Ajay Gulati, MD

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UNC Hospitals Children's Specialty Clinic

Chapel Hill, North Carolina

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Dr. Gulati is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  He is the director of the UNC Multidisciplinary Pediatric IBD Center and also runs their fecal microbiota transplantation program.  From a research standpoint, Dr. Gulati’s laboratory is focused on understanding interactions between the commensal microbiota of the gut and the host epithelium in the context of intestinal inflammation. Specifically, his group is interested in determining the mechanisms by which the intestinal microbiota regulates epithelial cell function within the gut.  From a pediatric standpoint, they are particularly interested on how the development age of the host affects these microbial-epithelial interactions.  They are currently exploring the impact of host recipient age on gut epithelial and microbial responses to fecal microbiota transplantation.  It is his hope that leveraging the relative malleability of the pediatric microbiota will pave the way for microbial modulation strategies to treat a spectrum of pediatric inflammatory disorders in a minimally-toxic manner.