November 3, 2015

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Three pediatric gastroenterologists recently joined the pediatric gastroenterology team at the West Campus. The additional physicians brings the team to a total of four full-time gastroenterologists at the West Houston hospital.

“We are very glad to now have four full-time providers at West Campus who can provide needed services to our West Houston families,” said Katherine Bunting, manager of ambulatory services. “Now our patients and their families won’t have to travel far from home to get the gastroenterological services they need.”

The three new team members are:

  • Dr. Yen Pham comes to Texas Children’s from the University of California San Francisco where she pursued additional training in transplant hepatology after earning her medical degree from the University of Texas Medical School at Houston. After graduating, Pham completed a residency and fellowship at her alma mater before moving to California.
  • Dr. Priya Raj completed her medical degree at St. John’s Medical College in India and her residency at Cohen Children’s Medical Center of New York. Prior to joining Texas Children’s, she completed a fellowship at the Children’s Hospital at Montefiore in New York as well as a Master’s Degree in clinical Research Methods from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. She has a special interest and expertise in aerodigestive diseases.
  • Dr. Myriam Soraya Barragan has a special interest in inflammatory bowel disease. She completed her medical training and pediatric residency training in Bogota, where she completed work in specialized studies in health care management, pharmacology and epidemiology. Barragan completed a pediatric residency program at Texas Tech University Health Science Center in El Paso and recently finished a fellowship in pediatric gastroenterology, hepatology and nutrition at the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh.

The fourth gastroenterologist at West Campus is Dr. Valentine Enemuo, who joined Texas Children’s in January. Enemuo earned his medical degree from the University of Nigerial College of Medicine. He then completed a residency at the Charles R. Drew University Program and a fellowship at the University of British Colombia – Vancouver. Enemuo’s clinical and research interests include general gastroenterology, gastroesophageal reflux, aerodigestive disorders, swallowing disorders, functional gastrointestinal disorders, gastrointestinal motility disorders, and inflammatory bowel disease.

February 24, 2015

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Have you ever wondered why life leads us down certain career paths? For Dr. Ruth Ann Luna, the answer is obvious – her immense curiosity and passion for research to improve the quality of life for sick children.

As director of medical metagenomics at Texas Children’s Microbiome Center, Luna focuses much of her research on the link between disturbances in the gut microbiome – bacterial communities in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract – and GI symptoms in children.

Her quest for answers goes far beyond her role as an astute scientist. One of her biggest motivators is her 6-year-old son, Kellen, who has autism accompanied by significant GI problems – a common complaint among children with autism spectrum disorders.

22515autisminside495“When Autism Speaks announced its GI and Neurobehavioral Processes grant almost a year ago, I recognized it as the opportunity of a lifetime,” said Luna, an assistant professor of pathology at Baylor College of Medicine. “I was in awe when I found out we were awarded this funding to advance autism research.”

With the support of a $1.4 million, three-year grant, Luna and her colleagues at Texas Children’s and Baylor will embark on a comprehensive, multi-center study to determine if a biological connection exists between autism and GI disorders.

“Previous research has shown that gastrointestinal problems are more common among individuals with autism and may worsen behavioral problems,” said Texas Children’s Pathologist-in-Chief Dr. James Versalovic, the Milton J. Finegold professor of pathology at Baylor and director of Texas Children’s Microbiome Center.

Co-led by Luna and Versalovic, scientists in the Microbiome Center will evaluate behavior, GI symptoms, the microbiome and the metabolome, all in the hopes of identifying biomarkers of abdominal pain, understanding the impact of the gut-brain-microbiome axis and determining metabolic disturbances in autism.

“There are inherent differences in the guts of children with autism,” Luna said. “By analyzing all of these factors, we hope to develop better ways to diagnose and treat gastrointestinal issues in children with autism.”

The autism study will enroll 375 children ages 4 through 12 at Texas Children’s, the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas and Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.

Children with autism – with and without GI symptoms – and their unaffected siblings, and children without autism, with and without GI symptoms, are currently being recruited for the study.

“The data gleaned from our research will benefit my son and other families who have children with autism, especially those children with limited verbal abilities” Luna said. “This amazing opportunity to positively impact lives is what makes my job extremely fulfilling.”

For more information or to enroll in the Microbiome Center’s autism and GI study, contact Luna at Ext. 4-1894 or raluna@texaschildrens.org.

January 13, 2015

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Texas Children’s is excited to announce the arrrival of Dr. Benjamin Shneider, our new chief of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition. Shneider was also appointed professor of pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine.

Shneider obtained his undergraduate education at Stanford University and earned his medical degree from the University of Chicago. He completed pediatric residency training at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, as well as a subspecialty fellowship in pediatric gastroenterology at Yale University.

Shneider served as chief of the Division of Pediatric Hepatology at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine before moving to the University of Pittsburgh and Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC where he served as professor of pediatrics and director of Pediatric Hepatology.

Shneider’s clinical expertise includes liver disease in children with a particular focus on cholestatic liver disorders and portal hypertension. His current basic research focus is on intestinal gene regulation, while his translational and clinical research centers on pediatric liver diseases. His basic, translational and clinical research in intestinal gene expression and liver diseases has been continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health since 1993.

Shneider has authored 114 original research papers published in the peer-reviewed medical literature and 104 additional textbook chapters, case reports and review articles. He has delivered 199 invited lectures at top medical centers and scientific meetings around the world. He is an elected member of the Society for Pediatric Research and the American Society for Clinical Investigation.

“Dr. Shneider is an internationally-recognized clinician, researcher and expert in diseases of the liver and gastrointestinal system,” said Dr. Mark W. Kline, physician-in-chief at Texas Children’s and chair of the Department of Pediatrics at Baylor. “We are confident his leadership will continue to advance the international prominence of our gastroenterology, hepatology and nutrition team.”

January 6, 2015

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Texas Children’s researchers have embarked on a five-year crossover dietary intervention study that could determine why certain children with Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) develop symptoms when eating wheat.

IBS is a common gastrointestinal (GI) disorder that can develop in children at any age. Since IBS patients have extremely sensitive digestive tracts, they may experience frequent abdominal pain, bloating, flatulence and changes in bowel habits that include diarrhea and/or constipation.

A group of sugars called FODMAPs (Fermentable Oligosaccharides, Disaccharides, Monosaccharides and Polyols) are known to exacerbate IBS symptoms. Since these sugars are poorly digested in the small intestine, trillions of bacteria in the colon ferment the sugars, which can produce excessive gas in IBS sufferers. One of these hard-to-digest sugars is fructans.

In collaboration with researchers at Baylor College of Medicine and funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Texas Children’s Gastroenterologist Dr. Bruno Chumpitazi and his team are conducting a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled study to examine the effects of fructans – a natural sugar found in wheat – in 80 children with IBS.

“Certain IBS children experience unpleasant GI symptoms when challenged with fructans,” said Chumpitazi, director of Texas Children’s Neurogastroenterology and Motility program. “We hypothesize these symptoms are due to the composition of bacteria in their gut, or gut microbiome, and what these bacteria do with the fructans.”

All 80 children will receive the same low FODMAP diet with varying drinks prepared by the Children’s Nutrition Research Center at Baylor. Based on randomization, one drink will contain fructans while the other will contain maltodextrin, a starch that our bodies can easily absorb without the help of gut bacteria.

“The children will consume the assigned diet over a period of 72 hours,” said Chumpitazi. “They will return to their normal diet for at least seven days before starting the low FODMAP diet with a different drink combination.”

With the help of Texas Children’s Microbiome Center led by Dr. James Versalovic and the Texas Children’s Center for Pediatric Abdominal Pain Research led by Dr. Robert J. Shulman, researchers will track the children’s symptoms daily and collect stool samples before and after the dietary interventions to monitor changes in their gut microbiome’s bacterial composition and bacterial byproducts. The byproducts produced by the bacteria will also be measured through breath testing.

The objective of the NIH-funded study is to identify whether bacteria in the gut and/or other factors are responsible for IBS symptoms in patients when fructans are consumed.

“If we understand why IBS children in the trial respond differently to the fructan challenge, it could help scientists develop targeted therapies to enhance the quality of life for patients with this GI disorder,” said Chumpitazi.

Other Baylor College of Medicine scientists collaborating in this study include Dr. Joe Petrosino and Dr. Aleksander Milosavljevic.