Gastrointestinal (GI) health is essential for overall body health. Inflammatory insults to the GI mucosa often cause profound and irreversible changes of GI homeostasis, including disrupted enteric neural regulation and subsequent alteration of GI function. Mucosal inflammation causes irreversible structural changes of the enteric nervous system (ENS), demonstrating a strong linkage between inflammation and GI […]

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is less common in parts of the world with parasitic worm infections than in the developed world. Understanding why may lead to new types of therapy. We recently found that infection by parasitic worms increases the number of beneficial anti-inflammatory Clostridiales bacteria in the intestine, and that these bacteria can outcompete […]

So far, most research on the microbiome in IBD has mostly focused on gut bacteria. However, there is increasing evidence to support that other members of the microbiome, such as viruses, may also have an important role. Herein we plan to study the role of viral exposures in IBD development. A major challenge of this […]

Environmental factors are thought to contribute to the development of a range of human diseases, including inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Interestingly, the incidence of IBD is higher in patients with autism, compared to those without. We propose that inflammation to which a developing embryo may be exposed in the maternal […]

Adherent-invasive Escherichia coli (AIEC), a pathogenic form of E. coli, is known to accumulate in the intestinal mucosa of patients with Crohn’s disease (CD). Although it is believed that AIEC exacerbates the disease by promoting intestinal inflammation, the precise mechanism underlying the abnormal expansion of AIEC in the intestinal mucosa remains largely unknown. We have […]