I am a 3rd-year student in the Microbiology, Immunology, and Cancer Biology (MICaB) graduate program. I work in Dr. Christina Camell's lab, where I study how CD8+ T cells, which are important infection mediators, become dysfunctional during aging. In particular, I will study how this dysfunction is driven by epigenetic reprogramming. The visceral adipose tissue (VAT) becomes increasingly inflamed and infiltrated by immune cells during aging. This tissue is thought to be one of the first sites of immune aging, and is abundant in growth differentiation factor 3 (GDF3) transcripts. I aim to understand how GDF3, which is a TGF-beta superfamily cytokine, suppresses primary T cell responses and alters cellular phenotypes within the aged adipose tissue.