Welcome to the Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition. Our mission is to provide high quality clinical care, superior education for trainees and postgraduate physicians, to conduct research with scientific rigor, to publish our findings in high impact medical journals and present at scientific meetings, and participate in the academic goals of the Department of Medicine. We offer excellence in medical care for the spectrum of gastrointestinal and liver diseases, and we are committed to diversity in education, patient care and research.

We continually strive for excellence and to maintain our standing as a highly successful and respected educational institution. We invite you to participate in our future.

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Dr. Richard Redinger Passes Away

Richard N. Redinger, M.D.

Richard N. Redinger, M.D., passed away on October 20, 2021.

Born February 18, 1938 in Canada, he attended medical school at the University of Western Ontario. He served medical residencies at Victoria Hospital in London, Ontario, the University of Michigan and Tufts University, and did his gastroenterology fellowship training at the New England Medical Center in Boston.

His research interests were in the physiology of biliary lipids/gallstone disease, and he continued his research well into his career, and he was a recognized expert in bile acid metabolism.

Dr. Redinger came to the University of Louisville in 1981 as Professor of Medicine and the first academic Chief of the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology. He became the Executive Vice Chair in the Department of Medicine and was asked to continue as Chief of GI while serving as acting chair and Training Program Director for the Department of Medicine for three years. He was named permanent Chair of the department in 1992.

He served as Chair until 2009 and served as Chair longer than any Chair at UofL post-World War II. During his tenure, the Department of Medicine grew from 43 to 146 faculty members, and under his leadership, the Department of Medicine became the research leader for the University of Louisville.

Dr. Redinger was a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada in Internal Medicine and Gastroenterology and of the American College of Physicians, and a member of the Canadian Society for Clinical Investigation, the American Federation for Medical Research and the Central Society for Clinical Research and American Association for the Study of Liver Disease.

He was a mentor and role model for many UofL faculty and trainees. He always tried to do the best for the University, and was a gentleman in all the senses of the word, and was a true family man. He will be missed.

• Learn more about Dr. Redinger

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Luis Marsano GI Teaching Award

We take pride in our teaching efforts. Dr. Luis Marsano won the GI Teaching Award so many times that we named the award after him. He has also been honored by his home medical school, Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia in Lima, Peru, for Lifetime Teaching Excellence. Dr. Dipendra Parajuli, our Fellowship Director, is a past multiple recipient of the Teaching Award.

Dr. Ashutosh Barve is the 2021 recipient.

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Congratulations!

• Loretta Jophlin, M.D., Ph.D., is a new junior faculty member in the Department of Medicine, Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology & Nutrition. She has been awarded an NIH NIDOK K08 award to support a five-year period of intensive, mentored research and career development under the guidance and support of Drs. Craig McClain and Matt Cave. Her research focuses on characterizing interactions between the cellular cytoskeleton and liver fat storage compartments (lipid droplets) as well as understanding human genetic polymorphisms in lipid droplet proteins predisposing to fatty liver disease. The overarching goal of her research is to mechanically deplete fat from hepatic lipid droplets as a novel therapeutic approach to treat fatty liver disease and salvage over-steatotic donor livers for use in transplant.
• Vatsalya Vatsalya, M.D., Pg.D., M.Sc., MS, is a new junior faculty in the Department of Medicine, Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology & Nutrition. He has been awarded an NIH NIAAA K23 grant which is a mentored clinical grant for 5 years to study Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD) intervention using probiotics which will investigate a novel therapeutic mechanism involving the gut:liver:brain axis. This will be a first treatment trial in the field of AUD to use gut:liver:brain axis as a treatment pathway while simultaneously treating the comorbid alcohol-associated liver injury. He will conduct this clinical trial at the University of Louisville, and the Robley Rex Louisville VA Medical Center. His primary mentor for this grant will be Dr. Craig J. McClain.
• Craig McClain, M.D., was awarded the University of Louisville 2021 Outstanding Scholarship, Research and Creative Activity in Career Achievement. Dr. McClain has made many seminal observations in liver injury/liver disease, including increased pro-inflammatory cytokine production in patients with alcohol-associated liver disease; the harmful effects of chronic alcohol consumption and excess Tylenol consumption; the deleterious effects of n-6 polyunsaturated fats in ALD; the importance of gut dysbiosis in liver diseases; and many others. He has been continuously federally funded as PI for his research since 1977.

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Center Grant Renewals 2021

The University of Louisville has received a large National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant ($11,356,981) to renew the NIH-funded Hepatobiology and Toxicology Center of Biomedical Research Excellence (H&T COBRE) for another five years. This center is a unique thematic center focused on liver injury/disease and toxicology. This grant funds large research projects for four junior faculty investigators as well as pilot projects and core laboratory facilities Two of the major projects are examining aspects of liver cancer, another project studies non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) and the fourth investigates alcohol associated liver disease. The H&T COBRE brings together experienced senior mentors/investigators and promising junior investigators to perform cross-cutting research on the unique topics of Hepatobiology and Toxicology. We address critical barriers in our understanding of the development progression of liver disease and we define targets for prevention/treatment that could transform clinical practice. During the first five years of this grant, four of the funded mentored junior investigators received independent NIH research funding and more than $75M in total new grant funding was received by H&T COBRE members. Thus, this program has been highly successful and will continue to be with the renewal grant.

The University of Louisville Alcohol Research Center (ULARC) has been renewed for another five-year cycle. Funded by the NIH, the ULARC was created to serve as a regional/national resource to foster interdisciplinary collaborative research on the role of nutrition as a co-factor in alcohol induced organ injury and as a possible therapeutic intervention to prevent and treat this organ injury. Both of these aspects of the interactions of nutrition and alcohol represent important unmet research needs. The theme of the center is unique among alcohol centers: the role of nutrition in the development/progression and prevention/treatment of alcohol-induced organ injury Importantly, almost all subjects with alcohol use disorder (AUD) have alterations in nutrition, especially those with alcohol-induced organ injury. Nutrition impacts critical aspects of organ dysfunction ranging from intestinal barrier dysfunction to epigenetics. We explore interactions of nutrition and alcohol abuse in the development of alcohol-induced organ dysfunction, and we evaluate diverse potential nutritional preventive/therapeutic interventions. Indeed, a major goal of the ULARC is prevention/treatment of alcohol-induced organ injury with nutritional agents and products (novel probiotics, edible exosomes, and specific lipids are only some of the agents used by the ULARC investigators).

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Martin and Jill Meisenheimer Gastroenterology Fellows' Education Fund

Dr. Martin Meisenheimer, a 1971 graduate of UofL School of Medicine and gastroenterologist, and his wife Jill made a generous donation to the GI Fellowship Program.

Dr. Meisenheimer is an enthusiastic UofL Cardinal fan, and this gift to help support the fellowship program is greatly appreciated.

The first five Meisenheimer GI Fellows recently graduated and are pictured at right with their commemorative Louisville Slugger bats.

We continue to strive to bring previous fellows and alumni such as Dr. Meisenheimer into the GI "fold" and will be working to communicate with alumni on educational endeavors and how to link with UofL.

Our website is a major source of patient care, educational, and social information.

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We are committed to improving the understanding of disease states from bench to bedside. Our internationally-renowned faculty maintain a commitment to teaching students, residents, and fellows, and developing the next generation of outstanding gastroenterologists.

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