Japan Office

“Oxford Academics in Japan – lecture 4”

IBD – Inflammatory Bowel Disease – is an increasingly common disease throughout the world, affecting almost 1% of the population in Europe and the US, but also seeing an exponential rise in Japan and other parts of East Asia. This is why experts talk about an impending global epidemic of IBD, which is the paradigm of an immune-mediated inflammatory disease affecting young people. 
 
The gut is a major site through which pathogens can interact with the body and cause disease, but it is also home to trillions of bacteria and more immune cells than anywhere else in the body. For the gut to remain healthy it is essential that it can distinguish between healthy and harmful bacteria. When this becomes impossible the immune system starts to attack the beneficial bacteria, causing damage and inflammation on a debilitating scale.
 
Research at the University of Oxford through the Oxford Institute for Immunology and Translational Medicine will bring together specialists in both the gut and the liver who will collaborate through basic science, translational research and clinical practice to address this serious global outbreak. In this lecture Simon Travis DPhil FRCP (Linacre College), the UK’s leading gastroenterologist, President of the European Crohn’s and Colitis Organisation, and an internationally recognised specialist in inflammatory bowel disease, will talk about the history of knowledge about this disease, possible reasons for its increasing prevalence and the latest medical research both in the West and in Asia. 

This lecture is the fourth in the Oxford Academics in Japan series, in which we invite academics from all fields to talk to alumni and friends of the University. All are welcome.

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