Charles O. Elson MD
Professor of Medicine, Microbiology, and Surgery and Basil I. Hirschowitz Chair in Gastroenterology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AlabamaDr. Elson is Professor of Medicine, Microbiology, and Surgery at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and holds the Basil I. Hirschowitz Chair in Gastroenterology. He is an active consultant in immune-mediated intestinal disorders. The central focus of the Elson laboratory is on the regulation of mucosal immune responses, particularly the mucosal immune response to the microbiota. His group discovered that microbiota flagellins from the Lachnospiraceae family, an abundant member of the microbiota, were immunodominant antigens in experimental colitis and in Crohn’s disease. He and co-workers generated a CBir1 flagellin T cell receptor transgenic mouse that has provided important insights into host immune-microbiota interactions.