Intestinal Immunity in health and disease

肠道是主要的免疫器官，容纳高达70%的身体免疫细胞，并包含约32平方米的管腔表面积。肠道必须平衡其吸收营养的作用与最佳的免疫功能。肠道免疫系统必须与肠道微生物共生共存，同时消除有害病原体，以防止这些病原体进入血液和淋巴循环系统。肠道免疫功能紊乱导致多种疾病，包括炎症性肠病（IBD）、癌症和衰老。IBD影响全球数百万人，高达40%的患者对可用的，主要是通用的免疫抑制剂药物没有反应。在IBD中，肠道免疫失调，导致正常肠道细胞生理和功能的破坏。我们开发或优化最先进的技术，并应用这些技术来定义管理人类肠道免疫健康和IBD的分子途径。我们利用我们的大型临床队列直接映射人类肠道病理学的所有亚型的疾病，包括复杂的耐药并发症的患者。这些信息用于设计新的治疗方法，以改善对这种疾病的管理。我们的工作有助于MRC转化免疫发现单位的更广泛的目标，以定义人类组织和屏障免疫学及其在各种免疫介导的炎症性疾病中的失调。

The intestine is a major immune organ, housing up to 70% of the body’s immune cells and incorporating a luminal surface area of about 32 square meters. The intestine must balance its role in absorption of nutrients with optimal immune function. The intestinal immune system must co-exists symbiotically with luminal microbes whilst eliminating harmful pathogens to prevent these from entering the blood and lymph circulatory systems. Disturbance in intestinal immunity contributes to a variety of conditions including inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), cancer and aging. IBD affects several million people world-wide and up to 40% patients fail to respond to available, largely generic immunosuppressant medication. In IBD intestinal immunity is dysregulated leading to destruction of normal intestinal cellular physiology and function. We develop or optimise state of the art technologies and apply these to define molecular pathways governing human intestinal immune health and IBD. We take advantage of our large clinical cohorts to directly map human intestinal pathology in all sub forms of the disease including patients with complex drug resistant complications. This information is used to inform design of novel therapeutics to improve management of this condition. Our work contributes to the broader aim of the MRC Translational Immune Discovery Unit to define human tissue and barrier immunology and its dysregulation in a variety of immune mediated inflammatory disorders.