Determining how the microbiota and dietary selenium influence the function of long-lived intestinal macrophages to promote gut health

现代生活方式带来的微生物定植和饮食营养等环境因素的变化对人类健康产生了重大影响。其中一些变化对我们的生活质量产生了负面影响，并限制了我们的健康和福祉。我们的肠道是我们身体中一个非常重要的器官，它使我们能够从所吃的食物中提取营养和水分。和食物一样，它与生活在我们体内的大量有益细菌密切接触。它还为有害细菌提供了进入我们体内的途径。这种通过肠道进入我们身体的各种刺激对我们的身体来说是一个挑战，我们的身体需要保持肠道工作所需的恒定环境。破坏这种精心平衡的环境可能导致炎症，食物不耐受和癌症等疾病。我最近描述了肠道中的一种免疫细胞，它从出生时就存在，并伴随我们一生。初步结果表明，这一群体可能有助于保持健康的肠道。我的研究目标是发现这些肠道免疫细胞如何维持健康的肠道，以及我们是否可以使用细菌和食物营养素来增强它们的功能。

Changes to environmental factors such as microbial colonisation and dietary nutrition, brought about by modern lifestyles, are having significant impacts on human health. Some of these changes are having negative impacts on the quality of life we experience and limit our health and wellbeing. Our gut is an extremely important organ in our bodies that allows us to extract the nutrients and water from the food we eat. As well as food, it is in close contact with the large community of good bacteria that live inside us. It also provides a route of entry into our bodies for harmful bacteria. This variety of stimuli entering our bodies through our gut represents a challenge for our bodies, which need to maintain a constant environment necessary for the gut to do it's job. Disruption of this carefully balanced environment can lead to illnesses such as inflammation, food intolerance and cancer. I have recently described an immune cell in the gut that is present from birth and stays with us over the course of our lifetime. Initial results suggest that this population could help to maintain a healthy gut. My research aims are to discover how these gut immune cells maintain a healthy gut and whether we can boost their function using bacteria and food nutrients.