Abstract
The present report summarizes the United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) field-based meeting titled “Modulating microbiome-immune axis in the deployment-related chronic diseases of Veterans.” Our Veteran patient population experiences a high incidence of service-related chronic physical and mental health problems, such as infection, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), various forms of hematological and non-hematological malignancies, neurologic conditions, end-stage organ failure, requiring transplantation, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). We report the views of a group of scientists who focus on the current state of scientific knowledge elucidating the mechanisms underlying the aforementioned disorders, novel therapeutic targets, and development of new approaches for clinical intervention. In conclusion, we dovetailed on four research areas of interest: 1) microbiome interaction with immune cells after hematopoietic cell and/or solid organ transplantation, graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) and graft rejection, 2) intestinal inflammation and its modification in IBD and cancer, 3) microbiome-neuron-immunity interplay in mental and physical health, and 4) microbiome-micronutrient-immune interactions during homeostasis and infectious diseases. At this VA field-based meeting, we proposed to explore a multi-disciplinary, multi-institutional, collaborative strategy to initiate a roadmap, specifically focusing on host microbiome-immune interactions among those with service-related chronic diseases to potentially identify novel and translatable therapeutic targets.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 2267180 |
| Journal | Gut Microbes |
| Volume | 15 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 2023 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© This work was authored as part of the Contributor’s official duties as an Employee of the United States Government and is therefore a work of the United States Government. In accordance with 17 U.S.C. 105, no copyright protection is available for such works under U.S. Law.
Funding
KI reports grants from the VA, NIH, Office of Naval Research (DOD), Marfan Foundation, and support from the University of Iowa (The Iowa Aging Initiative and Professorship in Cardiovascular Medicine). He is a co-inventor of U.S. Provisional Patent Application # 18/165,809 Methods and Compositions Comprising Therapeutic Gamma Peptide Nucleic Acid-based Molecules. The work was supported by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs [VA Field Based Planning Meeting Award (J.S. and M.N.I)]. We thank Drs. Masood Khan and Arun Sharma from the Veterans Affairs Central Office and Office of Research and Development for advising the investigators about the VA Collaborative Merit application process. LAB reports grants from the VA, DOD, NIH, and the State of Colorado; editorial remuneration from Wolters Kluwer and the Rand Corporation; and royalties from the American Psychological Association and Oxford University Press. In addition, she consulted sports leagues through her university affiliation.
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| Office of Naval Research Naval Academy | |
| Veterans Affairs Central Office | |
| National Institutes of Health (NIH) | |
| Biomedical Laboratory Research and Development, VA Office of Research and Development | |
| RAND Corporation | |
| National Marfan Foundation | |
| Iowa Environmental Mesonet at Iowa State University | |
| U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs | |
| U.S. Department of Defense |
Keywords
- IBD
- Immunity
- graft rejection
- graft-versus-host disease
- gut microbiome
- gut-brain-axis
- infection
- micronutrition
- mitochondria
- oral microbiome
- posttraumatic stress disorder
- virome
- vitamin
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Microbiology
- Microbiology (medical)
- Gastroenterology
- Infectious Diseases
