Our Approach

"The Hill Lab studies the intersection of diet, metabolism, and immune function using basic, translational, and clinical research approaches."

The Hill Lab studies how diet and metabolism influence immune health and inflammatory disease. To do so, we leverage in-house epidemiology to study disease patterns and guide mechanistic investigations of the immune system in mouse models and patient samples. The majority of our discoveries have been relevant to the prevention, diagnosis, and/or treatment of food allergy, asthma, and obesity-associated inflammatory diseases.

Active areas of investigation include:

Development of novel clinical tools to aid in the diagnosis and monitoring of food allergy

Our lab is actively developing new clinical tools to aid in the diagnosis and monitoring of immune responses in allergic disease. A recent example of this work is the development of a novel functional T cell assay that accurately detects food-activated T cells in the circulation of children with food allergy.

Studies of novel immune responses in allergic diseases

We discovered a novel interferon gene signature in children and adults with eosinophilic esophagitis, and have been studying the consequences of this signaling on regulatory lymphocytes. We also were the first group to determine the molecular basis of food allergen recognition by the immune system in eosinophilic esophagitis. We are following up on these observations in animal models and translational studies in patients to develop new biomarkers and therapies.

Determining the mechanisms of diet and metabolic disease-associated immune dysregulation

We identified a unique subset of adipose tissue macrophages that regulate adipose tissue function and metabolic health. We study how these macrophages function in adipose tissue, and are extending these observations to other metabolic inflammatory diseases including HIV infection, non-allergic asthma, and COVID-19.

Epidemiologic studies of allergic and metabolic disease patterns in children

We developed novel methods to study pediatric allergic disease patterns using longitudinal electronic health records. We have applied these approaches to study food protein-induced enterocolitis, eosinophilic esophagitis, the effects of COVID19 infection and the pandemic more generally on pediatric asthma, and the emerging concept of allergic march trajectories. Ongoing studies are applying these approaches to national data-sets to uncover novel aspects of how allergic diseases develop, and how we can prevent them.