ALI OKHOVAT
PHD STUDENT
Current biological therapies targeting inflammatory pathways are the mainstay for the treatment of IBD patients. However, roughly 35-50% of IBD patients still do not achieve clinical response or relapse. Thus during my PhD, I aim to functionally characterize mechanisms that promote intestinal regeneration and determine their translational relevance, with a goal to find alternative treatment modality for IBD. To achieve this, I am working on (i) evaluating the translational potential of already identified pro-regenrative pathways (e.g., oxysterol-LXR), and (ii) establishing an automated high throughput drug screening platform for testing intestinal regeneration using human intestinal organoids, alone or in co-culture setting with patient matched fibroblasts from inflamed and non-inflamed biopsies.
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