AROGYA: Healthy Aging with HIV
We have initiated an interdisciplinary study, called AROGYA which means wellbeing in Sanskrit. The overall aims of the AROGYA project are to use complimentary inter-disciplinary expertise to unravel the physiological and molecular pathways that underline the premature aging of the immune system (immune-aging) and to potentially generate novel therapeutic approaches for age-related diseases with a focus on the people who are living with HIV (PLHIV).

Healthy aging with HIV has become an increasingly relevant and achievable goal, thanks to advancements in ̽ѡ care and antiretroviral therapies. As individuals with HIV live longer, the focus has shifted to promoting overall well-being and addressing age-related health concerns. Comprehensive healthcare strategies now emphasize controlling the virus and managing other health factors, such as cardiovascular health, bone density, mental health, and social well-being.
The application of interdisciplinary science, specifically the integration of multi-omics systems biology and advanced technology like organ-on-chip, holds immense promise in understanding and promoting healthy aging. To explore the intricate molecular mechanisms underlying the aging process at a systemic level, we use multi-omics systems biology that involves the comprehensive analysis of various biological data sets, such as transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, microbiome, and more, from well-defined clinical cohorts from both high and low-income settings.
Objectives
The primary objectives of the AROGYA study include leveraging interdisciplinary expertise to decode the physiological and molecular mechanisms driving the premature aging of the immune system, known as immune aging. The project focuses on developing innovative therapeutic strategies for age-associated diseases, with particular attention to individuals living with HIV (PWH).
- Create and apply innovative technologies for isolating, detecting, and profiling single cells, enhancing high-throughput basic and translational research.
- Establish a frame of reference to identify new biomarkers of immune aging through proteotranscriptomic studies of specific cell subsets, which could be pivotal for clinical interventions.
- Detect changes in metabolic patterns that offer therapeutic opportunities to intervene in the immune aging process through metabolic manipulation.
- Confirm the new biomarkers discovered in -omics studies and elucidate the cellular mechanisms underlying immune aging in PWH.
Publications
Mikaeloff F, Gelpi M, Escos A, Knudsen AD, Høgh J, Benfield T, de Magalhães JP, Nielsen SD, Neogi U
Aging Cell 2023 Oct;22(10):e13951
Svensson Akusjärvi S, Krishnan S, Ambikan AT, Mikaeloff F, Munusamy Ponnan S, Vesterbacka J, Lourda M, Nowak P, Sönnerborg A, Neogi U
AIDS 2023 Jun;37(7):1023-1033
Mikaeloff F, Gelpi M, Benfeitas R, Knudsen AD, Vestad B, Høgh J, Hov JR, Benfield T, Murray D, Giske CG, Mardinoglu A, Trøseid M, Nielsen SD, Neogi U
Elife 2023 Feb;12():
Ambikan AT, Svensson-Akusjärvi S, Krishnan S, Sperk M, Nowak P, Vesterbacka J, Sönnerborg A, Benfeitas R, Neogi U
Life Sci Alliance 2022 Sep;5(9):e202201405
Svensson Akusjärvi S, Krishnan S, Jütte BB, Ambikan AT, Gupta S, Rodriguez JE, Végvári Á, Sperk M, Nowak P, Vesterbacka J, Svensson JP, Sönnerborg A, Neogi U
Commun Biol 2022 Apr;5(1):357
Akusjärvi SS, Ambikan AT, Krishnan S, Gupta S, Sperk M, Végvári Á, Mikaeloff F, Healy K, Vesterbacka J, Nowak P, Sönnerborg A, Neogi U
iScience 2022 Jan;25(1):103607
Mikaeloff F, Svensson Akusjärvi S, Ikomey GM, Krishnan S, Sperk M, Gupta S, Magdaleno GDV, Escós A, Lyonga E, Okomo MC, Tagne CT, Babu H, Lorson CL, Végvári Á, Banerjea AC, Kele J, Hanna LE, Singh K, de Magalhães JP, Benfeitas R, Neogi U
Commun Biol 2022 Jan;5(1):27
Olund Villumsen S, Benfeitas R, Knudsen AD, Gelpi M, Høgh J, Thomsen MT, Murray D, Ullum H, Neogi U, Nielsen SD
Front Immunol 2021 ;12():742736
Sperk M, Ambikan AT, Ray S, Singh K, Mikaeloff F, Diez RC, Narayanan A, Vesterbacka J, Nowak P, Sönnerborg A, Neogi U
J Virol 2021 Aug;95(18):e0047921
Sperk M, Mikaeloff F, Svensson-Akusjärvi S, Krishnan S, Ponnan SM, Ambikan AT, Nowak P, Sönnerborg A, Neogi U
iScience 2021 Feb;24(2):102111
Gelpi M, Mikaeloff F, Knudsen AD, Benfeitas R, Krishnan S, Svenssson Akusjärvi S, Høgh J, Murray DD, Ullum H, Neogi U, Nielsen SD
Aging (Albany NY) 2021 Oct;13(19):22732-22751
Soares RRG, Varela JC, Neogi U, Ciftci S, Ashokkumar M, Pinto IF, Nilsson M, Madaboosi N, Russom A
Biosens Bioelectron 2020 Oct;166():112442
Collaborators
AROGYA brings together clinicians, basic scientists and translational ̽ѡ researchers with technology experts and engineers.
Principal Investigator

Ujjwal Neogi, PhD
̽ѡ, Sweden
Ujjwal is an Associate Professor of Virology and Group Leader in Department of Laboratory Medicine, ̽ѡ. He received the Swedish Research Council establishment grant 2017 to understand the HIV-1 disease control mechanism using a multi-omics system biology approach. His interest is to understand the host immune defenses against viral infections using multi-omics system biology studies and mechanistic understanding through experimental models.

Collaborators
, MD, DMSc
Rigshospitalet and University of Copenhagen, Denmark
Susanne Dam Poulsen is a Professor of Infectious Diseases at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, and has decade-long experience in treating people living with HIV (PWH) with different co-morbidities. She is the custodian of one of the largest European bio-banked HIV aging cohorts named the Copenhagen Comorbidity in HIV-infection (COCOMO), the study for a longitudinal, non-interventional assessment of non-AIDS comorbidity in HIV infection in Denmark.

, MD, PhD
Amsterdam University Medical Centers, The Netherlands
Dasja Pajkrt is a Viral Pediatric Infectious Diseases Professor at the Amsterdam University Medical Centers (Amsterdam UMC), The Netherlands. She is the Principal Investigator (PI) of the Department of Pediatric Infectious Diseases and the study “Neurological, cardiovascular, visual, and neurocognitive performance in pediatric HIV-1- infected patients as compared to healthy controls (NOVICE)”. Dasja leads the research group OrganoVIR Labs, where clinicians, virologists, and tissue engineers work together to develop innovative animal-free models for virus research.

, PhD
Amsterdam University Medical Centers, The Netherlands
Adithya Sridhar is a senior scientist at the OrganoVIR Labs at the Amsterdam University Medical Centers (Amsterdam UMC), The Netherlands. He has a degree in Bio̽ѡ Engineering from the University of Oxford and did his PhD in the lab-on-chip group of Prof. van den Berg at the University of Twente. He has over ten years of experience developing complex in vitro cell culture models. As a Senior Scientist at the Amsterdam UMC, he has set airway, gut, and brain organoid models for virology.

, PhD
Cardiff University, United Kingdom
Yasir Ahmed Syed is a Lecturer in Neuroscience at Cardiff University, UK. Syed lab is to define the biological basis of neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric disorders. Using the patient-derived pluripotent stem cells and differentiating them into multiple neural linage cells and organoids in vitro, the group employs a combination of cellular, genetic, electrophysiological, behavioral, and material science approaches to understand the mechanisms of disease initiation and progression, and ultimately develop novel and reliable drug targets. Within this project, we aim to identify the contribution of neuroinflammation to the pathogenesis of neurodevelopmental disorders and psychiatric phenotypes in PWH.

Piotr Nowak, MD, PhD
̽ѡ, Sweden
Piotr is an Associate Professor at ̽ѡ and senior consultant, director of HIV Clinical Research Unit and the Therapeutic unit for Microbiota Transplantation at Karolinska University Hospital. His main research interest is to understand the role of the microbiome in chronic infections like HIV /HCV and Mycobacterium tuberculosis and the mechanisms behind the success of microbiome modulation in the clinic through fecal microbial transplantation.

, MD, PhD
Uppsala University, Sweden
Ulf is a Professor of Molecular Medicine and the head of the Molecular Tools Research program at the Department of Immunology, Genetics, and Pathology, Uppsala University, Uppsala. He has invented several advanced molecular analysis methods including padlock probes and proximity ligation assays. The methods and assays have been successfully applied by researchers worldwide and commercialized by spin-out companies. Prof Landegren holds 45 patents.

Akos Vegvari, PhD
̽ѡ, Sweden
Akos is Associate Professor at ̽ѡ, Stockholm. He is head of the facility at Proteomics Biomedicum, Karolinska Institute. He has vast experience in mass-spectrometric based method development. His primary research interest is to develop a method for single-cell proteomics using mass spectrometry for studying various processes of biological and ̽ѡ importance.

Funding
The study is funded by Vetenskapsrådet (the Swedish Research Council).
The study is also partially funded by:
- The Swedish Physicians Against AIDS
- Åke Wibergs Stiftelse