Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) is a chronic disease that affects the intestines and causes uncontrolled inflammation. To treat it, we currently use medicines that broadly block the immune system to calm down the inflammation. But these medicines have side effects – your immune system normally helps protect from infections and cancer, and the risk for […]
Ulcerative colitis (UC) affects nearly one million adults in the United States. Although many effective medications are available, selecting the right treatment for an individual patient is still largely trial and error. We aim to enable precise, personalized UC treatment by identifying biological and clinical signals that predict therapeutic response at the outset. Building on […]
The human gut is home to trillions of microbes including bacteria, viruses and fungi. These microbes play a crucial role in our health, particularly in diseases like Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD), which affects millions worldwide. Surprisingly, not only the microbes that naturally reside in our intestines but also those we consume through our diet, especially […]
Crohn’s disease causes long-lasting inflammation in the intestines. Specialized tubes in the body, called lymphatic vessels, may play an important role in this disease. Intestinal lymphatics normally carry fluids, nutrients and immune cells from the intestine to nearby lymph nodes. In people with Crohn’s disease, lymphatics can become blocked or leaky, which may cause more […]
Recent studies show that the communication between the gut and the brain, known as the neuroimmune axis, plays a critical, possibly bidirectional, role in health and disease, including Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD). Research using mice has revealed that brain activity linked to ulcerative colitis can be traced to specific neurons in the brain. Critically, reactivating […]
Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) damages the intestine through two connected problems: inflammation (swelling) and fibrosis (scarring). Emerging research reveals that fibroblasts—the cells responsible for scarring—also actively drive inflammation. Unfortunately, no current therapy effectively treats both. Our project unites a pediatric gastroenterologist and a pediatric surgeon to tackle this challenge. We focus on IL13Rα2, a protein […]
Inflammatory Bowel Diseases (IBD), including Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, are driven in part by disruptions in the gut microbiome. Thousands of microbiome and metabolite studies have been published, but it remains difficult to convert this information into reliable, actionable insights that can guide new therapies. A key barrier is human bandwidth: integrating many complex […]
Microorganisms are critical to the health and disease of Inflammatory Bowel Disease patients. As such, manipulating them has great therapeutic potential. Indeed, there is now evidence that the engineered microorganisms can treat intestinal inflammation through the delivery of therapeutic proteins. However, this new class of therapies based on living cells have so far been optimized […]
We currently lack cures for chronic intestinal diseases. Despite incredible advances in understanding and targeting inflammation that promotes diseases like Crohn’s and ulcerative colitis, many patients develop resistance to treatment, suggesting alternative disease drivers beyond immune cells and the inflammatory molecules they produce. While the gut has remarkable regenerative capacity due to specialized stem cells […]
The composition and activity of the gut microbiota is a key modulator of Inflammatory Bowel Diseases (IBD). Importantly, the bacteria that reside within the gut are organized within distinct biogeographical niches, and niche occupancy can be a major contributor to IBD. Unfortunately, the biogeography of the gut microbiota, its modulation during intestinal inflammation and the […]
