UK GIBA Network+ Seminar Series (25 September 2026)

Discover the latest advances in understanding of the gut-immune-brain axis in the UK GIBA Network+ Seminar Series.  

These online sessions feature presenters from across our five working groups. 

Date: Friday 25th September 2026 

Time: 12.30pm – 1.30pm 

Speakers: Dr Matt Hepworth and Dr Giuseppe (Peppe) D’Agostino

Dr Matt Hepworth
Institution: University of Manchester
Position: Professor 

Matt Hepworth is a mucosal immunologist based at the University of Manchester. Matt undertook his PhD training in Manchester where he explored atypical innate responses to intestinal helminth infections, followed by a postdoc at the Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany – where he further explored the interplay of innate and adaptive type 2 immunity at barrier sites. In 2012 he moved to UPenn, Philadelphia, USA (and later Weill Cornell Medicine, New York City), where he worked in Innate Lymphoid Cell (ILC) biology and performed translational studies that identified a novel role for ILCs in regulating the adaptive immune response in Inflammatory Bowel Disease. In 2016 he returned to the University of Manchester to establish an independent lab. His group aims to understand the complex crosstalk between the tissue-resident immune system and environmental cues – derived from the diet, microbiota, extracellular matrix and nervous system – to uncover mechanisms utilized by ILCs to maintain tissue homeostasis.  

Presentation title: Environmental regulation of immune crosstalk in the intestinal tract
 

Dr Giuseppe (Peppe) D’Agostino
Institution: University of Manchester
Position: Professor
 

Giuseppe (Peppe) D’Agostino is Professor of Integrative Physiology and Neuropharmacology at the University of Manchester, where he leads a research group in the Division of Diabetes, Endocrinology and Gastroenterology. He is a member of the Lydia Becker Institute of Immunology and Inflammation and the Geoffrey Jefferson Brain Research Centre. A pharmacologist by training, Peppe obtained his PhD in Neuropharmacology from the University of Naples, Italy, before undertaking postdoctoral research at Yale University, the University of Cambridge, and the University of Aberdeen. In 2017, he was awarded a Medical Research Council fellowship to establish his independent research group, which moved to Manchester in 2019. 

His laboratory investigates how the brain coordinates whole-body physiology, with a particular focus on neural circuits controlling appetite, energy balance, fuel utilisation, and immune function. A major theme of his research is understanding how the brain orchestrates adaptive responses to sickness, including the metabolic and immune changes that accompany infection and inflammation, their physiological significance, and their potential therapeutic exploitation. His group also studies the neural circuits underlying nausea and anorexia and how obesity therapeutics interact with these pathways.  

Presentation title: Brain control of metabolic and immune adaptation

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