Gut Inflammation

Research overview

Inflammatory gut diseases such as Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis are major global challenges that affect over 10 million people worldwide. Despite recent therapeutic advances, these conditions remain incurable, with patients oscillating between periods of relapse and remission. This pattern suggests that smouldering drivers of gut inflammation persist, even during remission when symptoms and other hallmarks of disease have abated. We recently discovered an important smouldering defect that underlies gut inflammation and predicts relapse – dysregulated intestinal cell death. The lab studies these smouldering and uncontrolled forms of gut inflammation, with the overarching aim to reduce the frequency and severity of disease relapse and improve patient quality-of-life.

Research goals

• Define smouldering and uncontrolled forms of gut inflammation
• Understand the role that programmed cell death plays in gut health and disease
• Develop new prognostic and therapeutic approaches to improve the clinical management of inflammatory diseases such as Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis

Grants

• NHMRC Ideas grant 2026-2029: “Understanding how MLKL regulates Inflammatory Bowel Disease”

The team