Research and Education

Research in the Division of Pediatric Gastroenterology, headed by Dr. J. Marc Rhoads, M.D., includes both basic and clinical research. Our team is committed to delivering excellence in the lab and translating these methods, procedures, and treatments to a clinical environment.

Each member of the division is actively pursuing or has a record of aggressive pursuit of an area of clinical research:

• Dr. J. Marc Rhoads: probiotics, mechanism of the microbiome, gastrointestinal disorders, infantile colic, autism, gut inflammation.
• Dr. Yuying Liu: neonatal necrotizing enterocolitis, intestinal mucosal immunology and inflammation, intestinal epithelial barrier function, and probiotics.
• Dr. Fernando Navarro: inflammatory bowel disease and nutrition; gastrointestinal function and its relationship to behavior in autism; citrulline metabolism and infant nutrition in short bowel syndrome.
• Dr. Wallace Gleason: Vitamin D metabolism in the intestine and liver and its relationship to health and disease.
• Dr. Essam Imseis: chronic liver disease and liver transplantation, short bowel disease and short bowel syndrome, and Hirschsprung disease.
• Dr. Melissa Van Arsdall: small intestinal bacterial overgrowth in children with functional bowel disease.

Three of our members are active in basic science research: Dr. Liu, Dr. Mai, and Dr. Rhoads, investigating the impact and mechanism of probiotics in healthy and inflammatory diseases (Liu and Rhoads) and Eosinophilic Esophagitis (EoE) (Mai and Rhoads).