RESEARCH

We study how the peripheral nervous system shapes barrier function.

Every day, eating, drinking, breathing, and speaking all depend on the oral mucosa — a dynamic barrier where nervous and immune systems interact to detect threats and maintain resilience. Despite dense neural networks in oral tissues, we still lack a fundamental understanding of how they regulate barrier protection. Our aim is to discover how neurons and glia, the two principal cell types of the nervous system, contribute to barrier development, function, and disease.

Research themes

How does the nervous system maintain oral barrier homeostasis?

We investigate the molecular and cellular mechanisms by which neuroimmune and neuroepithelial units regulate tissue function in the adult oral mucosa.

How does neural and glial diversity arise?

We explore how distinct neural and glial populations emerge during development to understand their diverse functions in adult tissues.

How are these programmes dysregulated in disease?

We study how neuroglial states are corrupted in chronic inflammation and oral cancer, and what this means for disease progression and tissue regeneration. We are particularly interested in how tumour-associated nerves arise.

Approaches

To address these questions, we combine experimental and computational approaches spanning molecular biology, single-cell and spatial multiomics, advanced microscopy, and in vivo and complex in vitro model systems.