Ramnik Xavier, M.D., Ph.D.
Professor of Medicine – Harvard Medical School
Generating reference maps of the colon enteric nervous system of adult mice and humans at single-cell resolution serves as a foundational reference for GI biologists, allergists and immunologists
Ramnik Xavier, a core institute member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Kurt Isselbacher professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, Co-Director of MIT’s Center for Microbiome Informatics and Therapeutics, the director of MGH’s Center for Computational and Integrative Biology, and the director of the Klarman Cell Observatory at the Broad Institute. As a clinical gastroenterologist and molecular biologist, he studies the molecular mechanisms involved in innate and adaptive immunity as well as the genetic variants associated with IBD and autoimmunity. His lab has led landmark studies characterizing microbiome composition in health and disease.
Ramnik Xavier’s research with FASI also explores the role of the enteric nervous system of the small bowel in allergic disease. The aims of this research include generating an ENS cellular map of the small intestine. To this end, he has co-developed new experimental technologies to facilitate dissection of ENS function and characterize the ENS at a molecular level. His work generating reference maps of the colon enteric nervous system of adult mice and humans at single-cell resolution serves as a foundational reference for GI biologists, allergists and immunologists.
Xavier completed his residency in internal medicine and fellowship in gastroenterology at Massachusetts General Hospital and was chief of Gastroenterology at MGH.
Featured Publications
Drokhlyansky E, Smillie CS, Van Wittenberghe N, Ericsson M, Griffin GK, Eraslan G, Dionne D, Cuoco MS, Goder-Reiser MN, Sharova T, Kuksenko O, Aguirre AJ, Boland GM, Graham D, Rozenblatt-Rosen O, Xavier RJ, Regev A. The Human and Mouse Enteric Nervous System at Single-Cell Resolution. Cell. 2020 Sep 17;182(6):1606-1622.e23. PMID: 32888429
Biton M, Haber AL, Rogel N, Burgin G, Beyaz S, Schnell A, Ashenberg O, Su CW, Smillie C, Shekhar K, Chen Z, Wu C, Ordovas-Montanes J, Alvarez D, Herbst RH, Zhang M, Tirosh I, Dionne D, Nguyen LT, Xifaras ME, Shalek AK, von Andrian UH, Graham DB, Rozenblatt-Rosen O, Shi HN, Kuchroo V, Yilmaz OH, Regev A, Xavier RJ. T Helper Cell Cytokines Modulate Intestinal Stem Cell Renewal and Differentiation. Cell. 2018 Nov 15;175(5):1307-1320.e22. PMID: 30392957
Wallrapp A, Burkett PR, Riesenfeld SJ, Kim SJ, Christian E, Abdulnour RE, Thakore PI, Schnell A, Lambden C, Herbst RH, Khan P, Tsujikawa K, Xavier RJ, Chiu IM, Levy BD, Regev A, Kuchroo VK. Calcitonin Gene-Related Peptide Negatively Regulates Alarmin-Driven Type 2 Innate Lymphoid Cell Responses. Immunity. 2019 Oct 15;51(4):709-723.e6. PMID: 31604686
Haber AL, Biton M, Rogel N, Herbst RH, Shekhar K, Smillie C, Burgin G, Delorey TM, Howitt MR, Katz Y, Tirosh I, Beyaz S, Dionne D, Zhang M, Raychowdhury R, Garrett WS, Rozenblatt-Rosen O, Shi HN, Yilmaz O, Xavier RJ, Regev A. A single-cell survey of the small intestinal epithelium. Nature. 2017 Nov 16;551(7680):333-339. PMID: 29144463