CENTER FOR SYSTEMS BIOMEDICINE - Key Persons
Aasna Shah Medical Student Aasna is a second-year medical student at Touro University Nevada College of Osteopathic Medicine. She has received her bachelor's degrees in human biology and clinical psychology from the University of California, San Diego in 2019. Her first exposure to the world of clinical research was as a gastroenterology clinical research intern in 2016 at Stanford Medicine, where she designed a research project, under the mentorship and guidance of Dr. Berkeley Limketkai, regarding vitamin D levels in patients with inflammatory bowel disease. After graduation, she worked as a registered behavior technician for kids with autism through Easterseals Northern California and has been volunteering as a crisis counselor for Crisis Text Line since 2017. She is currently involved in leadership positions for several medical clubs at Touro Nevada and hopes to combine her passion for patient care and clinical medicine in her future specialty.
Job Titles:
- Health Sciences Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine / Vatche and Tamar
Dr. Thaker is an advanced endoscopist with particular interest in bariatric and metabolic endoscopy as well as other minimally invasive endoscopic procedures which help fill the gap between medical management and traditional surgery. He is co-leading the bariatric endoscopy program at UCLA, which is now among the busiest endoscopic weight loss centers on the west coast. He frequently coordinates with a multidisciplinary team in the UCLA Center for Human Nutrition and the Center for Obesity and METabolic Health (COMET). Dr. Thaker performs endoscopic sleeve gastroplasty (ESG) for weight loss as well as gastric revision procedures, such as transoral outlet reduction (TORe) and sleeve revision, for patients who have regained weight after prior gastric surgery. He also performs the transoral incisionless fundoplication (TIF) procedure, which is a minimally invasive alternative to surgery for the treatment of acid reflux.
In addition, Dr. Thaker has specialized training in other advanced therapies, including endoscopic mucosal resection (EMR) of large polyps; radiofrequency ablation for Barrett's esophagus and early esophageal cancer; stricture dilation; endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP); cholangioscopy; endoluminal stent placement; single and double-balloon enteroscopy; endoscopic suturing, fistula and leak closure; and endoscopic ultrasound (EUS) for cancer staging, fine needle aspiration/biopsy, EUS-guided gallbladder drainage, and other interventions.
Dr. Thaker is board certified in gastroenterology and internal medicine. Dr. Thaker's research has focused on eliminating endoscope-related infections to improve patient safety, helping to develop and implement the use of the world's first available disposable duodenoscope. He has published several research studies, literature reviews, editorials, and a textbook chapter related to the endoscopic management of complex gastrointestinal diseases, anesthesia safety during endoscopy, and preventing infections related to endoscopic instruments.
Dr. Thaker serves on the national committee for the American Gastroenterological Association's (AGA) Center for GI Innovation and Technology (CGIT), which supports innovation and the development of new technologies for use in gastroenterology, hepatology, nutrition and obesity management. He is also co-chair of the AGAs educational program on Innovations in Duodenoscopes. He completed his undergraduate training in chemical engineering at UCLA before attending medical school at New York Medical College. He completed his internal medicine residency training at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School in Boston, followed by gastroenterology fellowship and advanced endoscopy fellowship training at UCLA. In additional to performing procedures at UCLA Health campuses in Westwood and Santa Monica, Dr. Thaker performs advanced procedures in other Southern California locations.
Job Titles:
- Health Sciences Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine / Vatche and Tamar
- UCLA in 2013 As a Member
Dr. Sedarat joined UCLA in 2013 as a member of the interventional endoscopy within the Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Division of Digestive Diseases. His clinical interests encompass the development and application of advanced endoscopic techniques and interventions to diagnose, stage, treat and palliate a range of benign and malignant gastrointestinal disorders. He is proficient in the application of advanced endoscopic techniques including therapeutic ERCP, EUS with fine needle aspiration and biopsy, ERCP in surgically altered anatomy, interventional EUS (such as biliary drainage or rendezvous procedures, pancreas pseudocyst drainage, pancreas necrosectomy, fiducial placement and abscess drainage), pancreatic and biliary endotherapy, endoluminal stenting, endoscopic mucosal resection (EMR), endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD), complex polypectomy, tumor ablation, deep (device assisted) enteroscopy, endoscopic fistula and leak closure, complex stricture dilation and endotherapy, endoscopic treatment of Barrett's esophagus with mucosal resection and radiofrequency ablation, endoscopic antireflux procedures, Zenkers' diverticulum myotomy, endoscopic management of surgical complications, and chromoendoscopy. Dr. Sedarat also performs bariatric endoscopy, including primary endoscopic therapies for obesity, endoscopic treatment of weight regain following bariatric surgery, and treatment of post-surgical complications.
He started the program at UCLA to offer the POEM procedure (peroral endoscopic myotomy) as treatment option for patients with achalasia and spastic disorders of the esophagus. His research interests include endoscopic device development and application as well as evaluation of existing and emerging endoscopic technologies with a focus on improving patient outcomes. He is interested in the application of the emerging fields of submucosal and transluminal endoscopy, including endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD) for early tumor resection, POEM, and application of devices and techniques to treat gastrointestinal disorders that traditionally were managed surgically.
Dr. Sedarat completed his residency in internal medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. He completed his fellowship in gastroenterology here at UCLA and returned to UPenn to complete an advanced endoscopy fellowship. He is board certified in gastroenterology and internal medicine and is a member of the American Society of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, American College of Gastroenterology and American Gastroenterological Association.
Allison is a recent graduate of Stony Brook University in New York with a master's in public health and data analytics. Before she joined the G. Oppenheimer Center for Neurobiology of Stress and Resilience, Allison was a study coordinator investigating caregivers' perceptions of asthma and obesity in their children. She also assisted with a beta-trial of a new app to help caregivers track their child's asthma.
Anastasia Amundson Graduate Student Annie joined our laboratory as an undergraduate student at UCLA and recently graduated with a bachelor's degree in physiological science. In the lab, she has been involved in a study to characterize how foods that patients with IBD eat are associated with disease activity, symptoms and other relevant clinical outcomes. She is also assisting with a project to develop an AI system for nutrition. Annie aspires to become a physician.
Dr. Weber graduated from the University of Iowa with a bachelor of arts degree in biology with highest distinction. He attended medical school at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. His internal medicine residency training was completed at UCLA Medical Center. He is currently a fellow in the UCLA GI fellowship program. Research interests of Dr. Weber's include IBD mortality, surgical management and nutrition. He is currently leading a series of projects on perioperative nutrition in IBD.
Ankur is a fourth-year medical student at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. He holds a bachelor's degree in molecular and cell biology from the University of California, Berkeley. He spent a year working at LifeLong Medical Clinic as a clinical care assistant prior to entering medical school. Ankur is currently leading a multi-center cohort study focused on gastrointestinal manifestations of COVID-19. He plans on pursuing a residency in internal medicine and subsequently a fellowship in gastroenterology in the future.
Dr. Dua graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles with a bachelor of science in physiology. She then spent two years in Camden, New Jersey as a 9th grade biology teacher and utilized her experience in education and working with underserved communities during her time at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, where she served as an administrative leader at the student-run free health clinic and engaged in a number of educational initiatives for medical students and residents. She is currently an internal medicine resident at UCLA in pursuit of a career as an IBD specialist in gastroenterology. She is currently investigating the impact of NAFLD on IBD disease course and complications and is also engaged in a project assessing the influence of nutritional status on the gut microbiome in IBD patients.
Job Titles:
- Hospitalist, Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center
Dr. Myint earned a bachelor of science in biochemistry at Brown University, continued his education at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California where he earned his medical degree, and recently graduated from the UCLA internal medicine residency program. He also worked under the mentorship of Dr. May as the Melvin and Bren Simon GI Quality Improvement Scholar for the 2019-2020 academic year. His research interests include quality improvement in screening practices for chronic hepatitis B within the LA County health system and in colorectal cancer screening practices within the UCLA health system.
Job Titles:
- Director
- Director, Neuroimaging Core, G. Oppenheimer Center for Neurobiology of Stress and Resilience / Associate Professor
Dr. Gupta completed a PhD degree in psychology, followed by an APA accredited clinical internship at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical Center. Her programmatic line of research focuses on the interactions between environmental and biological factors in shaping neurobiological phenotypes associated with stress-based diseases such as obesity. Broadly defined, her research aims to integrate two systems (the brain and the gut) in order to better understand the underlying mechanisms associated with obesity and altered ingestive behaviors. The application of a "systems biology" approach to her research allows her to test the interactions between multiple factors, both inside and outside the body (e.g., sex, race, brain, microbiome, inflammation, environment), in order to better understand the complex pathophysiology of obesity. This is relevant to obesity, as it is a risk factor for many chronic diseases, and disproportionately affects ethnic minorities and women. These alarming projections have led to NIH and Healthy People 2020 priority initiatives directed at reducing ethnic and sex disparities. Her goal is to develop a comprehensive model that provides a powerful and sensitive biomarker that will increase biological readouts of obesity and altered ingestive behaviors, thus bringing to the forefront those individuals who are at increased risk as a result of disadvantaged backgrounds.
In order to pursue this line of research she recently received a R01 grant from NIMHD (NIH) on the "Social Isolation and Discrimination as Stressors Influencing Brain-Gut Microbiome Alterations among Filipino and Mexican American." She has also received several industry funded grants as PI and till date she has published over 70 peer-reviewed articles. These grants have allowed her to focus on the following main themes of research:
Investigate how novel pathways related to the brain-gut-microbiome (BGM) system may explain modulation of signals from the gut-microbiome on the brain via systemic immune activation.
Explain how risk factors associated with socio-cultural and environmental stressors "get under the skin" and are embedded in biology.
Identify subgroup differences (e.g., race and sex) related to obesity.
Model longitudinal patterns and changes across the lifespan as they relate to obesity in order to help predict risk factors leading up to the development of obesity while being able to identify prognostic markers.
Determine changes associated with various interventions (e.g., brain-targeted such as cognitive behavioral therapy, or gut-based such as specific diets) directed at altered ingestive behaviors and obesity.
Artin Galoosian, MD, MA GI Quality Scholar Melvin and Bren Simon Gastroenterology Quality Improvement Program Dr. Galoosian earned his bachelor of arts degree in public health with honors at the University of California, Berkeley. He received a master's degree at the Boston University School of Medicine and medical degree at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences, where he focused on medical education and leadership. He recently completed his internal medicine residency and served as chief medicine resident at California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco, a program affiliated with UCSF and Dartmouth Medical School. Dr. Galoosian is currently working under the mentorship of Dr. Fola May as the Melvin and Bren Simon Gastroenterology Quality Improvement Scholar for the 2021-2022 academic year. He is coordinating multiple research initiatives, in both the Division of Digestive Diseases and the Department of Medicine, aimed at improving equity and racial/ethnic disparities in colon cancer screening and follow-up of positive fecal immunohistochemical tests (FIT) among high-risk and average-risk patients. He is also working with the Department of Medical and Imaging Informatics to leverage a natural language processing (NLP) platform to help measure and validate various colonoscopy quality indicators within UCLA Health.
Dr. Nguyen graduated from UCLA with a degree in physiology and a minor in global studies, attended medical school at the Keck School of Medicine of USC, and currently works as an internal medicine resident at UCLA. Under Dr. May's mentorship, his research interests include health systems optimization in gastroenterology, with a focus on high risk colon polyp surveillance. He recently led a study examining the impact of the UCLA Health pre-endoscopy COVID-19 testing program. He is currently working on a project incorporating natural language processing to better understand referral patterns and management of large colon polyps at UCLA Health.
Job Titles:
- Director of Clinical Research, UCLA Center for Inflammatory Bowel Diseases / Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine
- Director, Clinical Research / Westwood
Dr. Limketkai received his medical degree from the University of Cincinnati. He subsequently completed his internal medicine residency, gastroenterology fellowship, and PhD education at Johns Hopkins University. His doctoral dissertation explored the role of vitamin D in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) pathogenesis and severity. Given his clinical and research interests in IBD and nutrition, Dr. Limketkai pursued advanced training as the Theodore M. Bayless Fellow in Inflammatory Bowel Diseases at Johns Hopkins University and clinical nutrition training through the Nestlé Nutrition Institute.
Dr. Limketkai's research focuses on the relationship between [mal]nutrition and IBD, identifying novel treatment approaches for IBD, and developing evidence-based frameworks for precision nutrition. His other focuses include analyzing large data on clinical outcomes and health services utilization, and applying technology for nutrition and gastroenterology.
Dr. Henneberg graduated from Princeton University with a degree in anthropology and a minor in global health and health policy, completing a capstone senior thesis on how societal perceptions of body weight impact the doctor-patient relationship. He obtained his MD from Boston University School of Medicine and is currently continuing his training as a resident physician in internal medicine at UCLA. His research interests include nutrition, obesity and the effect of chronic disease on patient's wellbeing. He is currently investigating the relationship between weight and biologic therapies for inflammatory bowel disease.
Job Titles:
- Associate Program Director, UCLA GI Fellowship Training Program
Dr. Jeon received her bachelor of science in biology at Cornell University and her medical degree at Yale School of Medicine. She is currently an internal medicine resident at UCLA. She has been engaged in GI research as a Fulbright Research Scholar, medical student and now as a resident. She currently works to investigate the clinical implications of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) in IBD patients.
Job Titles:
- Clinical Health Psychologist - Westwood
Job Titles:
- Associate Director of Technology Development, Center for Obesity and Metabolic Health / Assistant Researcher - Research Professor
Dr. Hong received her doctoral degree in biomedical engineering from UCLA in 2008. Subsequently, she completed a post-doctoral training under the mentorship of Dr. Peter Tontonoz in the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and UCLA's Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine. Her work focused on understanding the underlying biological mechanisms of cholesterol homeostasis and how molecular perturbations to this balance impact metabolic diseases.
In 2012, Dr. Hong joined the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine's research faculty where she continues to address questions focused on lipid and sterol metabolism. In 2014, she received the Roger Davis Investigator Award for Transitional Faculty in lipid metabolism. Dr. Hong has received independent funding from the American Heart Association, the American Diabetes Association, Center for Ulcer Research and Education (CURE) and UCLA/UCSD Diabetes Research Center (DRC).
Job Titles:
- Health Sciences Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine / Vatche and Tamar
Dr. Issa is a gastroenterologist and an interventional and bariatric endoscopist whose clinical practice focuses on using minimally-invasive approaches to diagnose and treat digestive diseases such as obesity, pancreas and bile ducts disorders, esophagus and stomach conditions, hiatal hernia, gastroparesis, fatty liver disease, hemorrhoids, colon polyps and early cancer lesions. He has a particular interest in bariatric endoscopy and obesity medicine and is co-leading the endoscopic bariatric program at UCLA. He has obtained additional training at Weill Cornell, New York, for cutting-edge endoscopic weight loss procedures such as endoscopic sleeve gastroplasty (ESG), gastric revision following bypass surgery, suturing the stomach to treat weight regain following surgical sleeve gastrectomy (re-sleeve), transoral outlet reduction (TORe), and gastric balloon placement. Gastrointestinal procedures he performs also include colonoscopy with removal of all sizes of polyps, endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP), therapeutic endoscopic ultrasound (EUS), tumor ablation, endoluminal stenting, trans-nasal esophagoscopy, mucosal resection (EMR), endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD) and peroral endoscopic myotomy (POEM).
After earning his medical degree from the University of Damascus, he completed a postdoctoral research fellowship at Northwestern University, Chicago, and a residency in internal medicine at Cleveland Clinic - Fairview Hospital. He then completed a fellowship in gastroenterology and hepatology at Virginia Commonwealth University and an advanced endoscopy fellowship at Weill Cornell Medical College/New York-Presbyterian Hospital, where he had extensive training on numerous innovative endoscopic procedures. Dr. Issa has published multiple peer-reviewed articles and presented his research at numerous national meetings.
Dr. Issa is American board certified in gastroenterology and internal medicine. He is involved in teaching for medical students and residents and runs a board review course for gastroenterology trainees at UCLA. He is an active member of the public relation committee of the American College of Gastroenterology (ACG), an active member of the members engagement committee at the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ASGE), and an active member of the Congressional Advocacy Program of the American Gastroenterology Association (AGA), in addition to being a member of American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD) and American College of Physicians (ACP).
Job Titles:
- Surgical Director, Center for Obesity and Metabolic Health ( COMET ) Chief, Minimally Invasive and Bariatric Surgery
Dr. Erik Dutson received his bachelor of science degree in 1990 from The College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, VA where he was on the Dean's List. He attended medical school at Eastern Virginia Medical School, receiving his MD degree in 1995. After completing medical school, he remained in Norfolk, VA to complete his general-surgery-residency training, which he completed with honors in 2000 under Dr. L.D. Britt. Seeking to further his excellent clinical experience, he worked for one year as a locum tenens surgeon, which gave him the opportunity to participate in a variety of practices in different hospitals all over the country while helping out communities in dire need of a well-trained general surgeon. An increasing interest in advancing surgical technologies guided Dr. Dutson to Strasbourg, France, where he worked for two years as a clinical and research fellow at the European Institute for Telesurgery at the University of Louis Pasteur. During this time, he learned a wide variety of advanced minimally invasive surgical techniques from a conglomeration of world-renowned experts. He participated in robotic-surgical investigations, and helped develop and validate virtual- and augmented-reality applications for surgery. As part of this experience, he participated in the training of approximately 8,000 surgeons from all over the world in advanced laparoscopic procedures, and worked on a day-to-day basis with the team that performed the first-ever transatlantic telerobotic long-distance surgical procedure.
Upon returning to the United States, he joined the newly formed minimally invasive section of UCLA's Department of Surgery in September 2003. He presently serves as co-director of UCLA's Center for Advanced Surgical and Interventional Technology (CASIT), a multidisciplinary laboratory with participation by the UCLA schools of medicine, engineering, computer science, and applied mathematics. He is a regular panel reviewer for NASA's National Space Biomedical Research Institute.
Dr. Dutson is board-certified in surgery and an active member in the Society of American Gastrointestinal and Endoscopic Surgeons (SAGES), the American College of Surgeons (ACS), the Society of Laparoendoscopic Surgeons (SLS), the Minimally Invasive Robotic Association (MIRA) and the American Society of Bariatric Surgery (ASBS). He has authored multiple scientific papers that have been published in peer-reviewed surgical and engineering journals. He has also spoken at numerous local, national and international meetings, as well as having helped to develop CME accreditation for web-based surgical education and worked as a web-based editor and author of surgical texts. He has been a visiting professor at both national and international venues, where he has also served as surgical proctor performing demonstrative advanced laparoscopic procedures. His clinical interests include laparoscopic and robotic bariatric surgery; laparoscopic gastric, upper and lower intestinal surgery; minimally invasive hiatal, paraesophageal, inguinal, ventral and incisional herniorrhapy; laparoscopic adrenalectomy and splenectomy; laparoscopic liver surgery and flexible endoscopy.
Dr. Bui graduated from Stanford University with a bachelor of arts in human biology. She then attended medical school at Brown University and is currently a resident in mnternal Medicine at UCLA. Her research interests include understanding health care disparities and improving delivery of care in underserved populations with a focus on chronic liver disease. She is currently involved in a project with Dr. May exploring racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities in time to treatment for colorectal cancer patients.
Job Titles:
- Director, G. Oppenheimer Center for Neurobiology of Stress and Resilience
Dr. Mayer has a career long interest in clinical and research aspects of brain body interactions, with a longstanding focus on the bidirectional communication between the brain and the gut in health and disease. He is recognized as one of the leading investigators in the world of brain gut microbiome interactions in GI disorders, including functional and inflammatory bowel disorders, ingestive behavior/obesity. He has been continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health since 1989.
He has published 344 peer-reviewed articles in the leading GI and neuroscience journals, including 100 reviews and book chapters and has co-edited three books. His articles have been cited 44, 350 times and his h-factor is 105. He has recently published a book for the general public on brain gut microbiome interactions (The Mind Gut Connection) which has been translated into 14 languages.
Job Titles:
- Chief Operating Officer
- Leader
- Member of the Leadership Team
- Independent Scientist at IntraGene Sciences
Fiona received her BS in health promotion and disease prevention followed by an MS in global medicine at the University of Southern California (USC). Fiona is currently attending the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA as a medical school candidate for 2023. During her time as an undergraduate in USC, Fiona worked as a research assistant in the molecular computational biology field focused on autoimmune disease, Myasthenia Gravis (MG). As a master's student, Fiona began doing more global health work ranging from volunteering to research. Fiona is currently working on a global health project focusing on cardiovascular research in Nigerian hypertensive patients. In collaboration with Lagos University Teaching Hospital in Nigeria, this project aims to understand the knowledge, beliefs, barriers, and facilitators surrounding hypertension among patients diagnosed with hypertension. Additionally, a related project, consisting of a systematic literature review aims to understand the knowledge, awareness, and access for the treatment of hypertension in Sub-Sharan Africa.
Job Titles:
- Director, Melvin and Bren Simon Gastroenterology Quality Improvement Program Assistant Professor of Medicine
Dr. May graduated cum laude from Yale University with a degree in molecular, cellular, and developmental biology. After college, she attended the University of Cambridge to study epidemiology and international health, earning a master's of philosophy in epidemiology before returning to the U.S. to attend Harvard Medical School. She completed her internship and residency in internal medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and remained at MGH for one year as a hospitalist and clinical educator in the Department of Medicine Academic Medicine Quality Program and the manager of Trainee Affairs for the MGH Multicultural Affairs Office.
Dr. May came to UCLA in 2011 to begin her gastroenterology fellowship and was part of the UCLA Specialty Training and Advanced Research (STAR) program. During her fellowship, she earned a PhD in health policy and management from the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. Her doctoral dissertation addressed black-white disparities in colorectal cancer incidence, screening and outcomes.
Upon completing her GI fellowship, Dr. May joined the digestive diseases faculty at UCLA with a dual appointment in the Veterans Affairs. She is the director of the May Laboratory, a health services and clinical research team that engages in research and quality improvement related to population health, preventive health, and health disparities at UCLA Health, in Federally Qualified Health Centers (community health centers), and in the Veterans Affairs. Research spans several fields from the epidemiology of disease and disease risk factors to implementation science to improve disease prevention and early detection of cancer. As director of the Melvin and Bren Simon Gastroenterology Quality Improvement Program, Dr. May also oversees a portfolio of quality improvement projects at UCLA to improve the quality of care for UCLA Health patients with gastrointestinal conditions.
Dr. May is a member of the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center (JCCC) and researcher at the UCLA Center for Cancer Prevention Control Research (CPCR) and UCLA Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Equity. She is also an assistant director for the UCLA STAR Program and the director of grants and postgraduate research for the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine Global Health Program. She has participated in global health programs in Costa Rica, Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda, Malawi and Tanzania.
Freida is a fourth-year undergraduate student majoring in human biology and society at UCLA. As a research assistant in the lab, she has worked on one of the studies of dietary patterns in patients with IBD and currently works on the project utilizing artificial intelligence in nutrition
Job Titles:
- Program Leader, Celiac Disease
Our general gastroenterologists are located across Los Angeles county and are also available by Telemedicine.
Honghui received her BA from Hubei Medical College in China in 1987, and then served as a registered nurse and head of nurse from 1988-1998 in the Second Clinical Hospital, Hubei Medical University, Wuhan, China. She jointed Dr. Tache's lab in 2002 where she is currently a laboratory technician with multiple skills acquired throughout the years to perform in vitro and in vivo experiments. She has been involved in several NIH and VA funded projects, and the most recently worked on NIH-funded SPARC OT2 project. Her outstanding technical performance contributed to the success of lab experiments leading to her acknowledgement in more than 80 publications.
Isha is a third-year undergraduate student majoring in molecular, cell, and developmental biology. As a patient with Crohn's disease herself, Isha is interested in learning more about IBD from a scientific perspective and contributing to existing research on the condition. Working in the UCLA Center for Inflammatory Bowel Diseases as an undergraduate research assistant, she is involved in studying the intersection between IBD, malnutrition, and the gut microbiome. Isha is excited to further her understanding of IBD and in the future, pursue a career as a physician.
Janelle is a registered dietitian nutritionist with expertise in both gastrointestinal disorders and eating disorders. She was motivated to become a dietitian when she was diagnosed with celiac disease in 2009. She believes that understanding the individualized effects of food in the body is an empowering part of treatment. Janelle utilizes mindfulness and self-compassion in addition to diet changes to help patients minimize diet restrictions and live a fulfilling life.
Janelle received her masters of science in nutrition and dietetics from California State University Northridge, then trained at the Veterans Health Association in Los Angeles. She is a certified eating disorder dietitian through the organization, International Association of Eating Disorder Professionals (IAEDP). She is a leader within the community of celiac patients and professionals, advocating for faster diagnosis, better care and improved quality of life.
Janet is a second-year medical student at the Charles R. Drew/David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. She earned a BS in neurobiology/physiology and behavioral/community health from The University of Maryland College Park. She also completed a post-baccalaureate program at the Johns Hopkins University and earned an MPH from the George Washington University. Under Dr. Fola May's mentorship, Janet is working on a project in Nigeria that assesses culturally specific barriers and facilitators to reducing CVD risk among patients in LMICs. She is also working on a systematic review that examines the current knowledge, awareness, and perception of hypertension risk and acceptability for treatment among patients in sub-Saharan Africa.
Dr. Treger received a BS in biochemistry from the University of New Hampshire. She received her PhD in biological chemistry from UCLA where she studied the mammalian response to DNA damage in the laboratory of Dr. Kathleen Dixon. As a post-doctoral fellow and assistant research scientist in the laboratory of Dr. Kevin McEntree, she continued her investigation of the mechanisms and transcriptional control of the stress responsive pathways in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. She joined the laboratory of Dr. Noriyuki Kasahara and the UCLA Vector Core in 2008, and has been involved in user consultations, and lentiviral and adenoviral design, construction and production. She remained with the Vector Core when it merged with the Center for Systems Biomedicine in 2004.
Jayraan Badiee, MPH Statistician Melvin and Bren Simon Gastroenterology Quality Improvement Program Jayraan joins the Vatche & Tamar Manoukian Division of Digestive Diseases from the trauma service at Scripps Mercy Hospital in San Diego, where she was a research epidemiologist with the trauma research team. Her areas of interest at Scripps Mercy included traumatic DVT/PE, DVT prophylaxis, and related injury patterns, multi-center research, and statewide patterns of traumatic injury and surgical intervention. She collaborated closely with general surgery residents to complete research projects. She previously worked at the HIV Neurobehavioral Research Program at UCSD, where her research focused on suicidal ideation in HIV+ individuals and the clinical correlates of HIV-related cognitive impairment. She received her BS in human biology from UCSD in 2007 and MPH from San Diego State University in 2009.
Job Titles:
- Medical Director, Robert G. Kardashian Center for Esophageal Health / Director, GI Motility
Job Titles:
- Director for the Biostatistics
- Director, Bioinformatics Core / Adjunct Professor of Medicine
Dr. Labus is the director for the Biostatistics and Bioinformatics Core in the G. Oppenheimer Center for Neurobiology of Stress and Resilience at UCLA and director of the Bioinformatics Core in the UCLA Microbiome Center. She has made seminal contributions to mapping neural networks underlying visceral pain and elucidating brain-gut-microbiome axis in humans. Dr. Labus is an applied statistician with expertise in biostatistics, bioinformatics, treatment-outcome research, multimodal brain imaging, microbiome, metabolomics, and multi-omics integrative analysis using systems biology approaches including machine learning and network analysis. Her current research focused is on determining biological markers (e.g., brain, microbiome, metabolomics, cytokines, and microRNA) of disease, including chronic pain, obesity and Alzheimer's disease. Using state-or-the-art computational, biostatistical, and bioinformatics approaches, she assesses the interaction between various levels of biological data (e.g. microbiota, metabolites, immune markers, multimodal brain imaging data) with clinical data. The overall goal of this systems-based approach is to identify and target the key regulators of multi'omics-biological disease-interaction networks in order to understand the pathophysiological mechanisms and provide new targets for treatment.
Job Titles:
- Director, Clinical Care / Westwood
Dr. Su graduated from Yale University with a bachelor of science degree in biomedical engineering. She then attended medical school at Stanford University before returning to Yale to complete her internal medicine residency. She is currently a fellow in the UCLA gastroenterology fellowship program. Her research interests include psychosocial determinants and outcomes in IBD, including fatigue, sleep disturbances, and physical limitations.
Jonathan Perumpail Undergraduate Student Jonathan is an undergraduate student at Seton Hall University pursuing his degree in biology with a minor in medical humanities. He is particularly interested in clinical research and is currently exploring the use of immunosuppressive therapies in treating Crohn's disease of the pouch. After completing his undergraduate degree, Jonathan hopes to attend medical school and pursue his MD.
Joseph Ebriani Medical Student Joseph is a first-year medical student at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. He first became interested in IBD after a personal experience with the disease during his college years. He subsequently interned for the Crohn's & Colitis Foundation and volunteered as a counselor for Camp Oasis, a camp dedicated to kids diagnosed with IBD. In order to gain a better understanding of the pathogenesis of IBD, he then joined the Jacobs Laboratory at UCLA to study the relationship between stress and the brain-gut-microbiome axis in Crohn's disease patients. Moving forward, Joseph is excited to continue his work in the Limketkai Laboratory and further his understanding of the relationship between nutrition and IBD. In the future, Joseph hopes to draw on both his personal and research experiences in order to provide multidisciplinary, patient-centered care, while also bringing a smile to the faces of his patients.
Job Titles:
- Chief, Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Parenteral Nutrition
Dr. Pisegna's main research interest is the molecular pharmacology of hormones and receptors in the gastrointestinal tract. These research and clinical interests derive from research in the biochemistry and molecular physiology of neuroendocrine tumors as well as an understanding of the molecular interaction of peptide hormones and their receptors. His clinical efforts are currently focused on the management of gastric hypersecretory conditions, neuroendocrine tumors of the GI tract, and Zollinger Ellison Syndrome (ZES), medical conditions that derive from alterations in the expression of gastrointestinal hormones. Dr. Pisegna cloned the receptor for human cholecystokinin A (CCKA), the cholecystokinin B (CCKB or gastrin) receptor and the pituitary adenylate cyclase activating polypeptide (PACAP) receptor. He has previously demonstrated that PACAP is a potent stimulant of gastric acid secretion and is expressed on neurons innervating the stomach, on enterochromaffin-like cells (ECL) of the stomach expressing receptors for PACAP. Using mice lacking the PAC1 receptor, he has demonstrated that the mice develop a gastric acid hypersecretory condition resulting from hypergastrinemia. Recently his lab is focused on understanding the role of peptide hormones in the development of obesity, metabolic syndrome and NAFLD. Dr. Pisegna's research interests extend to understanding the molecular mechanisms involved in satiety and metabolic syndrome including the role of the gastrointestinal microbiome.
Kara is a third-year medical student at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. She earned a bachelor of science in neuroscience, biology, and Spanish from Brandeis University and then spent a year pursuing public health research in Honduras through the Fulbright U.S. Student Program. The project investigated the alignment of NGO interventions with community health needs as well as the degree to which United States physicians are prepared to work in low-resource settings. Under Dr. Fola May's mentorship, Kara is analyzing the data from the interviews conducted during her time as a Fulbright grantee.
Job Titles:
- Associate Director, Clinical Programs, Robert G. Kardashian Center for Esophageal Health
Kush Fansiwala, MD Internal Medicine Resident Dr. Fansiwala graduated from New York University with a degree in economics and minors in chemistry and public health. He obtained his MD from NYU Grossman School of Medicine, where he engaged in research around population-level risk factors for gastric cancer and optimal antibiotic regimens for abscess treatment in Crohn's disease. He moved to UCLA to continue his training as an internal medicine resident. His current research interests explore healthcare utilization amongst a spectrum of gastrointestinal disorders.
Dr. DeDecker graduated from UC Davis with a bachelor of science degree in nutrition science biochemistry. She then worked as a nutritionist and technology-driven health coach for a primary care practice in San Francisco. She later worked at a start up with the aim of providing remote scribing services to physicians using Google Glass and AI. She graduated from UC Irvine School of Medicine with her MD and honors in research. Throughout medical school, she conducted research on the microbiome of patients with precancerous colorectal polyps and was funded by the American Cancer Society. She is continuing her training as a resident physician at UCLA in internal medicine. She is passionate about nutrition, microbiome, and IBD. She now works on a project assessing the influence of nutritional status on the gut microbiome of IBD patients.
Job Titles:
- Co - Director, G. Oppenheimer Center for Neurobiology of Stress and Resilience
- Vice Chief / Program Director, UCLA GI Fellowship Training Program
Job Titles:
- Associate Researcher / G. Oppenheimer Center for Neurobiology
Dr. Kilpatrick graduated from UCLA with a BS with honors in cognitive science and a BS in mathematics. Subsequently, she earned a MA in experimental psychology from Radford University and a PhD in biological sciences from University of California Irvine (UCI). At UCI, she trained with Dr. Larry Cahill, investigating sex differences in the role of the amygdala in emotional memory. Dr. Kilpatrick returned to UCLA to train with Drs. Bruce Naliboff and Emeran A. Mayer as a postdoctoral fellow, who continued to foster her interest in sex differences in the neurobiological correlates of emotional processes, including pain, stress, and resilience, in the context of irritable bowel syndrome and other pain conditions.
Her work has focused on the brain-related aspects of the connection between the brain and body that positively or negatively impact health in multiple research areas with a brain-body aspect, including disrupted brain-gut communication in obesity, brain signatures related to self-body perception before and after cross-sex hormone therapy in transgender individuals, facial dysmorphia-brain morphological relationships in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder due to prenatal alcohol exposure, and the impact of mind-body interventions on brain functional organization in late-life depression. Further, she has sought to understand the influence of sex on brain-body dysregulation, as an important step towards tailoring effective and beneficial therapies to the individual.
Dr. Wang graduated from Peking University Medical School in China, receiving her MS in 1984 and PhD and 1987, as well as teaching human anatomy and neuroanatomy there from 1979 to 1992. She was a visiting scholar in the Department of Histology at Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden from 1989-1990 and 1992-1993. Dr. Wang joined the UCLA CURE:Digestive Disease Research Center in 1993. Currently, she is a researcher in the Brain-Gut Interaction Laboratory led by Dr. Yvette Taché at CURE and UCLA, a research scientist at West Los Angeles VA Medical Center, and principal investigator on a VA rehabilitation grant to assess the beneficial effect of ghrelin agonists in Parkinson's disease models.
Dr. Wang's expertise is in neuroanatomy and animal models of brain-gut interaction. Her current research projects focus on treatments of digestive and related dysfunctions of Parkinson's disease in animal models, and on neuronal tracing of motor and sensory innervation of the colon. She has extensive experience in mapping of brain circuitry involved in brain-gut interactions in animal models of stress, and in neuropeptide- and hormone-regulated feeding and gut motility. Dr. Wang also conducted research on the innervation of epidermis of human skin and hair regrowth induced by a stress hormone antagonist in a mouse chronic stress model. She has co-authored 110 peer-reviewed articles.
Maral Daneshpazhouh Undergraduate Student Maral is a fourth-year UCLA undergraduate student from Dubai, UAE, who is pursuing a degree in microbiology, immunology and molecular genetics. She is also double minoring in Iranian studies and theater studies. Working at the UCLA Center for Inflammatory Bowel Diseases, Maral is involved in several research projects exploring nutrition and IBD outcomes. Maral plans to attend medical school and pursue a career as a plastic surgeon.
Mayte received her master of public policy degree and her bachelor's degree in international development studies and Spanish from the University of California - Los Angeles. Mayte is currently working with Dr. Fola May in identifying and removing barriers to colon cancer screening within federally qualified health centers in South Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley. Under Dr. May's guidance, Mayte has conducted patient interviews to determine reasons for delays in diagnostic follow-up after positive fecal immunochemical test (FIT). She also manages IRB approvals for new studies and works as a project manager for many ongoing studies. Mayte previously worked as an analyst for Social Policy Research Associates, where she worked on evaluations of federally-funded workforce development, human services, and racial equity and education initiatives.
Dr. Corson graduated from Gonzaga University with a bachelor of science in biochemistry. She then returned back home to Hawaii to attend medical school at the University of Hawaii John A. Burns School of Medicine. She continued her training at UCLA where she completed her internal medicine residency and is now pursuing her gastroenterology fellowship. She has a research interest in IBD and is leading a series of studies on the effect of malnutrition on the gut microbiome and IBD outcomes.
Job Titles:
- Candidate, Class of 2023 / David Geffen School of Medicine
Michelle graduated summa cum laude as a regents and alumni scholar from the University of California Los Angeles with a degree in psychobiology and a minor in biomedical research. She is currently pursuing her medical degree at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA as part of the class of 2023. Under Dr. Gupta's mentorship, Michelle is working on several projects that focus on understanding how factors related to sex, race, and lifestyle (diet, physical activity) contribute to alterations in the brain-gut microbiome axis that confer increased susceptibility to obesity. She hopes that this research will pave the way for multimodal and personalized therapeutic strategies for obesity that allow earlier interventions for individuals with obesity-risk signatures in their BGM axis.
Dr. Mulugeta graduated with a DVM from the Addis Ababa University, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine in Ethiopia. He obtained his PhD in digestive physiology/pharmacology from the Toulouse National Veterinary School and INRA Department of Pharmacology/Toxicology, Toulouse France, in 1994. Dr. Mulugeta then joined CURE/UCLA as a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Taché's laboratory; in 1998, he was recruited to join the research faculty at UCLA in the Department of Medicine, Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Division of Digestive Diseases. He is currently professor and associate director of the Models of Gastrointestinal Function and Disease Core at CURE:Digestive Diseases Research Center (CURE: DDRC), in the Department of Medicine at UCLA. He also teaches medical students at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and graduate students in UCLA's Department of Integrative Biology and Physiology.
Dr. Mulugeta's research focuses on brain-gut interactions and enteric neurogastroenterology. Specifically, he studies: 1) enteric neuron cellular and molecular mechanisms of CRF receptor (CRFR) signaling pathways on gut secretomotor and pain homeostasis during stress; 2) functional neural circuitries that link the brain and spinal cord to the colon, as potential targets for electroceutical neuromodulation of intractable colon diseases; and 3) brain trauma and intestinal dysfunction, with the goal of identifying the effects and enteric mechanisms behind intestinal mucosal barrier dysfunction and inflammatory responses.
Dr. Mulugeta's works have been published in highly rated journals, including Gastroenterology, Gut, and the American Journal of Physiology, as well as in book chapters. He serves as an editorial board member on scientific journals and associate editor of the Journal of Digestive Diseases & Sciences, and was a member of an NIH special emphasis panel for grant review. The NIH and private companies have supported Dr. Mulugeta's research. He is a fellow of the American Gastroenterological Association and recipient of the 2011 Senior Investigator in Basic Science award from the International Foundation for Functional Gut Diseases. Learn more about the Mulugeta Laboratory >
Mohamed is an undergraduate at UCLA pursuing a degree in molecular, cell and developmental biology. Before transferring to UCLA, Mohamed conducted research on the interplay between antigen affinity and human memory B cell fate via transcriptome analysis at the National Institutes of Health. There, Mohamed was responsible for isolating memory B cells from human blood, planar lipid bilayer synthesis, tissue culturing and RT-PCR techniques. It was at the NIH that he got to delve into the beautifully complex field of immunology. With this foundation set, Mohamed felt ready to dive even deeper into his interest in the interplay between diet and IBD at UCLA. Mohamed is more recently studying dietary patterns among patients with IBD and performing a systematic review of biological therapies in Crohn's disease of the pouch. After completing his degree, Mohamed plans to pursue an MD with a specific interest in treating IBD.
Dr. Larauche completed her PhD in cellular, molecular and integrated physiopathology in 2003 at the University of Paul Sabatier (Toulouse, France). Then, she moved to Los Angeles as a postdoctoral fellow with Dr. Emeran A. Mayer (2003-2005) and subsequently Dr. Yvette Taché (2005-2009). Dr. Larauche is currently assistant researcher in the Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Division of Digestive Diseases, in the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.
Dr. Larauche's primary research focus is to elucidate the mechanisms by which stress influences the brain-gut axis and visceral pain differentially in males and females, with a special emphasis on recruitment of peripheral pathways (enteric nervous system, epithelial permeability, gut neuroimmune system) as a crucial step toward understanding irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) pathophysiology and improving health care. Her central hypothesis is that the higher susceptibility of females to visceral pain and constipation is related to sex-specific alterations of the immune (mast cells) and epithelial (ion channels and secretion, tight junctions and permeability) systems related to sex hormones. In collaboration with Dr. Lin Chang, she has been able to move her preclinical research activities toward translational approaches using biological samples from IBS patients recruited from the community. Her research activities also involve the development of new rodent models of visceral pain and stress. With her colleagues, Drs. Adelson, Gourcerol and Mulugeta, she developed a novel technique to monitor visceral sensitivity in mice and rats non-invasively. With these tools and approaches, she was able to demonstrate for the first time the development of stress-induced visceral analgesia in rodents, which is affected by the technique used for visceral pain monitoring.
Dr. Larauche has been the recipient of the 2013 Award for Junior Investigator in Basic Science from the International Foundation for Functional Gut Diseases (IFFGD) as well as NIH NIDDK T32 and K01 awards. Dr. Larauche's works include more than 20 original research articles, eight review articles, and four book chapters. She also serves as editorial board member of Neurogastroenterology and Motility and the American Journal of Physiology: Gastrointestinal and Liver.
Job Titles:
- Lead Dietitian for the UCLA Vatche
Nancee is the lead dietitian for the UCLA Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Division of Digestive Diseases. Nancee was recruited in 2012 to help develop a comprehensive GI nutrition program to enhance care for patients with specific nutritional issues and to provide ongoing nutritional education to UCLA GI fellows, gastroenterologists and other health care professionals. The GI nutrition program is now an integral part of the division's Integrative Digestive Health and Wellness Program.
In addition to her lead role, Nancee continues her clinical nutrition practice, counseling patients on diagnoses such as irritable bowel syndrome, inflammatory bowel disease, celiac disease, short bowel syndrome and idiopathic or functional bowel disorders. She also leads the functional gastrointestinal disorders workgroup for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics Dietitians in Gastrointestinal Disorders (DIGID) Practice Group. Nancee shares her expertise on nutrition and digestive disorders by speaking at national conferences. Her current research includes the reintroduction phase of the low FODMAP diet with Lin Chang, MD, co-director of the UCLA G. Oppenheimer Center for Neurobiology of Stress and Resilience. Nancee is also researching different types of diets and their potential effects on remission and flare states in IBD with Berkeley Limetkai, MD, PhD, director of clinical research for the Center for Inflammatory Bowel Diseases. She is spearheading an effort to formalize a GI-specific dietitian group housed jointly under the American Gastroenterological Association and the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. She spearheaded an effort to formalize a GI-specific dietitian group housed jointly under the American Gastroenterological Association and the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics which became official in 2020. She also leads the Disorders of Brain Gut Interaction workgroup for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics in Gastrointestinal Disorders (DIGID) Practice Group.
Nancee graduated from California State University, Los Angeles, where she earned her masters of science in nutrition. She completed her dietetic internship at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and at the University of California, Los Angeles, where she was mentored by Dr. Chang.
Nancee earned a master's of science degree in nutrition from California State University Los Angeles. She completed her dietetic internship at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and at UCLA, where she was mentored by Dr. Lin Chang, co-director of the UCLA G. Oppenheimer Center for Neurobiology of Stress and Resilience. She is currently studying the reintroduction phase of the low FODMAP diet with Dr. Chang. In our lab, she has been studying how different types of diets affect disease activity in IBD. She is also one of the core investigators on the team investigating the nutritional, immune, and microbiome effects of an LA-based diet on ulcerative colitis.
On the national level, she leads an effort to formalize a the GI-specific dietitian group jointly housed under the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) and the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (AND).
Natalia is a third-year medical student at the Charles R. Drew/David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. She earned her BS in biology with a minor in Latina/o studies at San Francisco State University and completed a post-baccalaureate program at UC Davis School of Medicine. Under Dr. May's direction, Natalia is working on examining the impact of pre-procedure COVID- 19 testing at UCLA Health centers, as well as identifying barriers to colon cancer screening within Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHC's) in the San Fernando Valley. Natalia's previous formative experiences come from working with community organizations analyzing medical, social, and structural conditions faced by under-resourced and vulnerable communities as well as working as a health educator at FQHC's.
Natalie is a registered dietitian nutritionist practicing in gastrointestinal disorders. Natalie received her masters of public health in nutritional sciences and dietetics at the University of Michigan, where she completed her clinical training with subspecialties in gastroenterology and preventive cardiology. Her research interests include the gut-brain axis, as well as the interconnectedness between food systems, the environment, and gastrointestinal health. Natalie's practice is informed by both public health and individualized nutrition, and she believes that addressing the whole person through a multidisciplinary approach is key to achieving optimal health.
Neha earned a bachelor of science in nutrition from California Polytechnic State University (San Luis Obispo) and a master's in public health nutrition from Loma Linda University. She was previously at Stanford Health Care, where she built nutrition services for the Digestive Health Center. She led the development of the Outpatient Nutrition Support and Intestinal Rehabilitation Programs. Neha is now at UC San Francisco specializing in inflammatory bowel disease and intestinal failure.
In addition to patient care, Neha provides her expertise to research studies and has authored publications related to nutrition and inflammatory bowel disease. Neha co-chairs the publication committee through an alliance between the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) and the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (AND). She is also a member of the Crohn's and Colitis Medical Advisory Committee of Northern California and the Advisory Board of the International Foundation for Gastrointestinal Disorders (IFFGD). She is dedicated to the advancement of nutrition care and research.
Preeti Prakesh, MD Internal Medicine Resident Dr. Prakash graduated from Rice University with a BA in cognitive sciences and received her medical degree from Baylor College of Medicine. She is currently an internal medicine resident at UCLA. In medical school, she studied disparities in colon cancer outcomes. Her clinical interests include inflammatory bowel disease and optimization of screening practices for GI malignancies. After residency, she hopes to pursue a career in gastroenterology. She currently studies the factors that guide medical vs. surgical management in IBD.
Dr. Yuan received his PhD in neuroendocrinology in 1993 from Peking University Health Science Center in China. After serving as a lecturer and associate professor in the Department of Histology and Embryology at Peking University Health Science Center for two years, he went to Uppsala University in Sweden as a visiting scientist in the Neurobiology Laboratory, Department of Psychiatry (1995-1996) and subsequently moved to UCLA, where he has been since that time. Currently, Dr. Yuan is a researcher in the Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Division of Digestive Diseases at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.
Dr. Yuan has been working in the field of brain-gut interactions, and particularly focusing on the roles of CRF and its three new related peptides, urocortin (Ucn) 1, Ucn2 and Ucn3, in mediating gastrointestinal motor alterations centrally and peripherally, and on the anti-inflammatory effects of brain-vagal stimulation and ghrelin agonist HM01 on the rat postoperative ileus. On the brain-gut interaction team led by Dr. Yvette Taché, he found that CRF is expressed at the gene and protein levels in the rat colon and upregulated by endotoxin. He identified three novel CRF type 1-receptor variants in the rat pituitary, pons and medulla. Dr. Yuan's work also provided molecular/anatomical support for an important role for CRF/CRF1 coupling in the colon as part of the local effector limb of the CRF1 receptor-mediated colonic motor response to stress. Further, his work established a distribution pattern of CRF2b receptor expression on all three Ucn ligands in the rat gastric and colonic myenteric neurons and their roles in the modulation of the motility and inflammation. He obtained evidence in the rat that abdominal surgery induced a pro-inflammatory M1 macrophage response in the gastric muscular layer that is prevented by central vagal cholinergic activation induced by central TRH or ghrelin agonist HM01. More recently, in collaboration with national and international researchers, Dr. Yuan has been involved in the NIH/SPARC-funded consortium study on comprehensive neuroanatomical and functional mapping of colonic innervation (PI/PD: Dr. Yvette Taché). As a co-investigator, he is in charge of the ENS 3D structure/phenotype and molecular profiling in the mouse, pig and human colon. He developed a CLARITY protocol applicable for 3D imaging/phenotyping of the mouse and pig colon and revealed the ENS 3D structure, connectivity among the enteric plexuses, as well as a rich innervation of the mucosa primarily from inner submucosa plexus and distinct patterns of intrinsic cholinergic innervation. Dr Yuan's works publications include more than 40 original research articles, three review articles, and four book chapters.
Job Titles:
- Resident Physician, Internal Medicine
Dr. Sarnoff is currently training as a resident physician at UCLA's Internal Medicine Residency Program. Her research interests focus on the interplay between the brain, gut microbiome, and chronic diseases. She currently is investigating the brain-gut-microbiome changes in irritable bowel syndrome under Dr. Arpana Gupta. Previously, she worked under Dr. Martin Blaser at NYU exploring the changes in the gut microbiome related to precancerous polyp formation. She plans to pursue a fellowship in gastroenterology, with a specific interest in an integrative approach to digestive diseases that highlights these brain-gut-interactions.
Rishabh is a fourth-year undergraduate student at UCLA from Cerritos, California, majoring in psychobiology. He is particularly interested in the impact of lifestyle choices and other behavioral decisions on the progression of chronic disease. As a clinical research assistant at the Center for Inflammatory Bowel Diseases, Rishabh contributed to an investigation on the association between malnutrition and avoidant restrictive food intake disorder in the IBD population. More recently, he leads a study on IBD patients' perspectives on their treatment and well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Dr. Noorian is an internal medicine resident at UCLA from Los Angeles, California. He completed his undergraduate training at the University of California, Santa Barbara and received his MD from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Shaya's research interests are centered around IBD, and specifically the intersection between IBD and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. After residency, he plans to pursue a career in gastroenterology.
Sherona graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2008, with her MSN/dual program (acute care nurse practitioner/clinical nurse specialist). She has been working at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center since 2003 as a registered nurse on the transplantation unit focusing on liver, kidney, pancreas, and small bowel transplantations. She also worked at the transitional transplantation care unit in which the majority of those critically ill patients were seen soon after receiving abdominal organ transplantation.
In 2010, Sherona joined the UCLA Pfleger Liver Institute and Asian Liver Cancer Center working as an outpatient hepatology nurse practitioner specializing in liver diseases and hepatocellular carcinoma. Since 2013, she has had six research papers published in Liver International, Journal of Clinical Gastroenterology, Clinical Transplant, and Journal of Clinical and Translational Hepatology. In early 2016, Sherona was invited as a guest speaker to teach overseas and at the UCLA MECN (Master Entry Clinical Nurse) program. She also participates in community service projects to screen for hepatitis C in a local church. Her clinical interests include: hepatitis B, hepatitis C, biliary liver diseases, autoimmune liver diseases, fatty liver disease, drug-induced liver disease, and hepatocellular carcinoma.
Job Titles:
- Chief of Gastroenterology, Olive View - UCLA Medical Center / Research and Medical Director, Center for Obesity and Metabolic Health ( COMET ) Director, Metabolic Syndrome Research
Dr. Beaven attended Stanford University where he majored in mathematics with honors in humanities. He went on to receive his MD from the University of California, San Francisco, and received the Dean's Research Prize for work he performed in the laboratory of Dr. Scott Friedman under a Howard Hughes Medical Student Research Fellowship. Dr. Beaven completed internal medicine residency training at the Brigham & Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston. He came to UCLA in 2003 as a fellow in digestive diseases where he completed his gastroenterology fellowship. During this period, Dr. Beaven continued his research training and received a PhD with Dr. Peter Tontonoz in the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Department of Pathology. His doctoral work focused on cholesterol and lipid metabolism as it pertains to an important clinical problem: the metabolic syndrome. His research interests include nuclear receptor signaling and the relationship of inflammation to lipid metabolism during chronic liver injury.
Dr. Beaven joined the digestive diseases faculty at UCLA as an assistant professor in 2010. He is the research director for COMET, the Center for Obesity and Metabolic Health, which studies (in part) how metabolic pathways influence liver and gastrointestinal diseases. His molecular biology laboratory investigates how nutrient homeostasis impacts the development of liver fibrosis and diabetes. In particular, his team studies the biology of the hepatic stellate cell, the key scar-forming cell in all forms of liver disease (e.g. fatty liver, viral hepatitis, alcoholic liver disease). COMET has active protocols to enroll and study patients with metabolic syndrome, identify the genetics that influence liver fibrosis, and is developing novel tools to improve the delivery of care to patients with liver disease. Dr. Beaven and his trainees have received awards from the UCLA Department of Medicine Research Day, UCLA CURE, and the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD). He is an active peer reviewer for several scientific journals, including Diabetes, Molecular & Cellular Biology, Hepatology, Gastroenterology, and the Journal of Lipid Research. Dr. Beaven teaches in the medical school at all levels and lectures to medical residents and fellows on issues related to liver and gastrointestinal disease. He primarily sees patients with liver diseases as well as patients enrolled in the research protocols related to COMET.
Job Titles:
- Director, Faculty Career Development in Advanced Endoscopy
Dr. Kim's clinical focus involves the application of advanced endoscopic procedures in the diagnosis, treatment and palliation of various gastrointestinal disorders. He is proficient in diagnostic and therapeutic endoscopic ultrasound (EUS), ERCP, endoluminal stenting, deep enteroscopy, and endoscopic mucosal resection (EMR) of large colon polyps. His research and clinical interests lie in the endoscopic management of pancreatic diseases.
Dr. Kim received his undergraduate education from Harvard University and earned his medical degree at Tufts University School of Medicine. He completed his residency in internal medicine at the University of Pennsylvania after which he spent an extra year as chief medical resident. He then moved to UCLA for his gastroenterology fellowship and faculty career development in advanced endoscopy. He is board certified in gastroenterology and internal medicine and is an active member of the American Society of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, American College of Gastroenterology and American Gastroenterological Association. He is currently the director of the Faculty Career Development in Advanced Endoscopy at UCLA.
Job Titles:
- Integrative Health Practitioner - Westwood / Research Faculty
Job Titles:
- Member of the Leadership Team
- Division of Digestive
Dr. Li received his PhD degree in ecology in 2013 and continued his research as a postdoctoral fellow (2013-2016) at the Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences. He was a visiting scholar (2013-2014) in the Institute of Biology at Freia Universität Berlin, Germany. Then, he moved to Los Angeles and since 2018, he is a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Yvette Taché lab. Dr. Li is involved in the current research projects in the context of colonic innervation working closely with Dr. Yuan. His expertise in RNA sequencing, application of statistical and computational methods, 3D imaging using confocal laser scanning microscopy and 3D image processing and computational quantification using Imaris and Neurolucida 360 has helped to extend current knowledge in the field of neurogastroenterology. He is co-author of an article published in Neurogastroenterology and Motility on the colonic cholinergic innervation of the human colon.
Thu is a fourth-year medical student at David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. Before attending medical school, she graduated from UC Irvine with a degree in biological sciences and went on to earn an MPH at Loyola University Chicago with a focus in epidemiology. She worked as a research program manager and assisted in epidemiological evaluations for a HUD-funded asthma study, which assessed the effectiveness of community health workers in asthma management. Once in medical school, she became more interested in GI as a specialty. Her research interests include nutrition in patients with inflammatory bowel disease and the use of dietary therapy as a primary or adjunct treatment.
Job Titles:
- Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine / Vatche and Tamar
Dr. Dong graduated with distinction from Stanford University with a BS in biological sciences. He subsequently received his MD from the University of Chicago. He completed his internal medicine residency at the University of Chicago, where he stayed on as faculty for an additional year as a liver hospitalist. While at the University of Chicago, he trained in the laboratory of Dr. Eugene Chang where he investigated the role of the gut microbiome on microRNAs and colon cancer. He then joined UCLA as a gastroenterology fellow in 2016 and continued his research training at UCLA through the Specialty Training and Advanced Research (STAR) program. He finished his PhD in molecular, cellular and integrative physiology in 2020. Dr. Dong is board-certified in internal medicine and in gastroenterology.
Dr. Dong's research interest involves machine learning and how the intestinal microbiome influences the development of obesity, metabolic syndrome, chronic liver disease, cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. His clinical interests include cirrhosis, hepatitis B, hepatitis C, alcoholic liver disease, autoimmune hepatitis and other chronic liver diseases.
Troy is a second-year medical student at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. Troy completed a master's of medical sciences at Boston University and attended Western New England University for his bachelor degree where he studied chemistry and biology. At Boston University, he worked on research involving the transcription factor Ikaros and its effect on T cells' cytokine expression. Troy is currently working on a project that evaluates the influence of biologic therapy on weight in inflammatory bowel disease and another project investigating gastrointestinal manifestations of COVID in hospitalized patients.
Job Titles:
- MAS, FACG, FASGE, AGAF / Medical Director of Endoscopy, UCLA Health
- Professor of Clinical Medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine
Dr. Muthusamy is currently a professor of clinical medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and medical director of endoscopy for UCLA Health. Prior to his recruitment to UCLA in 2011, he was a faculty member at the University of California Irvine Medical Center. In addition to his extensive clinical work in interventional endoscopy there, he also served as the director of the GI Fellowship Program at UC Irvine. He has also previously served as director of endoscopic ultrasound at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Muthusamy completed his undergraduate work at Stanford University and graduated with distinction. He subsequently went to medical school at the University of Washington School of Medicine, where he graduated with honors. His residency was undertaken at Duke University Medical Center where he served as assistant chief resident and traveled abroad to study evidence-based medicine under Dr. David Sackett at Oxford University. He completed his fellowship in gastroenterology at the University of California San Francisco before undertaking his advanced endoscopy fellowship at the University of California Irvine which he completed in 2001.
Job Titles:
- Resident Physician / Department of Urology / David Geffen School of Medicine
Dr. Osadchiy attended UC Berkeley and graduated with highest honors, majoring in microbial biology. Prior to medical school, he worked as an analyst at a biotech startup focused on delivering an at-home model of clinical trials to patients with rare diseases. He earned his MD at UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine and is currently a resident physician in the Department of Urology at UCLA. Dr. Osadchiy's research interests include the intersection of the human gut microbiome and human health, most notably with respect to obesity, food addiction, men's health, and infertility.
Valerie received her BSN degree from New York University in 2012. After she became a registered nurse, she honed her nursing experience through the VA Healthcare System as a medical-surgical nurse and the Cleveland Clinic as a cardiology nurse. Valerie advanced her nursing career by completing her MSN degree at UCLA, and her journey led her to the UCLA Pfleger Liver Institute where she has been a nurse practitioner since 2018 specializing in hepatology. Currently, she provides care to patients with a variety of liver problems including liver cirrhosis, viral hepatitis, fatty liver, drug-induced liver injury, autoimmune hepatitis, biliary liver disease, alcohol-related liver disease and hepatocellular carcinoma as well as post-liver transplant management. Valerie also enjoys educating her nursing students in her clinic and was given the opportunity to lecture about liver cirrhosis and the management of its complications at UCLA School of Nursing in 2021.
Vivy Cusumano, MD Research GI Fellow Dr. Cucumano graduated from the University of California Los Angeles with a bachelor of science in biology. She then attended medical school at Albert Einstein College of Medicine where she pursued global health research to study health care disparities in Ethiopia and recently completed her internal medicine residency at UCLA Medical Center. Her research interests include improving utilization of preventative healthcare services, and specifically increasing rates of colon cancer screening. She is currently involved in a project with Dr. Folasade P. May to implement a low cost intervention to increase uptake of diagnostic colonoscopy among UCLA Health patients with positive fecal immunochemical test results.
Dr. Cusumano graduated from UCLA with a bachelor of science degree in biology. She then attended medical school at Albert Einstein College of Medicine before returning to UCLA to complete an internal medicine residency and continue her fellowship in gastroenterology. Her research interests include evaluating biologic response and failure in the management of patients with IBD.
Dr. Zhang received her PhD in psychology from the University of Southern California. Her studies were focused on brain mechanisms involved in monetary and food decision-making. Her dissertation examined the impact of nutritive and non-nutritive sweeteners on value-tracking, food decisions and nutrition pathways in the brain.
Job Titles:
- Assistant Clinical Professor of Surgery
Dr. Chen specializes in bariatric, hernia, minimally invasive and foregut surgery. Board-certified in surgery, Dr. Chen earned his medical degree at Fourth Military Medical University in China. He then did his postdoctoral research fellowship at UC Irvine and Stanford University. While doing his general surgery residency at Stanford, Dr. Chen developed a strong interest in helping obese patients. He then did his bariatric/minimally invasive surgery fellowship at Duke. Dr. Chen joined the UCLA minimally invasive/bariatric surgery program in 2014.
Dr. Chen's research focuses pathophysiology of obesity, especially the cancer prevention mechanisms of weight loss surgery. He is also interested in the long term outcome of bariatric surgery and all the new obesity treatment technologies.
Dr. Taché is a recognized leading expert in brain-gut interactions and the role of peptides in the underlying mechanisms of stress-related gut dysfunction and central vagal regulation of gut functon. She and her research team reported some of the pioneer work on the central actions of peptides to influence digestive function and feeding behavior. Her laboratory provided the preclinical ground work showing potential benefit of blocking corticotropin releasing signaling pathways in experimental models of irritable bowel syndrome and postoperative ileus. Building on her initial work on the peptidergic regulation of vagal activity to the gut, she is investigating with Dr. P-Q Yuan their role in the modulation of the cholinergic anti-inflammatory reflex in the context of post operative ileus. In collaboration with Dr. Lixin Wang, they demonstrated the role of ghrelin agonists to alleviate gut motor dysfunction in models of Parkinson Disease. She is directing a consortium NIH SPARC grant on the structural and functional mapping of mammalian colonic nervous system.
Dr. Taché joined the Digestive Disease Division in 1982 and was appointed Professor-in-Residence in 1987 and Distinguished Professor since 2009. Professor Taché developed this field of research through continued competitive grants obtained from the National Institute of Health (NIH) since 1982 as well as Veteran Administration (VA) Merit Award since 2000. She was director of the Animal Core within the NIHDDK Digestive Diseases Center up to 2020 and a co-director of the UCLA G. Oppenheimer Center for Neurobiology of Stress and Resilience (CNSR). She published 387 peer-reviewed articles, 180 reviews, 19 editorials and edited several books. Professor Taché has been the recipients of NIHDDK MERIT Award, the Distinguished Research Award in Gastrointestinal Physiology from the American Physiological Society, the Janssen Award for Basic Research in Gastrointestinal Motility, the Senior Investigator-Basic Science Award from the International Foundation for Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders, the Research Scientist Award from the Functional Brain-Gut Research Group, the Outstanding American Gastroenterology Association (AGA) Women in Sciences, the Research Mentor Award from the AGA Institute Council and Distinguished Scientist Award for Women in Neurogastroenterology from the American Neurogastroenterology & Motility Society), and the Senior Research Career Scientist Award and Middleton Award from the Veteran Administration and the Legion of Honor from the French Government. She served on NIH and VA grant application review panels and editorial boards of many peptides, integrative physiology, gastroenterology and stress-related journals and was an associated editor of Plos One.