Our focus

The nervous system is an active participant in immune responses, that serves to coordinate responses to pathogens and quiet inappropriate activation of immune cells.

To accomplish this unique B- and T-cells serve to relay information from the nervous system by producing acetylcholine. Generally regarded as a neurotransmitter, acetylcholine exerts tremendous control over immune cells, blocking their activation.

Our lab is focused on understanding the neuronal pathways and mechanisms of control in order to leverage this knowledge for the treatment of chronic immunopathologies such as Inflammatory bowel disease and infectious diseases.

We are also exploring how neuronal signaling coordinates host immune responses during infection using pathogens such as Citrobacter rodentium that recapitulate aspects of disease caused by enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli. New collaborative studies will investigate neuroimmune regulation during influenza infection.

To accomplish these goals our lab utilizes complimentary techniques including

• Conditional optogenetics

• Confocal/multiphoton microscopy

• Flow cytometry

• Mass spectrometry