Dr. Mangalam received a grant award from the NIH/NIAID under the "Research Supplement to Promote Diversity in Health-Related Research Program.” This grant will support the career development of Samantha Freedman, a predoctoral student in Dr. Mangalam’s laboratory, who will be jointly mentored by Drs. Mangalam and Karandikar.
Sam’s project focuses on defining the mechanism of gut microbiota-induced phytoestrogen metabolites that regulate the host immune response during health and disease. Specifically, this project will determine the ability of phytoestrogen to activate different dendritic cell subsets and in turn, their ability to regulate pathogenic immune responses. This project builds upon previous findings from Dr. Mangalam’s laboratory that demonstrated Multiple Sclerosis patients to have distinct gut microbiota compared to healthy controls, and in particular lack phytoestrogen metabolizing bacteria. The outcome of this study may help in the development of gut microbial-flora/diet-based therapies for Multiple Sclerosis, as well as other autoimmune diseases.