A MESSAGE FROM THE CHIEF
Going Beyond the Scope The more we learn about the immune system, the more we understand about its central role in virtually every type of disease. This clarity is certainly the case in the field of digestive diseases, where the inextricable link between immunology and the gastrointestinal tract plays out in conditions such as inflammatory bowel diseases. We have also seen, from the dramatic results with certain cancers, the vast potential of immunotherapy — engineering the immune system to fight diseases. This issue of Beyond the Scope highlights exciting developments on this front for our Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Division of Digestive Diseases. In January, UCLA announced that the California Institute for Immunology and Immunotherapy at UCLA (CIII) would serve as an anchor tenant at the new UCLA Research Park, a 700,000-square-foot property two miles south of the UCLA campus at the site of the former Westside Pavilion shopping mall (see page 1). This nonprofit public-private partnership leverages UCLA’s considerable breadth of expertise as a premier research university while also bringing in top scientists and industry leaders from other institutions in California and beyond, all toward the goal of establishing an ecosystem for multidisciplinary research and entrepreneurship in which promising discoveries are rapidly translated to new therapies. My decision to become one of CIII’s founders, alongside my visionary partners, was based on my certainty that this institute will foster untold opportunities for our division to contribute to transformational progress. Among our programs that will benefit from CIII is the Center for Inflammatory Bowel Diseases, which has undergone a major expansion of its own under the leadership of Dr. Jenny Sauk. As the articles beginning on page 4 detail, the center has brought in new IBD physicians and established subspecialty clinics where dedicated providers bring their expertise to IBD patients at every life stage. The center will now continue to expand with basic and translational science faculty. Another major beneficiary, the UCLA Goodman-Luskin Microbiome Center, has taken great strides since its establishment early last year. As the article on page 12 describes, this center — which galvanizes researchers across the UCLA campus to study the human microbiome and translate findings into new treatment strategies for a range of conditions — has launched core services for shared resources and expertise, as well as starting a seed funding program to help promising new investigators get their start. The center, under the direction of Dr. Elaine Y. Hsiao, has also kicked off a monthly seminar series. Microbiome research represents a new frontier with endless possibilities, and the center’s investigators are at the forefront of that work, as studies by Dr. Hsiao’s group (page 14) and a team led by Dr. Arpana “Annie” Gupta (page 15) illustrate. Within the Goodman-Luskin Microbiome Center, we have one of the nation’s few designated centers of excellence in disorders of gut-brain interaction (DGBI) — disorders such as irritable bowel syndrome, chronic constipation, abdominal pain, and others that are extremely common and can be highly debilitating. Our division has been a national leader in the research and treatment of DGBI for several decades, and that group has been greatly bolstered by the recent recruitment of Dr. Andrea S. Shin (page 10). The articles in this issue reflect just a few of the many reasons I am thrilled with the direction of our division, department, medical school, health system, and university. I hope you enjoy reading about our faculty and fellows, and I look forward to sharing even more good news in the years to come.
Eric Esrailian, MD, MPH Chief, Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Division of Digestive Diseases Lincy Foundation Chair in Clinical Gastroenterology Director, Melvin and Bren Simon
Digestive Diseases Center Health Sciences Clinical Professor of Medicine
uclahealth.org/departments/medicine/gastro
Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online