Javier Ochoa Reparaz

I am an assistant professor at Eastern Washington University. I serve as the principal investigator in grants funded by the National Institutes of Health and other agencies. The research focus of my laboratory is focused on host-microbial interactions and the mechanisms of immune-activation and immunomodulation induced by intestinal microbes in the context of central nervous system inflammatory demyelination. I study the multifactorial crosstalk between the host’s immune system and intestinal bacteria and the pathways that lead to dysbiosis and neuroinflammation. Specifically, my projects aim to determine: 1) whether bacteria can be used as vectors to deliver antigens promote protective responses against multiple sclerosis (MS), a CNS inflammatory demyelination; 2) whether gut resident bacteria and products regulate immune homeostasis beyond the gut. Gut microbes control disease severity in the animal models of human autoimmune disorders, as demonstrated by our works showing that the alteration of the gut microbial populations has dramatic effects on the severity of experimental CNS inflammation; 3) whether MS promotes significant changes in the intestinal microbiota, evidencing a bidirectional nature of the intestinal microbiota and disease.