The study of nano and sub-micron materials in situ.
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Biominerals in Health and Disease: The endogenous nanomineral-antigen pathway in intestinal health and disease, in situ studies.
IRAS ID
245387
Contact name
Jonathan Powell
Contact email
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 9 months, 1 days
Research summary
At the point of weaning the body experiences new food it has never seen before. Such events continue to occur into adulthood as individuals become more adventurous in their eating over time. Normally when the body see’s something foreign it rejects it, fortunately this is not the case for food. A specialised process known as ‘oral tolerance’ occurs, such that new food is seen as friendly. This is also true for the microbiome of ‘friendly bacteria’ that inhabit everyone’s intestines. However, there is good evidence that this process can breakdown and lead to disease, such as the inflammatory bowel disease Crohn’s disease. Therefore we need to better understand the mechanisms of oral tolerance and why they might go wrong.
In previous work we have found that the intestine makes mineral particles that trap bits of food and bacteria and that these particles act as chaperones carefully and safely carrying their cargo to immune cells of the intestine. We now wish to study this in much greater detail and to see if man made particles (e.g. food additives) can hijack this pathway. We also wish to see if the pathway is abnormal in Crohn’s disease or not. For this we will undertake detailed microscopy studies of intestinal and lymphoid tissues. We are requesting to receive and work on human tissues from the intestine, some lymph nodes and some control tissues from the Human Research Tissue Bank at Addenbrookes hospital Cambridge. These are stored samples specifically donated and stored for research purposes. We will study Crohn’s disease and non Crohn’s disease tissue and will report our findings in the scientific literature which will inform and encourage new ideas around Crohn’s disease cause and treatment.REC name
North West - Greater Manchester East Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
18/NW/0690
Date of REC Opinion
25 Sep 2018
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion