April 28, 2008

Shelton Wright.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) School of Medicine student, Shelton Wright, of Forest Park, has received a Fulbright Scholarship to Chile.

Wright, a third-year medical student, will spend a year in Chile conducting research at the Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile in Santiago working with pediatric gastroenterologists on a study to determine the effects of the H. pylori bacterium on the immune systems of children. H. pylori is the bacterium that is famous for causing stomach ulcers, Wright said, but in worse cases it can cause gastric cancer, which in Chile is the leading cause of death, second to widespread infection.

"Most Chilean children are infected with H. pylori at a young age, in contrast to the United States, where infection in children is rare," said Wright. "However, children do not tend to have ulceration or even symptoms to the same degree that adults do. The ultimate problem with being infected with the bacteria is that your body mounts an immune response that does not really work to kill the bugs, but does cause lots of inflammation."

Wright said based on previous research it is believed that the immune system of children is actively suppressed so as not to respond to the bacterial infection with inflammation. "Ultimately my plan is to study how a child's immune system does this compared with an adult's. This information could give us a better clue as to how to [treat] adults before they get infected in order to prevent the long-term problems of infection."