The gastrointestinal (GI) tract plays an essential role in our overall health and well-being. It contains one of the largest immune systems, which protects against infection and inflammation. It harbors trillions of microbes (the microbiota), which promote digestion and gut immune system maturation. However, it also drives numerous human diseases when the immune system or the microbiota is dysregulated in the gut, including inflammatory disorders, metabolic diseases, as well as various age-related cognition and behavior disorders, and neurogenerative diseases. A better understanding of the cellular and molecular mechanisms that orchestrate the GI tract homeostasis is necessary for the development of novel preventative, therapeutic, and curative strategies that advance human health.

The long-term research goals of the lab are to dissect, at the cellular and molecular level, how GI tract homeostasis is achieved, how dysregulation of these pathways impacts health, disease, and longevity, and how we can harness approaches to reinstate homeostasis, treat diseases, and lengthen healthy longevity of life. By utilizing multiple transcriptomic sequencing techniques, mouse genetic models, pre-clinical disease models, and translational human samples, the laboratory broadly interrogates three key research themes with a focus on gut antigen-presenting cells: (i) How does the immune system sense gut microbiota to initiate immune tolerance in the gut? (ii) What are the key molecular regulators of the immune responses that enforce immune tolerance to the microbiota and restrain inflammation in the gut? (iii) How do key immune pathways in the gut contribute to health, disease, and aging over the lifespan?