Cell and Developmental Biology University of Michigan

Research

I am an MD/PhD student currently in the third year of his PhD in Cellular and Molecular Biology. I received my undergraduate degree from Columbia in Biomedical Engineering and began medical school here at Michigan in 2006. I am investigating the development of the pylorus, the junction between the stomach and the small intestine. The pylorus regulates the timing and direction of food movement through the digestive tract and abnormal development of this junction can lead to serious pediatric pathologies, including infantile hypertrophic pyloric stenosis (IHPS). My work extends earlier data within our lab which demonstrated the expression of the transcription factor Gata3 at the pylorus, where it had not previously been described. I am currently characterizing its role in pyloric development and its relation to known pyloric transcription factors and signaling molecules with the goal of eventually understanding the pathogenesis of IHPS