Home Department: Undeclared
Mentors: Calvin Kuo (Medicine – Hematology) and Guosong Hong (Materials Science & Engineering)

"A Transparent Organoid Model for Allergy and Fibrosis"

Eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE) is a chronic and disabling food allergy with rapidly increasing incidence. Human-derived EoE models do not exist, and thus, the pathology behind progression to esophageal fibrostenosis and food impaction remains underexplored. Kian will treat immuno-competent human esophagus organoids from the Calvin Kuo lab with food challenge and IgE cross-linking to induce allergy pathophysiology and investigate immune mechanisms underlying fibrosis. A live-tissue clearing solution from Guosong Hong’s lab will render living organoids transparent for real-time immune imaging. This will generate the first organoid model of any allergic condition and provide a sorely needed mechanistic study of fibrosis.