Lina is a visiting clinician scientist from the University Hospital of Kiel, Schleswig-Holstein (UKSH Kiel), Germany, who is grateful for being a part of the McReynolds lab from August -December 2022. As a physician, she is specializing in Internal Medicine & Gastroenterology (especially Inflammatory Bowel Disease), whereas as a scientist, she is looking into the dynamics of tryptophan metabolism in intestinal inflammation at the Institute of Clinical Molecular Biology (IKMB, Kiel, Germany; "Systems Immunology" & "Intestinal Immunometabolism" group). Combining both professions enables her to perform a translational-research-based approach to unravel underlying pathomechanisms of altered tryptophan turnover in chronic inflammatory disorders, which has been observed for decades but still remains incompletely understood. During her medical thesis (2016 - 2021, IKMB Kiel), she has discovered a novel role of the ER-stress-mediator Xbp1 in coordinating epithelial DNA damage responses upon intestinal inflammation. Mechanistically, by regulating p53- and mTOR-activity, Xbp1 prevents colitis-associated cancer (Welz et al., Gastroenterology, 2021).