Title: Associate Professor of Medicine | Physician-Scientist
Research Interests: Intestinal health (infection, inflammation, & healing), Parasitology (gut protozoa)
Mucosal Inflammation, Healing, and Repair
The epithelial barrier that lines the intestinal mucosa becomes compromised in multiple conditions such as infectious diseases, inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD), ischemia, mechanical injury, surgical procedures, radiation, and chemotherapy. There is a significant need to improve our understanding of the processes underlying effective mucosal wound closure and develop new therapeutic strategies for mucosal wound healing. Our current research focuses on understanding the mechanisms that promote barrier integrity and effective mucosal wound closure as information gained from these studies may ultimately lead to effective treatments to protect the gut.
Alternatives Approaches to Reduce our Dependence on Antibiotics
Reducing our dependence on antibiotics is essential to meet the threat of antibiotic resistance, ineffectiveness, and shortcomings. Our group explores several approaches in an attempt to achieve this, including Anti virulence strategies which disarms infectious pathogens virulence factors, as well as host-directed therapy which targets host factors or pathways.
Drug Delivery Technology
Cell-based drug delivery has the potential to revolutionize the way diseases are treated. Our lab is trying to generate a new cell-based drug delivery system to address challenges and optimize the therapeutic potential of this approach for a variety of medical applications.