Appearing by WebEx at the conference, Dr. Davis is a researcher and professor in the Department of Veterinary Microbiology and Pathology at Washington State University. Here, he summarizes the findings from his 27 year MAP study and provides an update on his progress in developing a cattle vaccine for MAP that may have insights into human MAP as well.
Appearing at the conference via Webex, Dr. Sechi is a Professor of Microbiology at the University of Sassari, Sardinia, Italy. Sardinia is an island with some of the highest rates of autoimmune diseases in the world. MAP is commonly found in their ruminant population as well. Dr. Sechi’s research shows significantly higher rates of MAP in patients with autoimmune diseases like multiple sclerosis and Type 1 Diabetes. He presents some of that research here, and discusses a mechanism for MAP infection in these diseases which may differ than that in Crohn’s disease. Questions from the audience follow the presentation.
Dr. Monif, the President of Infectious Disease Incorporated, presents his proposed mechanism on how MAP causes Crohn’s disease. Two factors: infection by MAP and subsequent loss of immunological tolerance, and repeated exposure to and adherence of MAP, combine to produce disease. A hypothetical debate between Robert Koch and Louis Pasteur about whether MAP is the cause of Crohn’s disease delves into the proof issues.
Dr. Zhang is a pathologist and co-founder of PZM Diagnostics, a company which is testing the blood from potential Crohn’s patients for the presence of MAP. He details his research here, which includes rarely finding MAP in culture or PCR, but detecting the presence of other bacterial DNA in blood samples. Antibodies to MAP in were found in greater than 70% of patients. Sjogren syndrome antibody levels are discussed as well as cross reaction to human proteins and a proposed mechanism of disease.
The following videos are the questions from the audience after each of the primary presentations from the 2017 MAP Conference. The audio is sometimes unclear, and has been adjusted when possible. Some of the Q&A sessions are included at the end of the speaker’s primary presentation, and are therefore not included here. The Q&A videos below can also be found under each individual speaker’s presentation page. They are compiled in this format for the ease of our viewers.
The following videos are additional interviews that Human Para and Majestic Plural Studios conducted with some of the presenters. These videos can also be found under each individual speaker’s presentation page. They are compiled here for the ease of the viewers.