Digestive Diseases

Loren Laine, MD, Section Chief
Thiruvengadam Muniraj, MD, Clinical Chief (Endoscopy)
Hamita Sachar, MD, Clinical Chief (Gastroenterology)
Joseph Lim, MD, Clinical Chief (Hepatology)

The Section of Digestive Diseases provides outstanding clinical care for patients with a variety of gastrointestinal (GI) and liver disorders. The section continues to improve access to care with new general GI clinics from Westchester, New York, to Westerly, Rhode Island, and across Connecticut.

Jill Gaidos, MD, director of the Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) program, introduced point-of-care ultrasound for the management of IBD patients. Yale is one of a very few sites in the United States certified in point-of-care ultrasound for IBD. The technology allows providers to assess patients for active inflammation in the intestines while the patient is in the clinic instead of waiting for lab results, imaging, or a colonoscopy.

Anil Nagar, MD, is expanding the use of per-oral endoscopic myotomy (POEM) across Yale. This revolutionary endoscopic therapy is used in treating patients with such disorders as achalasia, a condition that affects swallowing. This less-invasive approach has a 90 percent long-term success rate for achalasia, matching the efficacy of surgery.

The Irving and Alice Brown Teaching Kitchen at Yale New Haven Health’s Digestive Health Center provides hands-on cooking classes to educate patients about healthy eating and cooking to enhance health and manage medical conditions, such as obesity, diabetes, and irritable bowel syndrome.

The Liver Home continues to thrive, providing outpatient, multidisciplinary outpatient care for individuals with advanced liver disease. To support patients’ emotional and psychosocial needs, a new pilot program offers behavioral health care, including sobriety support, mental health, and other issues. The Liver Home also expanded its team to include a social worker to help patients with access to food, transportation, and necessities.

The Yale Liver Center continues to be a premier research center for hepatology and is one of only three NIH-supported liver centers in the country. It serves as an important core facility for faculty in the Section of Digestive Diseases and throughout Yale School of Medicine.

The section is streamlining its research process to allow for an increase in new studies and improved recruitment, enrollment, and retention of study subjects. The Digestive Health Center in North Haven also makes it easier to conduct research by integrating research with clinical practice to create efficiencies.

Just four years out of fellowship, Bubu Banini, MD, PhD, was awarded a $3.05 million R01 grant by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for a five-year research project to investigate the feasibility of oral digoxin as a treatment for metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH).

Dennis Shung, MD, PhD, led multiple studies investigating the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning in digestive care. He led a team that developed the first electronic health record (EHR)-based machine learning model that provides clinical decision support for patients with GI bleeding.

Romina Fiorotto, PhD, and Mario Strazzabosco, MD, PhD, published a study in the Journal of Hepatology showing that harmful gut microbiota promoted cystic fibrosis-related liver disease. This study opens new potential avenues for prevention and treatment.

Michael Schilsky, MD, received an R01 grant from the NIH for his research to evaluate a potential biomarker in Wilson disease, an inherited disorder in which excess copper causes progressive injury to the liver, brain, and other organs.

Petr Protiva, MD, MPH, is the local site investigator for the CONFIRM study, the largest single VA clinical trial in history. The study aims to compare the outcomes of two colorectal cancer screening methods, colonoscopy and noninvasive fecal immunochemical test (FIT).

Tamar Taddei, MD, and research fellow Catherine Mezzacappa, MD, MPH, published a study in JAMA Network Open that found that continued liver cancer screening– which consists of ultrasound or other liver imaging done every 6 months–for patients who were cured of hepatitis C was associated with a survival benefit through five years after viral cure.

James Farrell, MD, published a review updating the field on the current state of clinical care and research for pancreatic cysts in The New England Journal of Medicine.

Yale researchers developed new testing criteria to help diagnose hereditary stomach cancer. Benjamin Lerner, MD, MHS, presented the work at the annual meeting of the Collaborative Group of the Americas on Inherited Gastrointestinal Cancer.

The section is committed to excellence in fellowship training, with its large gastroenterology fellowship program as well as advanced fellowships in transplant hepatology, IBD, and advanced endoscopy. Vandana Khungar, MD, has taken over as program director of the transplant hepatology fellowship; Alexander Levy, MD, is now the program director of the inflammatory bowel disease fellowship; and Matthew McConnell, MD, has recently become the associate program director for research.

The GI LEADER Program, led by Jill Gaidos, MD, aims to increase the number of women in leadership positions across the country by providing leadership training, mentorship, and other support.

The section hosted its inaugural Yale Inflammatory Bowel Disease Conference in April 2024 to provide up-to-date, evidence-based education in the diagnosis and management of inflammatory bowel disease.

Taneisha Grant, MD, assistant professor
Eric Jordan, MD, assistant professor
Fatima Khan, MD, assistant professor
Anamika Reed, MD, assistant professor
Simren Sangha, MD, assistant professor
Asim Ulcay, MD, associate research scientist
Karen Xiao, MD, assistant professor

Priya Jamidar, MBChB, was selected for the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ASGE) Master Endoscopist Award.

Jill Gaidos, MD, was elected to the Board of Trustees of the American College of Gastroenterology.

Tamar Taddei, MD, is the treasurer of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD).

Guadalupe Garcia-Tsao, MD, received the 2023 International Mentor Award from the Asociación Latinoamericana para el Estudio del Hígado (ALEH), translated as the Latin American Association of the Study of the Liver. Garcia-Tsao is also a member of the Board of Trustees for AASLD.