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Profile

Rheinallt Jones PhD

  • Department of Pediatrics
    Associate Professor
  • Emory University
    Department of Pediatrics
    615 Michael St
Head shot of Rheinallt Jones

Overview

I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition. My research focus is to discover new therapies for the treatment of Digestive Diseases. My goal is to discover highly efficacious beneficial bacteria known as probiotics that can be administered to treat Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD). We employ germ-free and gnotobiotic animal models in a reductionist approach to identify novel beneficial bacteria. I am also the Director of the Emory Gnotobiotic Animal Core.

Academic Appointment

  • Assistant Professor, Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition, Emory University School of Medicine
  • Assistant Professor, Department of Pathology, Emory University

Education

Degrees

  • PhD from University of Wales, Bangor
  • BSc from The Nottingham Trent University

Research

Focus

  • My research focuses on the interactions between bacteria and human epithelia or macrophages in an effort to understand the molecular mechanisms evolved by pathogens to evade innate immunity. Some bacteria, including Salmonella, secrete "effector" proteins that inhibit innate immunity thus allowing the pathogen to chronically persist within the human host.

  • Host-cell and Commensal Microbe interaction

    The intestinal microbiota is increasingly recognized as an important actor in a variety of normal host physiological events including immune, homeostatic, and behavioral processes. By extension, a dysbiosis of this relationship may lead to the initiation and progression of host pathological disease conditions. Despite this well-established influence of the microbiota on human health, there is still a critical gap in our knowledge of the molecular mechanisms by which the microbiota influences gut health. The long term goal of my research group is to identify the bacterial community structure, the microbial products, and the cellular signaling pathways that mediate the influences of the microbiota on human health. The current goal of the lab is to identify how perturbations to the microbiota influence intestinal stem cell (ISC) turnover, differentiation and gut epithelial barrier integrity. In our approach, we utilize a wide variety of methodologies including both mouse and Drosophila model systems, as well as sequence based microbiota analysis. Importantly, we have the capacity to raise germ-free mice and flies, and gnotobiotically monoassociated them with either candidate symbiotic bacteria, with a defined group of bacteria, or with purified bacterial proteins and products. Ultimately, the goal is to develop deliberate manipulation of the microbiota as a therapeutic strategy to ameliorate symptoms resulting from digestive diseases.

Publications

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