Professor in Residence, Medicine
School of Medicine

Associate Professor, Medicine
School of Medicine

Human Immunology, Aging, Dendritic cells, respiratory mucosal immunity, Inflammation, Alzheimer's disease, cancer immunology

2009 Honored as the Faculty mentor of the Month of September ’09 by the undergraduate research program (UROP) of UCI
2009 Invited to Gordon Research Conferences on Aging.
2007 AAI Junior Faculty travel award
2006 New Scholar award in aging from the Ellison Medical Foundation.
Postdoctoral Fellowship from La Ligue Nationale Contre le Cancer, Paris, France.
Fellowship from Centre International de Etudiants et Stagiaires for Poster Presentation.
Research Fellowship from Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, New Delhi.
Guest editor for special issue on Novel Vaccine Adjuvants for Biomedical Research Journal
2015 Guest editor special Issue Cancer Immunology and Immunotherapy- Biomedical Research International.
2015 Travel Award FOCIS.
2016 Press release about the abstract submitted to society of mucosal immunology meeting 2016.
2016 Travel Award International Congress of Immunology 2016.

Research Scientist, ICGEB, India.
Post doctoral Fellow,France.
Postdoctoral Fellow, Emory Vaccine Center, Emory University
Assistant Clinical Professor, Department of Medicine UCI

The primary focus of my research is to understand the mechanisms responsible for the decline of innate immune responses and increase in chronic inflammation associated with human aging with particular emphasis on dendritic cells. The goal is to understand how the dysfunction contributes to reduced vaccine, anti-infectious responses, neurodegenerative disorders and cancer. Our research findings indicate that DCs from elderly display a more inflammatory phenotype which results in enhanced pro-inflammatory cytokine secretion in response to pathogens. However, the production of protective antiviral Interferons as well as IL-10 that controls inflammation is reduced in the aged population. The increased inflammatory response of DCs from the elderly alters their interaction with pathogens including viruses. More recently, my research has focused on the interaction between lung immune cells, epithelial cells and other components and together this contributes to acute lung injury in the elderly. We have demonstrated that airway epithelial cells enhance the immune-surveillance and response to pathogens in myeloid and plasmacytoid DCs. We have also branched to determine the effect of peripheral immunity on neurodegenerative diseases such Alzheimer’s disease and have shown IL-21, a cytokine increased with aging may enhance AD pathogenesis. Moreover, the laboratory also studies the effect of immune dysfunction on cancers that increase substantially with age.

2017 Appointed Member, Vaccines Against Microbial Diseases (VMD) Study Section
2019 Faculty for Govt. of India’s Global Initiative Academic networks (GIAN) program
2019 Appointed Editor-in-Chief for Mediators of Inflammation
2019 Vice Chair School of medicine Admissions & Financial Aid Committee.
2020 Alzheimer’s research and UCI WAM grant highlighted in OC register and UCI news.
2020 Appointed Associate editor for Frontiers in Aging-Immunology Section.
2022 Guest editor Immunity and Ageing- for special issue on “Immunobiology of the
mucosal system”.
2022 Specialty Chief Editor for Aging and the Immune System, (specialty section of Frontiers
in Aging).
2022 COHS representative for Medicine, UCI.
2023 Sabbatical hosting laboratory for Professor Sehoon Kim from South Korea.
2023 Appointed member to Council on Equity and Inclusion (CEI) for the 2023-26 term.
2024 Faculty for MS-BATS program

I am a Professor in the Division of Basic and Clinical Immunology within the Department of Medicine, and a member of the Institute of Immunology at the UC Irvine School of Medicine. I completed my Ph.D. in India and was awarded a scholarship to work in Paris, France, in recognition of my research efforts. My focus shifted to innate immunity and dendritic cells during a postdoctoral fellowship at the Emory Vaccine Center, where I honed my skills further.

At UCI, I developed an independent research program centered on innate immunity, particularly its role in aging and related diseases. My research explores immune changes that increase susceptibility to respiratory infections, neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's, and cancer.





I am a Professor in the Division of Basic and Clinical Immunology within the Department of Medicine, and a member of the Institute of Immunology at the UC Irvine School of Medicine. I completed my Ph.D. in India and was awarded a scholarship to work in Paris, France, in recognition of my research efforts. My focus shifted to innate immunity and dendritic cells during a postdoctoral fellowship at the Emory Vaccine Center, where I honed my skills further.

At UCI, I developed an independent research program centered on innate immunity, particularly its role in aging and related diseases. My research explores immune changes that increase susceptibility to respiratory infections, neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's, and cancer.

Agrawal S, Tran TM, Jennings TSK, Soliman MMH, Heo S, Sasson B, Rahmatpanah F, Agrawal A Changes in the Innate Immune Response to SARS-CoV-2 with Advancing Age in Humans. Immunity and Ageing. 21, 21 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12979-024-00426-3.

Agrawal S, Baulch JE, Madan S, Salah S, Cheeks SN, Krattli RP Jr, Subramanian VS, Acharya MM, Agrawal A. Impact of IL-21-associated peripheral and brain crosstalk on the Alzheimer's disease neuropathology. Cell Mol Life Sci. 2022;79(6):331. doi: 10.1007/s00018-022-04347-6.

Chen JY, Agrawal S, Yi HP, Vallejo D, Agrawal A, Lee AP. Cell-Sized Lipid Vesicles as Artificial Antigen-Presenting Cells for Antigen-Specific T Cell Activation. Adv Healthc Mater. 2023;12(12):e2203163. doi: 10.1002/adhm.202203163.

Agrawal S, Salazar J, Tran TM, Agrawal A. Sex-Related Differences in Innate and Adaptive Immune Responses to SARS-CoV-2. Front Immunol. 2021;12:739757. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2021.739757.

Agrawal S, Monteiro C, Baca CF, Mohammadi R, Subramanian V, de Melo Bento CA, Agrawal A. Metabolites and growth factors produced by airway epithelial cells induce tolerance in macrophages. Life Sci. 2022;302:120659. doi: 10.1016/j.lfs.2022.120659. Erratum in: Life Sci. 2022;304:120702.

Agrawal S, Abud EM, Snigdha S; Agrawal A, IgM response against amyloid-beta in aging: a potential peripheral protective mechanism. Alzheimer's Research & Therapy. 2018. 10 :81.DOI: 10.1186/s13195-018-0412-9.

Agrawal A, Weinberger B. Editorial: The Impact of Immunosenescence and Senescence of Immune Cells on Responses to Infection and Vaccination. Front Aging. 2022;3:882494. doi: 10.3389/fragi.2022.882494.

Agrawal A, Bartley JM. Editorial : Women in Aging and the Immune System. Front Aging. 2024; Vol. 5, https://doi.org/10.3389/fragi.2024.1386626.

Rahmatpanah F, Agrawal S, Scarfone VM, Kapadia S, Mercola D, Agrawal A. Transcriptional Profiling of Age-Associated Gene Expression Changes in Human Circulatory CD1c+ Myeloid Dendritic Cell Subset. J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci. 2019; 74(1):9-15. doi: 10.1093/gerona/gly106.

Prakash S, Agrawal S, Vahed H, Ngyuen M, Benmohamad L, Gupta S, Agrawal A. Dendritic cells from aged subjects contribute to chronic airway inflammation by activating bronchial epithelial cells under steady state. Mucosal Immunol. 2014. Apr 23. doi: 10.1038/mi.2014.28.
Comment on the paper in Human Immunology News-2.16.April 29,2014

Sridharan A, Esposo M, Kaushal K, Tay J, Osann K , Agrawal S, Gupta S, Agrawal A. Age-associated impaired plasmacytoid dendritic cell functions lead to decreased CD4 and CD8 T cell immunity. AGE. 2010.DOI: 10.1007/s11357-010-9191-3.

Agrawal A and Gupta S. Impact of aging on dendritic cell functions in humans. Ageing Research Reviews. 2010. 10(3):336-45.

Agrawal A, Tay J, Yang GE, Agrawal S, Gupta S. Age-associated epigenetic modifications in human DNA increases its immunogenicity. Aging.2010. 2(2):93-100.

Agrawal A, Tay J, Ton S, Agrawal S, Gupta S. Increased Reactivity of Dendritic Cells from Aged Subjects to Self Antigen, the Human DNA. J Immunol. 2009. 182: 1138-1145.

Agrawal A, Agrawal S, Jianing Cao, Houfen Su, Kathryn Osann, Gupta S. Altered innate immune functioning of dendritic cells in aging humans : Role of PI3Kinase signaling pathway. J Immunol. 2007.178:6912-6922.

Agrawal A, Lingappa J, Leppa SH, Agrawal S, Jabbar A, Quinn C, Pulendran B. Impairment of dendritic cells and adaptive immunity by Anthrax lethal factor Nature. 2003 Jul 17;424(6946): 329-34.

Agrawal S, Gupta S and Agrawal A. Human dendritic cells activated via Dectin-1 are efficient at priming Th17, cytotoxic CD8 T and B cell responses. PLoS One. 2010 Oct 18;5(10):e13418.

1. R33 CA267258 (MPI: A.Agrawal) 09/06/2022- 08/31/2025 NIH/NCI “Microfluidic Precision Engineered Artificial Antigen Presenting Cells for Cancer Immunotherapy”. The major goal of the project is to engineer cell-sized unilamellar vesicles (CUVs) as artificial antigen presenting cells (aAPCs) to generate antigen-specific CD4+ T-cell responses.

2. R01CA260351 (MPI: Agrawal) 12/1/2021-11/30/2026 NIH/NCI “Ethnicity-determined T cell responses and GARP/TGFbeta1 signaling in prostate cancer”. This application proposes to develop unique prostate cancer patient-derived organoids and cell resources for dissecting factors and mechanisms (i.e. GARP/TGF-ß signaling) leading to immune differences between African American and European American prostate cancer.

American Associaion of Immunologists

Indian Immunologists Association

American Age Association

Society of mucosal immunology

Postdoctoral Fellow
Emory Vaccine Center, Emory University 2002—2005

Post Doctoral Fellow
Inserm Unite 255, Institut Curie, Paris, France 1999—2001

Research Scientist
International center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (UNIDO), New Delhi, India 1994—1999

Institute For Immunology

Division of Basic and Clinical Immunology

Link to this profile
https://faculty.uci.edu/profile/?facultyId=5170

Last updated
09/13/2024