Before we’re even born, our bodies grow and train an army of spies and assassins, creating a lifetime supply of immune system fighters in the upper chest's thymus gland.

After adolescence, the thymus reduces production at its 'spy and assassin' factory to a trickle. As we age, our immune system and its plasma cells sometimes make mistakes, leading to mutations in our antibodies, and odd feedback loops.

Those glitches contribute to the generation of chronic lymphocytic leukemia or B-cell lymphomas such as non-Hodgkin lymphoma. They can also contribute to the development of autoimmune diseases such as lupus and myasthenia gravis.

"We think this all has to do with a life-or-death signalling loop," said Dr. Peter Pioli, who moved to the University of Saskatchewan last year to become an assistant professor of Biochemistry, Microbiology & Immunology. In February, he published his findings in iScience.

"For autoimmune patients, you get this thymus that gets filled up with all these B-cells and plasma cells, so you no longer have this little trickle; you have a bit of a runaway train," he said.

Using a black mouse model, Pioli and his team are trying to piece together the triggers convincing aging B-cells to mistakenly ramp up plasma cell production.

"It fascinates and confounds you all in one," said Pioli. "This one cell has to have this perfectly aligned machinery to do this. And it's kind of hard to look away when you find something like that."

A "curious troublemaker" who loved to tinker as a kid, Pioli remembers taking apart tools and objects in his parents' garage, removing pieces and trying to rebuild them. That curiosity carried him through his graduate studies and post-doctoral work in Wisconsin, Utah, and California.

"It's just a lot of fun, and especially you get the payoff of hopefully finding something that could actually help someone someday," Pioli said. "Understanding aging, understanding these breakdowns that lead to autoimmune diseases and tissue breakdown."

Pioli admits his scientific career has taken plenty of detours, but he's extremely grateful it unfolded the way it did.

"There's a lot you learn from that, not just in terms of experience," he said. "You also learn about yourself in terms of your potential to persevere and maybe the potential to be supremely stubborn, to keep at it."