About

Dr. Barnes is a gastroenterologist and clinical investigator dedicated to improving the care of patients with inflammatory bowel disease. He has a particular interest in improving outcomes for patients with inflammatory bowel disease who require a colectomy and an ileal pouch-anal anastomosis. Patients with an ileal pouch-anal anastomosis may experience significant complications after surgery, including the development of new inflammatory conditions of the pouch. Dr. Barnes has developed multiple new research strategies to identify risk profiles for those patients at greatest risk for adverse outcomes and strategies to improve the effectiveness of available therapies for pouch-related disorders.

He has received funding from the National Institutes of Health/National Institutes of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation, and the American College of Gastroenterology to support these efforts. Dr. Barnes has led the development of a prospective, multicenter registry, recruiting patients from eight centers across the United States to better understand the drivers of disease and response to therapy in patients with inflammatory conditions of the pouch. He is committed to developing new methods to better understand the epidemiology of pouchitis and other pouch-related disorders on larger scales.

Dr. Barnes serves as the Associate Program Director for the Gastroenterology & Hepatology Fellowship at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and he was honored with the 2020 UNC Gastroenterology Fellows Award for Excellence in Mentoring.  He was also awarded the 2021 Sherman Emerging Leader Prize.