How gut microbes and immunity shape allergic diseases: Interview before the defense with Isabella Badolati

How gut microbes and immunity shape allergic diseases

Allergic diseases are becoming more common in our society, and early-life interactions between the immune system and the microbes living in our gut play a key role in their development. This thesis shows that certain bacteria, like Staphylococcus aureus, can influence allergy-related immune cells, that oral immunotherapy, a novel allergy treatment, can change both immune responses and gut microbes in peanut-allergic children while they become more tolerant, and that early-life differences in immunity and gut microbiota are linked to allergic asthma development up until adulthood.

Research focus: What do you examine in your thesis?

My thesis explores how the immune system, the gut microbiota, and allergic disease are interconnected, from different perspectives. The work combined mechanistic studies with analyses of clinical cohorts to better understand:

• How factors secreted by commensal opportunistic microbes influence immune populations involved in allergic disease;
• How immune responses differ between peanut-allergic and non-allergic individuals and how a novel allergy treatment called oral immunitherapy may affect immunity, metabolic patterns and the gut microbiota;
• Whether early-life alterations in these systems have consequences up to young adulthood on asthma development.

What do you hope your research can lead to and which results did you find?

I hope my research strengthens our understanding of how the immune system and gut microbiota are connected, how these systems may be disrupted in allergic disease, and how they can be modified through allergy treatment. These insights could help in the development of new preventative and intervention strategies against a disease which often begins at a young age and affects an increasing number of people worldwide.

What will you do after your defense?

Immediately after the defense, I look forward to celebrating with family, friends, and colleagues who have supported me throughout this journey, and then taking some time off to recharge . After that, I would be happy to explore new job roles that bridge research and real-world impact, where I can help patients, keep learning, and put the skills I gained during my PhD into practice!