Dr. Yue Cao, MD, from Qinghai Medical College, China, is a research fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School in the Pediatric GI Unit and Mucosal Immunology Laboratory under the direction of Dr. Hai Ning Shi. Recently, we have reported that a coinfection of intestinal helminth parasite (H. polygyrus) results in the exacerbation of C. rodentium-induced intestinal inflammation, and that the exacerbated bacteria colitis that develops in coinfected mice correlates with a marked increase of F4/80+ macrophages in the colonic lamina propria via a STAT6-dependent mechanism. Further phenotypic analysis of macrophages demonstrates that these cells are alternatively activated. Dr. Cao will study the mechanisms by which intestinal helminthes modulate the responses of innate immune cells of the host to enteric bacterial infections.
