Autophagy and inflammatory bowel disease

Description of projects available to graduate students:
Recently, autophagy has been implicated in the pathogenesis of IBD. We have recently generated several strains of mice that are defective in autophagy in various cell type and organs. The rotation project involves characterizing inflammatory responses in the gut of these autophagy-deficient mice. Through this rotation you will learn:
1. Understanding theories and basic mechanisms underlying autoimmunity.
2. Basic immunological techniques such as flow cytometry and autoimmune models.
3. Basic molecular techniques such as molecular cloning, real time PCR etc.

Techniques graduate student will learn:
RT-QPCR, histology, advanced flow cytometry, mouse IBD model, handling T cells, DC and macrophages.