Editorial overview: Brain, gut and immune system interactions

Isaac Chiu is Assistant Professor of Immunology at Harvard Medical School. After receiving an undergraduate degree in Biochemistry from Harvard College, he completed a PhD in Immunology at Harvard Medical School. During his postdoctoral work at Boston Children’s Hospital, he discovered that nociceptor sensory neurons directly detect bacterial pathogens to produce pain. Dr Chiu’s research has focused on neuro-immune interactions in host defense against pathogens. In the lungs, his lab found that vagal sensory neurons signal to T cells and neutrophils to regulate lethal bacterial pneumonia. In the skin, his lab found that Staphylococcus aureus activates nociceptors through pore-forming toxins and TRPV1 to produce pain. Neuro-immune interactions regulate Streptococcus pyogenes invasive infections and blocking this signaling could lead to a treatment for necrotizing fasciitis. In the gut, he found that nociceptor neurons regulate Peyer’s patch M cells and the gut microbiome to protect against Salmonella enteric infections. His lab currently focuses their research on neuro-immune interactions in barrier immunity, pain, and neurodegenerative diseases.

Asya Rolls is Associate Prof. at the Rappaport Medical School, Technion, Israel Institute of Technology. She is an International Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI)-Wellcome investigator. Rolls studies the physiological mechanisms whereby emotions and thoughts affect physical health. Her laboratory uses chemogenetic, optogenetic, and behavioral approaches to investigate how specific brain activity affects the immune response. For example, they found that activation of the brain’s reward system, a brain area active during positive expectations (e.g. placebo response), boosts antibacterial and anti-tumor imunity. By deciphering the mechanisms mediating brain-immune signals, her work aims to harness the brain’s therapeutic potential.