Pamela Valentino, MD, MSc

Pamela Valentino, MD, MSc is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and a Transplant Hepatologist at Yale University School of Medicine. Dr. Valentino trained in Gastroenterology and Hepatology at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Canada, and she completed sub-specialty training in Advanced Pediatric Transplant Hepatology at the Boston Children’s Hospital, in Boston, Massachusetts. At these centers of excellence in pediatrics, she has cared for infants and children with a spectrum of liver diseases and recipients of liver transplants.

Dr. Valentino's research interests focus on conditions that cause bile duct injury and can threaten liver function. Primary sclerosing cholangitis is an autoimmune disease of the bile ducts, and she has collaborated with centers from around the world to describe this disease in children, identify ways to evaluate the severity of the illness, and work on clinical trials.

Post-liver transplant, bile duct strictures occur in approximately 5% of children. She is investigating biliary stricture management via multicenter collaborations through the Society of Pediatric Liver Transplantation (SPLIT) to identify effective strategies to reduce repeated interventions and maximize transplant graft and patient health.

Outside of biliary disease, she examines OPTN/UNOS national transplant data to investigate strategies associated with increased organ donor utilization to minimize pediatric death and worsening illness while on the liver transplant waitlist.

Dr. Valentino is also collaborating with Dr. Michael Schilsky at Yale University on the Wilson Disease (WD) Registry at WD Centers of Excellence to learn more about the spectrum of disease in patients with WD from infancy to adulthood.

Dr. Valentino is collaborating with Dr. Binita Kamath at the Hospital for Sick Children and University of Toronto on an international study of Alagille syndrome called the Global ALagille Alliance (GALA). We hope to better understand Alagille Syndrome in children and advance management strategies.

Dr. Valentino is the site principal investigator at Yale for the International Registry of Congenital Porto-Systemic Shunts (IRCPSS). This group, led by Dr. Valérie McLin, is studying vascular shunts of the liver to better identify patients who are at risk for developing complications and to offer them standardized care.