Tissues such as our skin and gut define the barrier between ourselves and the outside world. These niches are home to trillions of microbes and recent advances have begun to understand how these populations can impact nutrition, disease, allergy, development and much more. Our cells must be able to distinguish between helpful and harmful microbes to encourage this balance and prevent false-alarm inflammatory reactions.
Join us for talks by two scientists who study how the Immune System keeps tabs on the microbes that inhabit two of our largest barrier tissues – our skin and our gut – and what happens when the delicate balance is disrupted.
Speakers:
Karen Edelblum, PhD
Intestinal Border Patrol: Keeping the Peace in the Gut
Dr. Karen Edelblum is an Associate Professor in Pathology at Mount Sinai School of Medicine and has been studying Crohn’s disease for way longer than she would like to admit. However, she’s okay with this, because as a patient herself, she would like to cure the disease forever and then open a bakery that may sell poop-themed baked goods. Dr. Edelblum has a fancy science pedigree and is an expert in a VERY niche area of gastrointestinal biology, but most importantly, she delights placing herself in situations that involve explaining immunology to a highly engaged audience through interpretative dance.
One layer of cells forms a barrier that separates everything you eat and microbes in your gut from the rest of your body. A specialized type of immune cell functions as intestinal border patrol, constantly surveying the barrier and responding to various microbes, both good and bad. What happens to this immune surveillance when poop hits the proverbial fan in patients with inflammatory bowel disease? Can we step up the patrol and prevent gut barrier devastation? Join us to find out!
Nicholas Bessman, PhD
Who gets a place at the table? Nutrient competition and cooperation in the gut
Nick Bessman is an Assistant Professor and Chancellor Scholar at Rutgers University. After growing up in Iowa, he found his way to the East Coast in his pursuit of new ideas and cool data. He started his career studying the structures of human proteins that cause cancer, but 10 years ago he realized that the mysterious bacteria living in our gut are way more interesting than human cells. And he's been studying them ever since! The Bessman lab has recently focused on how dietary nutrients are shared between gut bacteria and their human hosts, and how this relationship impacts human health.
In recent years we have just begun to appreciate the importance of intestinal bacteria in human health. Every aspect of our health is impacted by the identity of these bacteria and the molecules they produce. So how do we keep these bacteria happy and healthy? Our research has focused on how dietary nutrients, which are critical for both human and bacterial health, are shared or hoarded in the gut, and how this impacts human health and disease.