Our basic research lab, headed by Dr. Terry Barrett, is continually working to understand the underlying physiology and pathology of intestinal disease. We are committed to developing new treatments and improving upon existing ones in order to better the lives of those affected by Inflammatory Bowel Disease and other intestinal diseases. We have several ongoing basic research studies. If you would like more information about any of our work, please contact Dr. Barrett at tabarrett@northwestern.edu

Rejection in intestinal transplant recipients can be unusually volatile. While acute rejection in most organs is usually detected before is can progress to an irreversible state, with intestine allografts irreversible, exfoliative rejection can develop in just a few days. We hypothesize that due to ongoing interaction with luminal flora the intestinal mucosa has potential for significant upregulation of proinflammatory events that can augment a early rejection episode. Specifically we have evaluated the role of epithelial NFkB upregulation and its relation upstream toll like receptor interactions and downstream upregulation of chemokines that are know to augment rejection. We have sought to define the mechanisms that underlie volatility with intestinal rejection so that targeted strategies can be developed to inhibit this.