Conférence donnée dans le cadre de la procédure d’appel Cell or develop Biology par Dr Philippe Krebs.

Résumé: Epithelia act as barriers to protect the inner part of the body. Disruption of the epithelial layer leads to the recruitment of immune cells, which need to be tightly controlled to avoid excessive inflammation and allow tissue repair. If such epithelial defects persist or upon immune dysregulation, a chronic inflammatory condition becomes established, which may eventually promote immunopathology or tumor development in the mucosa.
While the current therapies target perturbations present in overt mucosal disorder, less is known about the disease-initiating mechanisms. My laboratory uses mouse models and patient-derived samples to investigate the contribution of specific communication pathways between the epithelium and players of the immune system. We aim to better understand how early deregulation of the crosstalk between these different cell types paves the way to a pathological condition in the mucosa, and thereby identify strategies to restore the epithelial barrier.