Friedman Center for Nutrition and Inflammation

Co-led by Dr. David Artis at Weill Cornell Medicine, the Allen Discovery Center for Neuroimmune Interactions at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai hopes to revolutionize the field of medicine with a groundbreaking project to understand how the human body senses health and disease.

Innate lymphoid cells are a recently discovered family of white blood cells that reside in the skin, gastrointestinal tract, airways and other barrier tissues of the body. Group 2 innate lymphoid cells (ILC2s) have an essential role in protecting these tissues from parasitic infections as well as damage associated with allergic inflammation and asthma, according to a new study led by Weill Cornell Medicine researchers.

A type of dietary fiber called inulin, commonly used in health supplements and known to have certain anti-inflammatory properties, can also promote an allergy-related type of inflammation in the lung and gut, and other parts of the body.

Neurons that sense pain protect the gut from inflammation and associated tissue damage by regulating the microbial community living in the intestines, according to a study from researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine.

A class of immune cells push themselves into an inflammatory state by producing large quantities of a serotonin-making enzyme, according to a study in mice led by scientists at Weill Cornell Medicine.

A molecule best known for its association with migraines may be a key to new treatments for common worm infections as well as allergic inflammatory disorders such as asthma, according to a study from scientists at Weill Cornell Medicine and the National Institutes of Health.

With a $7.5 million gift from the Friedman Family Foundation endowed by Stephen and Vice Chair Overseer Barbara Friedman, Weill Cornell Medicine has established an innovative cross-campus center dedicated to improving human health through research in the complex relationship between nutrition, inflammation and the development of disease.