Shannon Turley and her colleagues found a previously unknown way the body establishes and maintains tolerance of bacteria needed to survive, while attacking bacteria, like salmonella, that threaten your survival. |
Saving your self from yourself"Your gut is a complicated place," notes Shannon Turley, an assistant professor of pathology at Harvard Medical School. In addition to processing food three or more times a day, an intestine needs to protect you from being damaged by yourself. For the food-processing task, your gut carries a small army of bacteria that turn steak and potatoes into tiny molecules your blood and gut can handle. But it also is continually tested with course after course of potentially dangerous molecules that cause a variety of ailments like inflammatory bowel disease. Turley and her colleagues are trying to find out how the gut manages to destroy these toxic molecules without harming "self," normal tissues and organs, or the good bacteria that feed them. |
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