Medicine Grand Rounds, Balfour Sartor, “Intestinal Microbiota in Health and Inflammatory Diseases: The Basis for Improved Therapeutic Manipulation”

Dr. Sartor is a gastroenterologist and mucosal immunologist with a long-standing interest in mechanisms by which commensal microbiota induce chronic intestinal inflammation vs. mucosal homeostasis. He specializes in inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) and directs the UNC Multidisciplinary IBD Center. Dr. Sartor has been a faculty member at UNC for his entire academic career. His research is focused on developing and applying rodent models of chronic, immune-mediated intestinal inflammation relevant to IBD and performing clinically relevant translational studies of IBD patients. Dr. Sartor investigates host genetically programmed immune responses to luminal commensal microbial products using gnotobiotic rodents and patient-derived samples and studies the influence of diet and environmental factors on intestinal microbiota composition and function.