Dr. Gulati is a pediatric gastroenterologist whose research specializes in inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD), such as Crohn’s and ulcerative colitis, as well as intestinal epithelial responses to inflammation-induced gut injury. His research is primarily focused on advancing the care of children with IBD by focusing on the development of novel strategies to augment epithelial cell function as a means to control chronic intestinal inflammation.
Work in Dr. Gulati’s laboratory centers on understanding interactions between the commensal microbiota of the gut and the host epithelium in the context of chronic intestinal inflammation found in patients with IBD. Specifically, Dr. Gulati’s team is interested in determining the mechanisms by which various susceptibility genes for IBD affect the structure and composition of the intestinal microbiota through their influences on the intestinal lining.
He is exploring the mechanisms by which various IBD risk alleles induce dysfunction in specific intestinal lining cell subtypes, including Paneth cells and intestinal stem cells, and is particularly interested in how the developmental age of the host affects these interactions. Dr. Gulati’s group is also exploring the impact of host recipient age on gut epithelial and microbial responses to microbiota transplantation. His future research goals include leveraging the relative malleability of the pediatric microbiota to pave the way for microbial modulation strategies to treat pediatric IBD, with hopes that these studies will lead to the development of safer, patient-specific therapies for children with IBD.
Links to more information:
Center for Gastrointestinal Biology and Disease
