Chair endowed for GI studies

Henry J. Binder, M.D., professor emeritus of gastroenterology, and his wife, Joan W. Binder, have endowed a full professorship for a physician-scientist in the field of gastroenterology. Judy H. Cho, M.D., was named the first Henry J. and Joan W. Binder professor of gastroenterology.

Binder has devoted his career to studying gastrointestinal disorders and diarrheal diseases—a major problem in many developing countries. He came to Yale as a postdoctoral fellow in gastroenterology in 1963. He had developed an interest in the field while a student at New York University School of Medicine, where he stayed on as an internal medicine resident at Bellevue Hospital. Binder was director of the general clinical research center at Yale-New Haven Hospital for 21 years and established two NIH-supported training programs. Binder maintains an active clinical practice at the school of medicine that focuses on patients with inflammatory bowel diseases and unexplained chronic diarrhea. In recent years, with support from the Gates Foundation, Binder has worked to reformulate oral rehydration solution—a recipe that combines salt, sugar, and water in the proper ratio—for the treatment of diarrhea in children.

Cho, professor of medicine (digestive diseases) and of genetics, is the director of the Inflammatory Bowel Disease Center. Her research seeks to identify genetic variations that affect susceptibility to and expression of inflammatory bowel disease.