Chyi-Song Hsieh, M.D., Ph.D

RESEARCH INTEREST

The ability of the immune system to discriminate between harmful and "safe" bacteria is important because excessive inflammation in the intestines results in inflammatory bowel disease. Immune homeostasis in the gut appears to be an actively maintained process, as the experimental removal of the regulatory Foxp3+ subset of CD4+ T cells results in profound colitis. Thus, the normal colon contains both pro- and anti-inflammatory populations of T cells. Our goal is to understand the antigen specificity of these two T cell populations, and how this specificity dictates the development of regulatory versus pathogenic T cells in the colon.

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