Recently, Chiu and his team uncovered novel mechanisms of pain and inflammation in various microbial infections such as meningitis, anthrax, and colitis. To answer these questions, Chiu launched his lab combining immunology, neurobiology, and microbiology in 2014. “The finding that nerves can directly sense microbes opens up so many question.,” Chiu said, “How do neurons sense microbes? How do neurons participate in an infection? Does pain affect host defense against pathogens? How do neurons, microbes, and immune cells interact altogether?” This unexpected finding introduced a third player, microbes, into the mix. During his postdoctoral research on bacterial skin infections, Chiu discovered that bacteria could directly interact with sensory neurons, causing pain and suppressing immune responses. “It fascinated me how cells in these two systems talk to each other,” said Isaac Chiu, an immunobiologist at Harvard Medical School who spent graduate school investigating the crosstalk between T cells and microglia in neurodegeneration.įurther research led him to an even more complex situation. In the brain, skin, and gastrointestinal tract, the interplay between the nervous and immune systems, known as the neuro-immune axis, orchestrates a variety of physiological processes. Despite being classified as distinct entities, the nervous and immune systems work interdependently.
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