Elia D Tait Wojno
University of Washington, WA·Microbiology & Immunology
Parasitic worms called helminths infect more than a billion people, and allergies trigger a similar body-wide reaction known as Type 2 inflammation. In this response, immune cells and the cells lining the gut and lung work together to expel worms.
- Fields
Microbiology & Immunology
Physiology
Medicine & Clinical Research
- Topics
Type 2 inflammation
helminth infection
parasitic worms
- Grants
- 3 known grants, through May 2031
What they work on
- Test how Notch signaling inside basophils controls where they sit in the large intestine and how they contact CD4+ T cells during Trichuris muris worm infection, including a role for alpha4 integrin.
- Determine how Notch-programmed basophils and nearby neurons form neuroimmune hubs in the infected gut that support Th2 helper T-cell responses.
- Test how removing basophils changes intestinal T-cell function, interactions with dendritic cells, and memory Th2, B cell and antibody responses after reinfection.
- Use a CRTH2-reporter mouse and mouse and human stem cell cultures to test whether prostaglandin D2 acting on CRTH2 blocks stem-cell differentiation into goblet and tuft cells.
- Test how loss of CRTH2 in gut lining cells affects barrier function, epigenetic programming of stem cells, and repair during a later acute or chronic inflammatory event.
- Define how the alarm signal IL-33 raises CRTH2 on lung ILC2 cells and how the PGD2-CRTH2 pathway controls their distribution and activation in lung inflammation.
- Test whether tuft cells, sensor cells in the gut lining, produce PGD2 and use CRTH2 to regulate cytokine and leukotriene release and protection against hookworm-like parasites.
More about the research
But the response must also be switched off so tissues can heal. The research here asks which cells and signals turn Type 2 inflammation on, keep it going, and bring the gut back to normal afterward. The projects use mice infected with parasitic worms, along with lab-grown mini-intestines.
Why it matters
Helminth infections and allergic diseases affect billions of people. Drug trials of CRTH2 inhibitors for allergic respiratory disease have given conflicting results, possibly because CRTH2 acts on many cell types. Mapping these effects could guide use of existing CRTH2 drugs and lipid-targeting therapies for worm infection, allergy, inflammatory bowel disease and other gut disorders, and could point to new targets in Type 2 inflammation.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Project 3: Basophils instruct intestinal niches that support Th2 responses
NIH · Jun 2026 – May 2031
Role of the prostaglandin D2 receptor CRTH2 in helminth-induced type 2 inflammation in the intestine
NIH · Sep 2017 – Jun 2029
Prostaglandin D2 and its receptor CRTH2 regulate intestinal inflammation and homeostasis
NIH · Jul 2023 – Jun 2027
Closest labs
Ari B Molofsky
University of California-San Francisco, CA·Microbiology & Immunology
Test how early injury-associated myofibroblasts, which depend on TGFβ signaling and macrophages, limit brain lesion size and loss of function in mouse models of brain injury.
David Artis
Weill Medical College of Cornell University, NY·Microbiology & Immunology
Determine which microbiota-derived metabolites induced by a high-fiber diet activate ILC2s (innate immune cells that trigger type 2 responses) and drive eosinophilia and type 2 inflammation that speeds worm expulsion in a mouse helminth model.
Edward Pearce
Johns Hopkins University, MD·Microbiology & Immunology
Determine how multipotent progenitor cells, stromal cells in gut-associated fat that can become fibroblasts or fat cells, shape mouse resistance to the intestinal worm Heligmosomoides polygyrus, using RNA-seq, ATAC-seq and loss-of-function mouse models.
The school
University of Washington: 81 labs on PI Pages, $1.7B a year on research, 694 research doctorates a year.
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