The salivary glands (SGs) are innocuous organs, organs which we perhaps do not spend so much time thinking about. Their lack of function however, confers a dramatic decrease in quality of life. Speaking, eating and sleeping become challenging, and dental problems rife.  

My research focuses mainly on unravelling the reasons underpinning loss of SG function in the autoimmune condition Sjogren’s Disease (SjD), but also in relation to medication and immune checkpoint inhibitor use, and radiation. We leverage organoid technology using SG biopsies from patients experiencing lack of SG function to understand these phenomenon, in combination with transcriptomics approaches and histological analysis, to probe mechanisms driving these pathogeneses. A large focus of my work is the development of a SG-stem cell-based therapy for the rescue of SG function in SjD patients, wit the overarching goal to provide durable relief from dry mouth complaints.

Other current interests and projects include in vitro modelling of lymphoepithelial lesions in SjD, development of senescence markers as surrogates for SG function in SjD, development of in vitro cell culture models of vasculitis, and examination of functionality of stem cells in other autoimmune diseases, for example Crohns and SLE.