Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD), consisting of Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis (UC), happens when the immune system lining the intestines becomes intolerant of the foreign material, most likely the bacteria, that passes through and normally fills the bowels. The Lord lab is investigating how this loss of “tolerance” happens in IBD, to learn how the immune system normally coexists peacefully in close proximity to gut contents.
While still incurable and debilitating, IBD has become much more manageable for some patients in recent years largely due to new and highly specific medications that can often stop immune cells from inflaming the intestines. By carefully examining how such medications specifically affect immune cells in the blood and intestinal biopsies of IBD patients, and correlating these changes with therapeutic success, we provide a better understanding of how IBD happens and, more importantly, how we may ultimately fix it.
Along the way, we are identifying differences in the immune systems of different IBD patients that may explain or predict disease behavior, and serve as “biomarkers” to guide a more personalized approach to treatment.
James Lord, MD, PhD
Lab Members
Duncan Hindmarch
Ramya Kongala
Donna Shows
Research Projects
Effect of Vedolizumab on Immune Cells
T Cells in Inflammatory Bowel Disease
Featured Publications
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Mar 2022
MAdCAM-1 Costimulates T Cells through Integrin α(4)β(7) to Cause Gene Expression Events Resembling Costimulation through CD28.
DeBerg HA, Konecny AJ, Shows DM, Lord JD -
Jan 2020
Escherichiacoli-Specific CD4+ T Cells Have Public T-Cell Receptors and Low Interleukin 10 Production in Crohn's Disease.
Uchida AM, Boden EK, James EA, Shows DM, Konecny AJ, Lord JD -
Nov 2018
High-dimensional immune phenotyping and transcriptional analyses reveal robust recovery of viable human immune and epithelial cells from frozen gastrointestinal tissue.
Konnikova L, Boschetti G, Rahman A, Mitsialis V, Lord J, Richmond C, Tomov VT, Gordon W, Jelinsky S, Canavan J, Liss A, Wall S, Field M, Zhou F, Goldsmith JD, Bewtra M, Breault DT, Merad M, Snapper SB, Lord JD -
Sep 2018
Identification of Candidate Biomarkers Associated with Response to Vedolizumab in Inflammatory Bowel Disease.
Boden EK, Shows DM, Chiorean MV, Lord JD -
Aug 2018
Circulating integrin alpha4/beta7+ lymphocytes targeted by vedolizumab have a pro-inflammatory phenotype.
Lord JD, Long SA, Shows DM, Thorpe J, Schwedhelm K, Chen J, Kita M, Buckner JH
Clues into Crohn's: Exploring Why the Immune System Attacks Beneficial Bacteria
Your gut is home to a huge community of bacteria called the microbiome. Some bacteria are good, some are bad — and some might hold the key to understanding an inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) like Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis.
Inside BRI’s Gut Immunity Program
To most people, the gut is just a part of your body that helps digest food.
Could medicines for inflammatory bowel disease help fight type 1 diabetes?
Among the many mysteries of autoimmune diseases, we know one thing for sure: These diseases are connected. They often occur when immune cells called T cells mistakenly attack healthy tissue — say the pancreas in type 1 diabetes (T1D) or the gut in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).
Publication of the Week: PGD2 and CRTH2 counteract Type 2 cytokine–elicited intestinal epithelial responses during helminth infection
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Science in Seattle: Benaroya Research Institute Launches Gut Research Program
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