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Mangalam Lab Wins Multiple Trainee Awards

November 21, 2016

Mangalam Lab Wins Multiple Trainee Awards

Shailesh K. Shahi has been awarded Multiple Sclerosis Society’s (NMSS) Travel Award for 2016 Autumn Immunology Conference, held in Chicago November 18-21, 2016 for his research in the laboratory of Dr. Ashutosh K. Mangalam. He is working on a research project to decipher role of gut microbiota in modulation of multiple sclerosis (MS) in its animal model. Shailesh’s study provides evidence that administration of gut commensals may regulate a systemic immune response and have a possible role in the treatment of autoimmune diseases like MS. He is also studying therapeutic potential of combination therapy of gut commensals (P. histicola) with conventional MS drugs such as Glatiramer acetate and Interferon-β in suppressing disease utilizing a novel humanized animal model of MS.

Samantha Freedman is a one of the recipients for the T32 AI007485, "Predoctoral Training Program in Immunology." She is a second year graduate student in the Immunology Program and works in Dr. Ashutosh K. Mangalam’s lab. She is studying effects of diet and gut microbiota on multiple sclerosis (MS) utilizing its animal EAE (experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis).