Hans Herfarth, MD, PhD

Research Summary

Hans Herfarth is a clinical researcher with expertise is in inflammatory bowel diseases with the focus to improve diagnostic and therapeutic approaches in this field. He has extensive expertise in conducting investigator-initiated trials as well as coordinating data and specimen collections in large multicenter approaches. He was the PI of an investigator initiated study of methotrexate for ulcerative colitis – MERIT-UC that was funded through the NIH U01 mechanism. The results were published online in Gastroenterology in October 2018. His research is currently supported by grants from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) and industry in the context of investigator-initiated studies. Dr. Herfarth is the Co-director of the UNC Multidisciplinary IBD Center and in this role, he is involved in coordinating the clinical care of the patients as well as clinical IBD research at UNC.

Relevance of Research to CGIBD Mission:  Dr. Herfarth is the co-director of the UNC Multidisciplinary IBD Center and has been active as the PI of investigator-initiated clinical trials and observational studies funded by industry and the NIH.  He has extensively used the Biostatistics core for statistical analysis plans for clinical studies, to establish and maintain databases with sensitive clinical data and to assess study outcomes. The best example of his successful collaboration with the CGIBD is the completion of the MERIT-UC study, a large multi-center study to evaluate the efficacy of methotrexate in patients with active ulcerative colitis.

CGIBD Focus Area(s): Clinical/Translational Research

Collaborators:  Egberg, Furey, Galanko, Hansen, Kappelman, Long, Sandler, Sartor, Sheikh, Ting