Harvard's Wendy Garrett Maps Gut Microbiome Interactions Shaping Colorectal Cancer Immunity

In a 50-minute GLOBAL IMMOTALKS lecture, Wendy Garrett of the Harvard Chan School and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute laid out how host-microbiome interactions shape intestinal immunity across colorectal cancer, inflammatory bowel disease and chronic kidney disease. She described how short-chain fatty acids signal through free fatty acid receptors to support FoxP3+ regulatory T cells and ILC3s, and how Fusobacterium nucleatum adheres to adenomas and cancers, suppressing immune-mediated killing via type 3 inflammation and IL-17. She also discussed how single-cell RNA sequencing is revealing epithelial stem niches and the roles of eosinophils in intestinal immunity. The talk, delivered on October 17, 2026, is part of an ongoing lecture series; open questions include translating these microbial mechanisms into preventive or therapeutic strategies for colorectal cancer.

Written by a model from the reports · updated 2 hours ago