Clinical Specialties: gastroenterology, nephrology, urology, IBD in dogs
My clinical interests are gastroenterology and nephrology/urology. I use clinical cases to illustrate the need for translational research.
Research Areas: Inflammatory bowel disease, gastrointestinal physiology, innate immunity, mast cells, large animal models, dog, cat, mucosal immunology
The overriding goal of my research is to elucidate the mechanism of the protective role of the mast cell in IBD.
The long-term goal of my laboratory is to discover new functions of mast cells that could be used for design of new medications. Mast cells are ideal therapeutic targets due to their host of unique mediators that are not present in other cell types, but we are just beginning to understand some of their important functions, such as their anti-inflammatory activities.