TMC Digestive Disease Center Activities and Events

The Enrichment Program provides critical mechanisms to support the overall goals of the Texas Medical Center Digestive Disease Center via the following specific aims:

• To share and disseminate knowledge gained from the presence of the DDC and in the larger field of digestive diseases
• To promote and increase interaction and collaboration among investigators and clinicians interested in digestive diseases
• To foster the scientific and career development of DDC members.

Our DDC research forum is a weekly seminar held during the spring and fall academic months. Seminars are usually delivered by either a national leader in GI research outside the Texas Medical Center or a DDC member. Occasional seminar slots are used to advertise the latest services offered by one of the DDC Cores. The seminar series encourages interactions among basic and clinical investigators across all three consortium institutions. DDC member seminars are free to present research results, clinical studies or works-in-progress as a way to encourage discussion, feedback and overall information exchange. Potential speakers can be nominated by any member of the DDC, who can also act as faculty host (pending approval by the Seminar Committee and the Internal Advisory Committee of the DDC).

During the pandemic, the seminar series has been virtual, though it is pending to return to hybrid in-person/virtual in Spring of 2022.

Questions regarding the DDC Research Forum or suggestions for potential topics and speakers can be directed to Geoffrey Preidis, M.D., Ph.D., head of our Seminar Committee, at geoffrey.preidis@bcm.edu or Sara Tristan, DDC Administrator at escamill@bcm.edu. Join us on Zoom Thursdays at 4 p.m.

The 13th Annual Frontiers in Digestive Disease Symposium, “Single cell biology: Refining concepts of lineage and identity,” was held Saturday, March 26, 2022. This hybrid event included in-person and remote access to talks, breakout session, as well as a poster session with cash prizes. Symposium speakers included: 

• Francesca Spagnoli, Ph.D., Kings College, United Kingdom
• Scott Magness, Ph.D., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• Kathy DelGiorno, Ph.D., Vanderbilt University
• Richard DiPaolo, Ph.D., St. Louis University
• Sarah Blutt, Ph.D., Baylor College of Medicine
• Xiangsheng Zuo, Ph.D., MD Anderson Cancer Center

Our poster award winners included:

• 1st Place: Jennifer Padilla – "Circadian Dysfunction Promotes NAFLD-related Carcinogenesis in Human Hepatocytes"  (Baylor College of Medicine)
• 2nd Place: Kyung Pil Ko – "Dissecting Genetic Interactions Initiating Esophageal Squamous Cell Cancer and Remodeling Immune Landscape" (MD Anderson Cancer Center)
• 3rd Place: Joshua Moore - "Role of BMP signaling during zebrafish enteric neural crest development" (Rice University)

View the 2022 symposium program. Planning is currently underway for our 14th Annual Frontiers in Digestive Diseases Symposium, expected to be held in February or March of 2023.

The TMC Digestive Disease Center sponsors semi-monthly meetings between junior investigators to present research projects and collaborate on advancements in digestive disease-related research. These meetings are organized by Gregory Guthrie, Ph.D. To join the mailing list or attend an upcoming focus group meeting, contact Dr. Guthrie at gregory.guthrie@bcm.edu.

The DDC informatics user group promotes discussions, knowledge exchange, and shared learning. Everyone is welcome to participate. 

Topics will include tools and pipelines, pathway analyses, visualizations in form of plots, graphs, networks, machine learning application and more.
 
The group is spearheaded by Dr. Numan Oezguen. If you would like to join the mailing list, contact DDC administrator Sara Tristan at escamill@bcm.edu.