Inflammatory bowel disease is a debilitating chronic disease associated with inappropriate accumulation of white blood cells in the bowel. This causes tissue damage and is associated with pain, diarrhea, tiredness and weight loss. There are some effective drugs available that reduce the inflammation, but many patients will not respond to therapy. We have identified a […]

The gastrointestinal tract absorbs nutrients through the intestinal epithelium while controlling the resident bacterial community. A significant increase in the risk for inflammatory bowel diseases (IBDs) is associated with high cholesterol diets; dysbiosis, an imbalanced composition of gut bacteria, is an important hallmark of intestinal inflammation in patients with IBDs. However, the role of dietary […]

Inflammation is an integral part of immune defense against pathogens or tissue damage. However, inappropriate or prolonged inflammation has deleterious consequences and underlies many chronic diseases, especially inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) like Crohn’s disease and colitis. Specialized immune sensors that reside inside the cell cytosol are of particular interest in IBD, because mutations in the […]

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 […]