Faraz Bishehsari

I am the director of the Gastroenterology Research Center (GRC), a new multidisciplinary gastroenterology research center at McGovern Medical School. The GRC integrates translational research with patient care, focusing on the role of the digestive tract in health and diseases. As the largest interface between the human body and the environment and home to trillions of micro-organisms, the digestive tract is involved in how lifestyle choices impact various diseases spanning from immune and metabolic dysregulation to cancer. Our center conducts cutting-edge research around the digestive tract that addresses preventive strategies, disease modification, treatment innovations, and advanced technologies. Our team study how lifestyle and digestive tract mechanisms interact in local and systemic homeostasis and organ changes to discover novel therapeutics through circadian or microbial organisms and develop patient-based, ex-vivo models using cutting-edge technologies. By studying the roles of circadian rhythms and GI microorganisms in modulating immune responses, aging processes, and therapies, our multidisciplinary research aims to identify targetable mechanisms like circadian or microbiota markers. These finding can be directly translated into patient care, spanning from risk assessment and prevention to the development of innovative therapeutics. We are also developing a precision medicine platform for circadian based therapeutics in cancer, focusing on the pancreatic cancer. We are exploring tumor-specific pancreatic cancer circadian profiles toward the discovery of novel therapeutics in cancer.