The International Foundation for Ethical Research (IFER) has awarded Jaewon Lee, a graduate student working with Professor Hyun Jung Kim, with the IFER Graduate Student Fellowship in Alternatives in Scientific Research.
Lee plans to co-culture human intestinal cells, gut microbes, and immune cells to reconstitute mechanically active microenvironment of the living human gut. In this biomimetic in vitro mini-gut, she will demonstrate chemically induced inflammation that has been conventionally applied in mice colitis models; she will then examine the therapeutic effect of health-promoting beneficial microbes such as probiotic bacteria that are used in yogurt fermentation, in an effort to reduce and replace animal use in drug development process.
