Digestive Health Center
Meet the Team

Meet our Experts

Associate Members

Research Interests
Pediatric hepatology; genetic and molecular mechanism of liver development and pathophysiology

Nurit Azouz, PhD

Assistant Professor, UC Department of Pediatrics
Research Interests
Allergic diseases; the mechanisms by which protease–protease inhibitor imbalance promotes barrier breaches and loss of immunologic tolerance in...

Alexander Bondoc, MD

Associate Professor, UC Department of Surgery
Research Interests
Liver tumors; neonatal kidney failure; hepatoblastoma

Jasbir Dhaliwal, MBBS, MRCPCH, MSc

Assistant Professor, UC Department of Pediatrics
Research Interests
Artificial intelligence; deep learning; machine learning; predictive analytics; clinical decision support tool and social determinants of health

Maria E. Fields (Moreno-Fernandez), PhD

Assistant Professor, UC Department of Pediatrics
Research Interests
Immune regulation; inflammation; obesity; diabetes; liver disease; aging
Research Interests
Cytokine and antibody roles in disease and host protection.

David B. Haslam, MD

Professor, UC Department of Pediatrics

Pooja Khandelwal, MD

Associate Professor, UC Department of Pediatrics
Research Interests
Acute graft versus host disease biology; treatment of steroid refractory acute graft versus host disease; management of refractory autoimmune...

Mansa Krishnamurthy, MD, MSc

Assistant Professor, UC Department of Pediatrics
Research Interests
Disorders of beta cell function; monogenic diabetes; congenital hyperinsulinism

Lisa J. Martin, PhD

Professor, UC Department of Pediatrics
Research Interests
Statistical genetics; genetics of heart malformations; pharmacogenetics; genetics of allergic disorders

Jonathan Merola, MD, PhD

Assistant Professor, UC Department of Surgery
Research Interests
Hepatocyte Transplantation; immunosuppression monitoring; genetic modification of human allografts; CRISPR / Cas9

Sarah H. Orkin, MD

Assistant Professor, UC Department of Pediatrics
Research Interests
Impact of social determinants of health on gastrointestinal illnesses

Joseph J. Palermo, MD, PhD

Assistant Professor, UC Department of Pediatrics
Research Interests
Acute, recurrent and chronic pancreatitis; cystic fibrosis related liver disease

Jose L. Peiro, MD, PhD

Professor, UC Department of Surgery
Research Interests
Myelomeningocele intrauterine repair; fetal tracheal occlusion for CDH

Anna L. Peters, MD, PhD

Instructor, UC Department of Pediatrics
Research Interests
Liver transplant rejection

Juan Sanchez Gurmaches, PhD

Assistant Professor, UC Department of Pediatrics
Research Interests
Adipocytes; brown and white fat; animal models; adipocyte development and heterogeneity; insulin signaling; animal models

Neha R. Santucci, MD, MBBS

Assistant Professor, UC Department of Pediatrics

Tetsuo Shoda, MD, PhD

Assistant Professor, UC Department of Pediatrics
Research Interests
Severe allergies; eosinophilic gastrointestinal disorders; precision medicine; molecular and genetic mechanisms

Ty D. Troutman, PhD

Assistant Professor, UC Department of Pediatrics
Research Interests
Disease; gene regulation; immunology; innate immunity; macrophages; myeloid cells

Stephen N. Waggoner, PhD

Associate Professor, UC Department of Pediatrics
Research Interests
Viral immunology; natural killer cells; immunoregulation; vaccines; autoimmunity; immune dysfunction in aging.

Jessica G. Woo, MHSA, PhD

Professor, UC Department of Pediatrics
Research Interests
Early life influences on the development of pediatric obesity; severe obesity in childhood; breastfeeding and complementary food; life-course...

Peng V. Wu, MD, PhD

Assistant Professor, UC Department of Pediatrics
Research Interests
Pediatric liver tumors; developmental biology; cancer genetics and genomics

Nives Zimmermann, MD

Associate Professor, UC Department of Pediatrics
Research Interests
Asthma; eosinophils; lung inflammation

Leadership

Alexander G. Miethke, MD

Associate Professor, UC Department of Pediatrics
Research Interests
Immune mediated liver injury, specifically the role of regulatory T cells in biliary atresia and primary sclerosing cholangitis; genetic basis for...
Research Interests
Application and development of analytical methods for microbial metagenomic next-generation sequence data; dietary assessment and analysis...

Cynthia C. Wetzel, PhD

Assistant Professor, UC Department of Pediatrics

Members

Artem Barski, PhD

Associate Professor, UC Department of Pediatrics
Research Interests
Epigenetics; epigenomics; immunology; T cell memory

Jonathan R. Dillman, MD, MSc

Associate Chief of Research, Department of Radiology
Research Interests
Ultrasound and MRI evaluation of Crohn's disease; ultrasound and MRI detection and measurement of liver fibrosis
Research Interests
Intestinal diseases research

Kevin A. Hommel, PhD

Professor, UC Department of Pediatrics
Research Interests
Use of technology to promote self-management in chronic conditions; adherence and self-management assessment methodology; behavioral treatment of...

Stacey S. Huppert, PhD

Associate Professor, UC Department of Pediatrics
Research Interests
Hepatic cell plasticity, development and regeneration; reprogramming; three-dimensional hepatic architecture; Notch signaling; hepatobiliary disease

Makiko Iwafuchi, PhD

Assistant Professor, UC Department of Pediatrics
Research Interests
Chromatin regulation; pioneer transcription factors; cell programming and reprogramming

Leah C. Kottyan, PhD

Associate Professor, UC Department of Pediatrics
Research Interests
Genetic basis of lupus; genetic basis of eosinophilic esophagitis; immunological mechanisms mediating genetic association with disease

Alexander G. Miethke, MD

Associate Professor, UC Department of Pediatrics
Research Interests
Immune mediated liver injury, specifically the role of regulatory T cells in biliary atresia and primary sclerosing cholangitis; genetic basis for...

Phillip Minar, MD, MS

Associate Professor, UC Department of Pediatrics
Research Interests
Application of personalized medicine in the care of children and young adults with IBD through the discovery of surrogate biomarkers of intestinal...

Sean R. Moore, MD, MS

Professor, UC Department of Pediatrics
Research Interests
Structure and function of the gastrointestinal tract in the context of childhood nutrition, growth, immunity, and host-microbe interactions
Research Interests
Pediatric MASLD
Research Interests
Application and development of analytical methods for microbial metagenomic next-generation sequence data; dietary assessment and analysis...

Joseph S. Palumbo, MD

Professor, UC Department of Pediatrics
Research Interests
Defining the role of hemostatic system components in disease pathogenesis, particularly malignancy; examining novel approaches to limit the...
Research Interests
Innate immunity; toll-like receptor signaling; dendritic cell biology; innate control of adaptive immunity; regulation of inflammation
Research Interests
Eosinophils; chemokines

Soona Shin, PhD

Associate Professor, UC Department of Surgery
Research Interests
Liver cancer; tumor initiation; cell-cell communication; hepatic progenitor cells

Takanori Takebe, MD, PhD

Associate Professor, UC Department of Pediatrics
Research Interests
Organoid; organogenesis; stem cell biology; transplantation; drug development Visit the Takebe Research Lab.

Kelli L. VanDussen, PhD

Assistant Professor, UC Department of Pediatrics
Research Interests
Intestinal epithelium; inflammatory bowel disease; primary cell culture; basic research; translational research

James M. Wells, PhD

Professor, UC Department of Pediatrics
Research Interests
Understanding the development of the pancreas, and gastrointestinal organs; generating 3-dimensional human tissues from pluripotent stem cells and...

Kathryn A. Wikenheiser-Brokamp, MD, PhD

Professor, UC Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine

Stavra A. Xanthakos, MD, MS

Associate Professor, UC Department of Pediatrics
Research Interests
Prevalence, determinants and outcome of pediatric obesity-related liver disease (Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and steatohepatitis); bariatric...

Chunyue Yin, PhD

Assistant Professor, UC Department of Pediatrics
Research Interests
Liver biology; cholestasis; molecular genetics of pediatric liver diseases

Margaret "Meg" H. Zeller, PhD

Professor, UC Department of Pediatrics
Research Interests
Barriers to weight management.
Research Interests
Signal transduction mechanisms regulating the inflammatory response in sepsis, hemorrhage, ischemia and reperfusion injury; inflammatory bowel...

Aaron M. Zorn, PhD

Professor, UC Department of Pediatrics
Research Interests
Development of lung, liver, pancreas and gastrointestinal tract; vertebrate embryology Learn more about CuSTOM.

University of Cincinnati Researchers

Christian I. Hong, PhD, Department of Pharmacology and Systems Physiology

Min Liu, PhD, Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine

Rajat Madan, MBBS, PhD, Department of Internal Medicine; Division of Infectious Diseases

Ardythe L. Morrow, PhD, Department of Environmental and Public Health Sciences; Division of Epidemiology

Yvonne Ulrich-Lai, PhD, Department of Pharmacology and Systems Physiology

Senu Apewokin, MD, Department of Internal Medicine; Infectious Diseases

Jason T. Blackard, PhD, Department of Internal Medicine; Division of Digestive Disease

Karthickeyan Chella Krishnan, PhD, Department of Pharmacology and Systems Physiology

David Y. Hui, PhD, Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine

Shinsmon Jose, MSc, PhD, Department of Internal Medicine; Infectious Diseases

Clayton S. Lewis, PhD, Department of Internal Medicine; Division of Digestive Disease

Shailendra Patel, BM, ChB, DPhil, Department of Internal Medicine; Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Metabolism