Midget Distinguished Professor of Medicine, Microbiology & Immunology. Director, National Gnotobiotic Rodent Resource Center
Co-Director, Center for Gastrointestinal Biology and Disease
University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
R. Balfour Sartor, MD, a physician scientist, is the Midget Distinguished Professor of Medicine, Microbiology and Immunology in the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill SOM. Dr. Sartor received his MD from Baylor College of Medicine, where he completed his Internal Medicine residency prior to pursuing a combined clinical and research Gastroenterology fellowship at UNC He is Co-Director for the NIDDK-funded Center for Gastrointestinal Biology & Disease, Director of the NIH-funded National Gnotobiotic Rodent Resource Center and was the founding Director of the UNC Multidisciplinary IBD Center. His clinical interests are in treating difficult to manage IBD patients, with ongoing translational research to identifying microbial and genomic biomarkers that predict risk of post-operative recurrence of Crohn’s disease and microbial factors associated with recurrent pouchitis. His basic research focuses on developing and applying rodent models of chronic, immune-mediated intestinal inflammation relevant to IBD and performing clinically relevant translational studies involving IBD patients. Dr. Sartor investigates genetically-determined immune responses to luminal resident bacterial subsets using gnotobiotic mice and patient-derived samples, and studies the influence of environmental factors, including diet, on intestinal microbiota composition and function. Dr. Sartor has published over 400 articles, editorials, chapters and has edited 5 books. Dr. Sartor has trained over 60 postdoctoral fellows and graduate students. In addition, he has led multiple large multidisciplinary consortium studies that have extensively impacted the IBD field. In 2020, he received the American Gastroenterological Association’s Distinguished Achievement Award in Basic Science.
Thursday, February 6, 2025
11:00 AM - 11:30 AM PST