Could infections accelerate aging? What one pharmacy professor is discovering in her research
Assistant Professor Azadeh Nasuhidehnavi is taking a closer look at a concept called "inflammaging," where chronic inflammation is a hallmark of the aging process
Everyone wishes they could stay young, but time isn’t on our side. To make matters worse, research is showing that inflammation can contribute to accelerating the aging process.
Assistant Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences Azadeh Nasuhidehnavi recently joined the °®¶ą´«Ă˝ School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, bringing with her a research topic that impacts everyone: Aging.
Nasuhidehnavi’s research focuses on understanding how immunometabolic responses accelerate aging processes in parasitic diseases and how immune responses during cardiometabolic diseases contribute to the aging process. Her work aims to bridge the gap between infectious diseases and aging process, with implications for advancing therapeutic approaches in both fields.
We sat down with Nasuhidehnavi to learn more about her research and journey to °®¶ą´«Ă˝.
What is the focus of your research when it comes to aging?
My research right now is looking at how chronic parasitic infections might contribute to accelerated aging. These infections can stay in your body for life, causing this low-grade, ongoing inflammation. It’s not something you always notice, but it’s there, and it can have long-term effects on your tissues and organs.
This ties into a concept called “inflammaging,” which is a state of low-grade, chronic inflammation developing during the aging process. I’m particularly interested in how changes in metabolism, which happen both in aging and in response to infections, might drive this process further. That’s the intersection I’m exploring — infectious disease, immunity, aging and metabolism.
Has there been anything that surprised you in your research?
One thing that surprised me was when we studied how the number of parasites affects disease severity. We thought infecting with a higher dose would lead to a worse outcome, but surprisingly, it didn’t. Whether animals were infected with 100 or 1 million parasites, the chronic stage of the disease looked very similar.
That was unexpected — we assumed more parasites would lead to a stronger immune response and more severe symptoms. But the parasites replicate in the body, and they tend to hide in specific tissues later on. So maybe the initial dose doesn’t matter as much as we thought.
What has your journey to °®¶ą´«Ă˝ been like?
My journey started with parasitic diseases and immunology, and I was always fascinated by how parasites interact with the host. Initially, I focused on metabolic changes caused by parasites — were they manipulating the host, or was the immune system causing these shifts? Over time, my research evolved toward seeing how these changes might accelerate aging.
It wasn’t a straight path — more like one interest leading to another until I found this niche. Now, I’m looking at the long-term effects of these diseases, not just the acute phase. The idea that something microscopic can affect your whole body for a lifetime — that’s what keeps me interested.
How would you describe your experience at °®¶ą´«Ă˝ so far?
So far, my experience at the university has been great! The department is very collaborative, and I’m involved in multiple projects with different faculty members.
I’ve found the culture here to be open to new ideas and respectful of everyone’s input. That’s so important in research — having people who are supportive and willing to listen makes all the difference.
It’s not just about working in isolation; it’s about building something together. I value that part of the environment here.
When did you realize this topic was going to be your passion?
There wasn’t a single moment when I decided to go in this direction — it was more like a chain reaction of interests. I started with Chagas disease, which is caused by a parasite and leads to chronic infection and heart disease. That led me to look into how metabolism is affected, and then I found the concept of “inflammaging.”
It made me think — could these long-lasting infections be contributing to aging through inflammation? Around the same time, people started talking more about long COVID and its lingering inflammation, which really connected with my work. So it all kind of clicked and pushed me into this new area of aging research.
Why is this research important to you and the general public?
What’s compelling is how this kind of research connects to broader issues people are already facing. We’re seeing chronic inflammation in long COVID cases, and that has parallels with what I’m studying. It’s not just about rare parasites anymore — it’s about how our immune system can be in this low-alert mode for years and what that does to our health.
Even in metabolic and heart diseases, there’s more attention now on this kind of slow-burning inflammation. These aren’t obvious immune responses, but they’re still doing damage quietly over time. That growing awareness has helped validate the importance of what I’m researching.
What is something you’ve noticed in recent years regarding immune response or activity?
What I like is that people are starting to appreciate the impact of low-grade immune responses. It used to be that we focused on big events like heart attacks — big immune reactions and dramatic symptoms. But now there’s recognition that even mild, chronic immune activity can affect the heart and other organs over time.
For example, in metabolic diseases like diabetes, some immune cells are active without infection, and they can damage tissue just because they’re in this primed state. That’s a huge shift in how we think about disease. It’s subtle but important — and it’s starting to be taken seriously.
What are your hopes when it comes to the future of this research?
I don’t know if I’d call it underfunded, but I do hope we see more support for research in immunometabolic and cardiometabolic diseases. Metabolism is central to so many health conditions, from infections to heart disease to aging. If the body can’t regulate its metabolic state, that’s often where problems begin.
I work with infections, but I see that metabolism is the common thread tying a lot of diseases together. So more funding in that area would help push the field forward. I think we’re just scratching the surface of how critical it is.