Lab focus: coeliac disease

Coeliac disease is an immune illness caused by gluten, a food protein from wheat, barley, rye and oats. We investigate immune and genetic factors making gluten toxic for people with coeliac disease. This is assisting the development of new diagnostic approaches and novel treatments.

More than one in 70 Australians have coeliac disease, but 80 per cent remain undiagnosed. These people can experience poor quality of life, elevated mortality, autoimmune disease, osteoporosis and cancer. Treatment with a gluten free diet is onerous, lifelong and sometimes unsuccessful in reducing complications. Our goal is to address these clinical problems to improve patient health.

Research interest

Our research is focused on understanding the biological events involved in the inflammatory response to gluten in human participants. We employ a range of immunological techniques and collaborate with scientists in the fields of bioinformatics, structural biology, protein chemistry, plant science, genomics, metabolomics, as well as clinicians, public health specialists and health economists.

Key areas of interest are:

• Characterising CD4+ T cell and antibody responses to gluten with and without in vivo gluten challenge.

• Understanding the relationship between gluten-induced symptoms and immune, serologic, histologic and metabolic readouts.

• Employing genomic approaches for coeliac disease risk stratification.

• Improving clinical pathways to promote timely and cost-effective diagnosis, monitoring and management of coeliac disease.

We work closely with industry partners to ensure our research can be translated to the clinic, and the involvement of the patient support/advocacy organisation Coeliac Australia keeps our goals relevant to the needs of coeliac disease sufferers.