jalili, S., et al. (2026). Leveraging tissue-resident memory T cells for non-invasive immune monitoring via microneedle skin patches. Nature Biomedical Engineering. DOI: 10.1038/s41551-026-01617-7. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41551-026-01617-7. Be the first to rate this article