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Juanita L. Merchant, MD, PhD

Director

Juanita L. Merchant, MD, PhD, is a H. Marvin Pollard Professor of Gastrointestinal Sciences in the Departments of Internal Medicine (Gastroenterology) and Molecular and Integrative Physiology. She received her BS from Stanford University and MD, Ph.D. from Yale University.  Her PhD degree is in Cell Biology.  She completed internship and residency at MGH, Boston and a her postdoctoral fellowship in Gastroenterology at MGH.  She completed a Clinical Fellowship in GI at UCLA before being recruited to the University of Michigan.  She serves on a number of boards and is an associate director of the UM MSTP.  Dr. Merchant’s research focuses on the molecular mechanisms underlying normal and cancerous epithelial cell growth in the luminal gastrointestinal tract.  Her recent studies use transgenic animal and cell culture models to dissect the pathways through which bacterial colonization in the stomach leads to chronic inflammation, metaplasia then cancer.  Ongoing projects in her laboratory include the role of sonic hedgehog in chronic gastritis and acid secretion; the role of the nuclear protein menin in the genesis of gastrinomas and the role of the transcription factor ZBP-89 in enterochromaffin cell biology, function and colon cancer.