My special field of interest covers the functional analysis of disease-relevant genes for IBD and understanding how these candidate genes may contribute to disease pathogenesis. I am particularly focusing on the role of ER stress and/or autophagy-dependent mechanisms and cytokine signaling which contribute to chronic intestinal inflammatory processes and/or intestinal cancer.

Using in vitro and in vivo models I aim to advance existing research concerning the impact of protein misfolding, the unfolded protein response (UPRE), the autophagy protein ATG16L1 and cytokine receptor IL17RE signaling on disease progression.  The main goal is to understand, at the molecular level, the development of chronic intestinal inflammation in order to develop new diagnostic and therapeutic approaches to the two major types of IBD, Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis.