February 28, 2018

Dr. Ashutosh Mangalam received a five-year NIH R01 research grant entitled “Linking diet, gut microbiota and autoimmune disease: Bacteria induced phytoestrogen metabolites impact immune function in Experimental Autoimmune Encephalitis”. Experimental Autoimmune Encephalitis (EAE) is an experimental mouse model of Multiple Sclerosis. The project will investigate the mechanisms by which gut bacteria-induced phytoestrogen metabolites regulates the host immune response during health and disease. This project builds upon previous findings from Dr. Mangalam’s laboratory that demonstrated MS patients to have distinct gut microbiota compared to healthy controls and to lack phytoestrogen metabolizing bacteria. The outcome of this study may help in the development of gut microbial-flora/diet-based therapies for MS, as well as other inflammatory autoimmune diseases.

The research will be conducted in collaboration with Drs. Katherine Gibson-Corley, Kevin Legge and Rama Sompallae within the Department of Pathology.