Publications related to Exploiting Old Pathogens to Create New Therapeutics

Immune serum-activated human macrophages coordinate with eosinophils to immobilize Ascaris suum larvae

Nicola Harris, Beatrice Volpe, Julia Esser-von Bieren, Tiffany Babette Angélique Bouchery, Kathleen Shah

Helminth infection represents a major health problem causing approximately 5 million disability-adjusted life years worldwide. Concerns that repeated anti-helminthic treatment may lead to drug resistance render it important that vaccines are developed but ...

WILEY2020

Infection with a small intestinal helminth, Heligmosomoides polygyrus bakeri, consistently alters microbial communities throughout the murine small and large intestine

Nicola Harris, Benjamin John Marsland, Mario Michael Zaiss, Alexis Rapin, Luc Xavier Marie Lebon, Audrey Geneviève Chuat

Increasing evidence suggests that intestinal helminth infection can alter intestinal microbial communities with important impacts on the mammalian host. However, all of the studies to date utilize different techniques to study the microbiome and access dif ...

2020

Intestinal helminths modulate the gut microbiome

Alexis Rapin

Intestinal parasitic worms (commonly named intestinal helminths) affect close to one quarter of the world population and cause major losses for the livestock industry. These parasites establish chronic infections by modulation the immunity of their host. T ...

EPFL2018

Inflammatory arthritis and systemic bone loss are attenuated by gastrointestinal helminth parasites

Nicola Harris, Mario Michael Zaiss, Manuel Kulagin

Infections with different helminth species have been observed to ameliorate a variety of chronic inflammatory diseases. Herein, we show that the natural murine helminth species, Heligmosomoides polygyrus bakeri (Hp) is capable of attenuating disease severi ...

Taylor & Francis2017

Intimate gut interactions: helminths and the microbiota

Nicola Harris

Changing exposure to intestinal helminths, or alterations in our intestinal microbiome, have been independently proposed to underlie the increasing incidence of chronic inflammatory diseases including allergy, autoimmunity and inflammatory bowel disease (I ...

Inst Biochemistry & Cell Biology2016

The Intestinal Microbiota Contributes to the Ability of Helminths to Modulate Allergic Inflammation

Jacques Rougemont, Laure Menin, Nicola Harris, Mario Michael Zaiss, Ilaria Mosconi, Alessandra Piersigilli, Benjamin John Marsland, Lalit Kumar Dubey, Alexis Rapin, Luc Xavier Marie Lebon

Intestinal helminths are potent regulators of their host's immune system and can ameliorate inflammatory diseases such as allergic asthma. In the present study we have assessed whether this anti-inflammatory activity was purely intrinsic to helminths, or w ...

Elsevier2015

Mucosal immune responses following intestinal nematode infection

Nicola Harris

In most natural environments, the large majority of mammals harbour parasitic helminths that often live as adults within the intestine for prolonged periods (1-2years) . Although these organisms have been eradicated to a large extent within westernized hum ...

Wiley-Blackwell2014

Antibodies Trap Tissue Migrating Helminth Larvae and Prevent Tissue Damage by Driving IL-4Rα-Independent Alternative Differentiation of Macrophages

Arne Seitz, Romain Guiet, Nicola Harris, Beatrice Volpe, Alessandra Piersigilli, Julia Esser-von Bieren, Ilaria Mosconi, Fei Chen

Approximately one-third of the world's population suffers from chronic helminth infections with no effective vaccines currently available. Antibodies and alternatively activated macrophages (AAM) form crucial components of protective immunity against chall ...

Public Library of Science2013