The intestine (and other barrier tissues such as the skin and lung) is an incredibly fascinating microenvironment because it faces the complex task of maintaining health while directly interacting with the outside world.

The primary goal of our research is to understand the factors that make a healthy gut. Using diverse experimental approaches, a major focus is to understand how immune cells communicate with their local environment to promote protective immune responses relevant to human disease such as intestinal helminth infection and inflammatory bowel disease. We primarily use animal models of infectious diseases, gnotobiology and intestinal organoid-based approaches to understand how helminth infection and the gut microbiota shape intestinal immunity, physiology and host defense.