My research program primarily focuses on inflammatory bowel disease, medication safety, and optimizing medical therapies. Examples include a series of studies investigating whether patients treated with azathioprine are at increased risk of developing lymphoma, retrospective cohort studies examining the association of inflammatory bowel disease with viral infections and neurologic diseases, retrospective cohort studies identifying subpopulations of patients with inflammatory bowel disease who are at increased risk of mortality, and clinical trials using the PPAR gamma ligand rosiglitazone to treat ulcerative colitis. I have also conducted a variety of studies to advance the methods of conducting clinical trials for inflammatory bowel disease therapies and for conducting retrospective cohort studies using electronic medical records data. My ongoing work focuses on the safety of thiazolidinediones and anti-TNF alpha therapies, with a particular focus on neoplastic complications, the comparative effectiveness of anti-TNF alpha therapies for inflammatory bowel disease, using biomarkers to adjust medical therapies in ulcerative colitis, and investigating the effect of diet on the composition of the gut microbiome in healthy subjects and children with inflammatory bowel disease.

University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine (Primary) Ben Z. Stanger, MD, PhD is the representative at this institution.