Anil Mishra, PhD, School of Medicine
Dr. Mishra’s most important contribution was to establish that eosinophils are the resident cell that home prenatally in the gastrointestinal tract (Mishra et al. J. Clin. Invest. 1999, 103, 1719-27) and the gastrointestinal tract (esophagus to colon) constitutively expresses eotaxin-1(an eosinophil selective chemoattractant). Dr. Mishra developed a first murine model of asthma associated eosinophilic esophagitis (Mishra et al. J. Clin. Invest. 2001, 107, 83-90). His findings implicated aeroallergen in the etiology of EoE and suggested that esophageal eosinophilic inflammation is mechanistically associated with pulmonary inflammation (Mishra et al. J. Immunology 2002, 168, 2464-69 and Gastroenterology, 2003, 125. 1419-27).His research implicated iNKT cells to the food and indoor insect allergens induce EoE and iNKT cell neutralization as a possible future therapy of EoE (Clinical and Translational Immunology, 2013). He patents IL-15 responsive T cell associated molecules as a non-invasive biographers for EoE that differentiate EoE from GERD. Current interest is on the role of IL-15 and IL-18 in pulmonary , pancreatitic and gastrointestinal eosinophilic inflammation. Most recently Dr. Mishra’s laboratory showed the significance of IL-15 in recovering allergen-induced airway obstruction (J. Allergy Clin Immunology 2017) and reported a critical role of eosinophils biology.. Dr. Mishra showed that apart from IL-5, Il-18 also differentiate eosinophils and transform IL-5 generated naïve eosinophils to CD101+CD274+ pathogenic eosinophils (J. Allergy Clin Immunology 2018). Earlier, he also reported that CD274 expressed eosinophils are possible non-invasive biomarkers of EoE (Case Report in Gastroenterology, 2017). Dr. Mishra’s current research is focused on the role neuropeptide (VIP) in esophageal motility in EoE and GERD. VIP role in eosinophils and mast cell trafficking in EoE is shown via binding to its receptor CRTH2 present on both eosinophils and mast cells (Cell Mol Gastro Hepatol (JCMGH) 2017). In addition, Dr. Mishra showed the preventive role of rIL-15 in pulmonary and pancreatic fibrosis (AJP-Gastroenterology 2019 and Am. J Res. Mol. Cell Biol. 2019). Furthermore, Dr. Mishra’s laboratory developed first chemical-induced mouse model of pancreatic cancer that also metastasize into lung. The model is now leaded to testing several drugs to treat pancreatic and lung cancer.
