Method of assaying an individual for immune impairment

A method of assaying an individual for immune impairment based on an assessment of cytokine responses, the method comprising:

• receiving an individual blood sample from an individual of a given age;
• separating a baseline sample and a response sample from the individual blood sample;
• permeabilizing the baseline sample and the response sample;
• stimulating the response sample using at least one cytokine;
• staining the baseline sample and the response sample using at least one STAT protein;
• measuring the phosphorylation of the at least one STAT protein within the baseline sample and the phosphorylation of the at least one STAT protein within the response sample based on phosphoprotein abundance;
• measuring the cytokine stimulation response of the individual by comparing the determined phosphorylation levels of STAT proteins of the baseline sample with the phosphorylation levels of STAT proteins of the response sample;
• generating a cytokine response score for the individual based on a comparison of the cytokine stimulation response of the individual to cytokine response profiles from a database of cytokine response profiles;
• phenotyping the individual for cytokine response based on the cytokine response score,
• wherein an individual is defined as a cytokine responder phenotype if the cytokine response score is within two standard deviations from the average cytokine response score of the cytokine response profiles from the database of cytokine response profiles;
• and
• wherein an individual is defined as a cytokine non-responder phenotype if the cytokine response score is more than two standard deviations from the average cytokine response score of the cytokine response profiles from the database of cytokine response profiles, and wherein the cytokine non-responder phenotype is associated with immune impairment;
• and
• treating the individual based on the phenotype of the individual, wherein the treatment is vaccination for a recurring disease that is appropriate for the cytokine responder phenotype.