Café Scientifique - Join us for another exciting Virtual Café Scientifique featuring Cathryn Nagler!
When I was a child, my brothers and I routinely ate peanut butter and jelly for lunch. By the time my children completed high school their classrooms were peanut free. 32 million Americans currently suffer from food allergies, some of which are life threatening. What is driving this generational change? We have proposed that 21st century lifestyle habits have resulted in the depletion of allergy-protective bacterial populations from our guts. We will discuss the mechanisms by which intestinal bacteria regulate allergic responses to food and the development of novel therapeutics to restore the protective function of the gut barrier.
Cathryn Nagler is the Bunning Family Professor in the Biological Sciences Division and the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering at the University of Chicago. She studies how intestinal bacteria maintain homeostasis and prevent allergic responses to food. She has leveraged the knowledge gained from her academic studies to create a start-up company, ClostraBio, Inc., which is developing novel therapies to treat food allergy and other intestinal diseases.
Cathryn Nagler
Cathryn Nagler graduated with honors from Barnard College, Columbia University. She obtained her Ph.D. from N.Y.U. School of Medicine and did a postdoctoral fellowship at M.I.T. She was Associate Professor of Pediatrics (Immunology) at Harvard Medical School prior to joining the University of Chicago in 2009. Dr. Nagler serves in national and international leadership roles, many of which are related to publication and teaching, for the American Association of Immunologists, the Society for Mucosal Immunology and Federation of Clinical Immunology Societies. She also participates in numerous review panels. Dr. Nagler received the Distinguished Faculty Award for Leadership in Program Innovation from the University of Chicago in 2017. She was listed among Crain’s Chicago Business Tech Top 50 Women in 2018 and Notable Women in HealthCare in 2019 for her work with her academic start-up company ClostraBio. Academic honors include the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (AAAAI) Foundation and Louis M. Mendelson Award Lectureship and the Siegel Lectureship at UCLA. She was elected as a Distinguished Fellow of the American Association of Immunologists in 2020.
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Building on its great success outside the United States, Café Scientifique Silicon Valley is the first such Café on the West Coast. We meet monthly to discuss a variety of science topics.