Clinical Research Programs

The Boutelle Lab focuses on characterizing eating behavior and developing interventions for youth and adults who have eating or weight disorders. We have three goals for our lab 1) Improving current treatments for people with obesity and eating disorders; 2) Creating diseminable versions of current treatments for people with obesity or eating disorders and 3) Developing new interventions for people with obesity or eating disorders.

UCSD is a member of CEGIR, the Consortium of Gastrointestinal Eosinophilic Disease Researchers, which was established and funded in 2014 by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to address  eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE), eosinophilic gastritis (EG) and eosinophilic colitis (EC). The mission of CEGIR is to improve the lives of individuals with EGIDs through innovative research, clinical expertise, and education via collaborations among scientists, health care providers, patients, and professional organizations.  Dr. Ranjan Dohil is co-PI and Dr. Seema Aceves in Allergy/Immunology is Site PI.

Jeannie Huang, MD, MPH conducts research that focuses on how to improve outcomes in pediatric chronic disease. In particular, she is involved in projects addressing chronic disease self-management by adolescents and young adults and in how best to serve patients during the process of transition. Dr. Huang, one of the physician informaticists at Rady Children's Hospital, also has research interests in how best to harness the power of the Electronic Health Record to standardize performance of quality care, to mitigate health disparities, and to engage youth in healthcare through mobile technologies, including the patient portal. 

Dr. Huang is also PI, along with Dr. Bauman , of the CAPTURE-IBD cohort study funded by Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation to address critical gaps to progress in pediatric IBD research and to advance IBD pediatric research through research and publication.

Rady Children’s Hospital is a member of the Pediatric Resource Organization for Kids with Inflammatory Intestinal Diseases (PRO-KIIDS) instituted under the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation as an umbrella organization focused on moving the pediatric IBD agenda forward. Promoting pediatric IBD research is the major objective of PROKIIDS, and involves various institutions working together on mutually agreed upon clinical research projects.

The Clinical Research Network in Nonalcoholic Steatohepatitis (NASH) is sponsored by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) to focus on the etiology, contributing factors, natural history, complications, and therapy of nonalcoholic steatohepatitis. Dr. Jeffrey Schwimmer's  lab is a member of the NASH CRN.

Kathleen Schwarz, MD’s research focus is on viral infections of the liver, both typical (hepatitis B and C) and atypical (as triggers of biliary atresia and autoimmune hepatitis).  She currently is running a Hepatitis B clinical trial of tenofovir for immune active patients.  In addition, she is collaborating on projects evaluating the pathogenesis of biliary atresia using patient-derived pluripotent stem cells and the pathogenesis of autoimmune hepatitis (both collaborations with Johns Hopkins).