Gut Immunogenomics Lab

Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) affects more than 100,000 Australians, and these numbers are on the rise. The most common IBD subtypes are ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease. The recurrent flares of intestinal inflammation experienced in IBD are, at best, managed rather than cured, placing a significant burden on the patients and healthcare system. Of considerable concern, people with IBD are at least twice as likely to be diagnosed with colorectal cancer than the general public, yet non-invasive methods for surveillance do not exist and surgical resection is the only treatment option.

A major burden to our progress in discovering effective treatment strategies for IBD is the complexity of the underlying disease mechanisms - resulting from the interplay of genetics, exacerbated immune responses, microbial dysbiosis and environmental factors.

Our group aims to understand how intestinal cells and microbiota contribute to IBD and colitis-associated colorectal cancer. To achieve this, we apply single-cell genomics and computational approaches to reconstruct cellular microenvironments, developmental hierarchies and interactions.