Dr Agne Antanaviciute joins Prof Hashem Koohy to discuss how spatial omics and single-cell technologies
uncovered the hidden biology of Crohn’s fistula and revealed fibroblasts as key drivers of disease.
Crohn’s fistula is one of the most severe and understudied complications of inflammatory bowel disease, causing chronic pain, recurrent infection, and profoundly reduced quality of life. Yet for decades, little was understood about the cellular and molecular mechanisms driving these destructive lesions.
In this episode of Immunity by Design, Prof Hashem Koohy is joined by Dr Agne Antanviciute, a corresponding author of the recent Nature paper “Spatial Fibroblast Niches Define Crohn’s Fistula”, to explore how cutting-edge spatial omics and single-cell technologies are reshaping our understanding of chronic intestinal inflammation.
The conversation explores:
- what Crohn’s fistula actually is and why it is so devastating for patients
- how multimodal technologies including single-cell RNA sequencing, spatial transcriptomics, Xenium, Visium, and collagen imaging were integrated to build the largest molecular atlas of Crohn’s fistula to date
- the discovery of specialised “FAS fibroblasts” that appear to drive tissue tunnelling, fibrosis, and chronic inflammation
- how pathological wound healing and immune–stromal interactions may underpin disease progression
- why these findings could have implications far beyond Crohn’s disease, including fibrosis and chronic inflammatory disorders in other organs
- the future role of AI and computational biology in interpreting increasingly complex multimodal datasets
The episode also reflects on multidisciplinary science, research culture, collaboration, scientific failure, and the changing future of biomedical research in the era of AI.
Paper discussed: “Spatial Fibroblast Niches Define Crohn’s Fistula”, Nature (2025)
Host: Prof Hashem Koohy, University of Oxford
Guest: Dr Agne Antanaviciute
Music: “Minimal” by paulyudin, sourced from Pixabay and used under the Pixabay Content License (royalty-free for commercial use).
