Irah King

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 my research program 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 gnotobiotic animal infection models and intestinal organoid-based approaches to understand how helminth infection and the gut microbiota shape intestinal physiology and host defense. Ongoing studies include:

1. The molecular mechanisms of CD4+ T cell differentiation following intestinal helminth infection.
2. Innate immune responses that initiate and/or regulate Type 2 immune responses following intestinal helminth and bacterial infection.
3. Regulation of IL-17-producing gamma delta T cells in the context of intestinal barrier integrity and host defense.
4. The influence of the gut microbiota on protective immunity at barrier sites.

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