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Aliya Uc, MD

Contact Information

Office: 2865 JPP
Phone: 319-356-2950
Faculty Profile


Brief description of current research:

I am a board-certified Pediatric Gastroenterologist and a tenured Professor at the University of Iowa. In the clinics, I care for children with a variety of gastrointestinal disorders. My clinical and research focus is in pediatric cystic fibrosis (CF)-related pancreatic disease, acute and chronic pancreatitis.  In this context, I have built a Multidisciplinary Pediatric Pancreas Clinic to approach children with complex pancreatic problems that involves pediatric gastroenterology, endocrinology, surgery, advanced endoscopy, psychology, genetic counseling, nutrition/dietary, anesthesia/pain, radiology and pathology services. I am the founding chair of the INSPPIRE (INternational Study Group of Pediatric Pancreatitis: In search for a cuRE) Consortium, the first multicenter, multinational, multidisciplinary collaboration to examine pancreatitis in children. I am also the PI of the NIH grants that have funded the INSPPIRE Consortium, starting with R21 DK096327, followed by U01 DK108334. The INSPPIRE Consortium is studying the epidemiology, etiology, natural history and outcomes of pediatric pancreatitis, a disease without clear diagnostic parameters and treatment alternatives in children.  The consortium has assembled the largest cohort of well-phenotyped children with acute recurrent and chronic pancreatitis with centralized data collection and sample repository.  University of Iowa is the coordinating center for this NIH-funded multicenter study with 17 other centers providing patients, data and biological samples.  In addition to my clinical interest in pancreatitis, I have an NIH-funded basic science laboratory that focuses on dissecting the mechanisms of pancreatic damage in CF, using pig and ferret models.  I am the PD/PI of an R01 grant (DK097820) to study the role of fatty acid alterations and oxidative stress on insulin secretory defects of CF pigs and ferrets, and a co-PI of an R24 (DK096518) application named: “Early Pathogenesis of CF-related diabetes (CFRD).

 

3 most influential diabetes/obesity/metabolism publications:

  • Morinville VD*, Lowe ME*, Ahuja M, Barth B, Bellin MD, Davis H, Durie PR, Finley B, Fishman DS, Freedman SD, Gariepy CE, Giefer MJ, Gonska T, Heyman MB, Himes R, Husain S, Kumar S, Ooi CY, Pohl JF, Schwarzenberg SJ, Troendle D, Werlin SL, Wilschanski M, Yen E, and Uc A. Design and Implementation of INSPPIRE (INternational Study Group of Pediatric Pancreatitis: In Search For A CuRE). Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition 2014 Sep;59(3):360-4 (*contributed equally).
  • Uc A*, Olivier AK*, Griffin MG, Meyerholz DK, Yao J, Abu-El-Haija M, Buchanan KM, Calderón OGV, Abu-El-Haija M, Pezzulo AA, Reznikov LR, Hoegger MJ, Rector  MV, Ostedgaard LS, Taft PJ, Gansemer ND, Ludwig PS, Hornick EE, Stoltz DA, Ode KL, Welsh MJ, Engelhardt JF, Norris AW. Glycemic Regulation And Insulin Secretion Are Abnormal In Cystic Fibrosis Pigs Despite Sparing of Islet Cell Mass. Clinical Science 2015 Jan;128(2):131-42 (*contributed equally).
  • Sui H, Yi Y, Liang B, Sun X, Hu S, Yao J, Uc A, Nelson DJ, Larson Ode K, Philipson LH, Engelhardt JF, Norris AW. Quantifying Insulin Sensitivity and Entero-Insular Responsiveness to Hyper- and Hypoglycemia in Ferrets. PLOS One 2014 Mar 3;9(3):e90519.

 

Quote:


“The Exocrine-endocrine pancreas axis: Pancreatogenic or type 3c diabetes (T3cDM) is consistently under- and misdiagnosed”