Dr. Milena Saqui-Salces is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Animal Science at the University of Minnesota. Her research interests include the function of the gastrointestinal tract and its association with diet and the environment including commensal and pathogenic bacteria. Since early in her career, Dr. Saqui-Salces has been involved in the study of the mechanisms involved in modulation of the gastrointestinal epithelium function. She is exploring the changes on intestinal epithelial composition, endocrine secretion and local immune response of production animals fed diets with high fiber content. Dr. Saqui-Salces is currently working on establishing intestinal organoids as in vitro models to study these changes and as model for infectious diseases, like enteropathy caused by Lawsonia intracellularis infection.
Dr. Saqui-Salces is originally from Veracruz, Mexico. She received her PhD in Biological Sciences from the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico in 2006. Her postdoctoral research at the University of Michigan was on the epithelial changes that lead to gastrointestinal cancer.