The Husain Lab at Stanford

Stanford University School of Medicine 
Department of Pediatrics, Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition
1701 Page Mill Rd, Palo Alto, CA 94304,USA

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Mission Statement

Making breakthroughs in the pancreas and beyond that benefit patients and society, through innovation, partnerships, inclusion, and integrity.

We aim to attain the highest levels of impact in scientific inquiry in our field of science and medicine, by nurturing a highly collaborative team of outstanding researchers with complementary expertise, by being inclusive and sharing, and by upholding a high standard of integrity. We will achieve this goal by leapfrogging into the future and embracing emerging technologies at Stanford of big data and omics, while maintaining our strengths in epithelial signaling and translational excellence. 

Published in Science Translational Medicine:

Short summary of the findings:

       The paper is the first to implicate the unexpected finding of a beneficial role for the micronutrient Vitamin A, found in carrots, in preventing the life-threatening, painful inflammatory disorder of the pancreas called pancreatitis. Almost half a million Americans develop pancreatitis each year, and one in ten of them are children. The study originates from the research laboratory of Dr. Sohail Husain, MD, who serves as the Chief of the Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition at Stanford Medicine Children’s Hospital and the Chambers-Okamura Endowed Professor of Pediatric Gastroenterology at Stanford University. Dr. Husain’s team found that in children who developed acute pancreatitis as an adverse event due to the crucial anti-leukemia drug called asparaginase, several lines of evidence led the researchers to discover that children with asparaginase-associated pancreatitis who serendipitously took Vitamin A as a medicine were protected against pancreatitis. The studies included screening millions of sets of large data from the FDA and patient electronic health records and utilizing two independent patient cancer registries. Laboratory studies using pancreas cells and other related models of the disease confirmed that Vitamin A was lower with asparaginase exposure and, therefore, indicated a benefit to supplementation. Further clinical trials are needed to evaluate whether dietary Vitamin A or supplementation is ideal, the regimen to give, and the mechanism of benefit for pancreatitis prevention, and whether the results are generalizable, as the researchers’ data suggest, to a broad host of pancreatitis causes or other inflammatory conditions that are similar to pancreatitis. However, this is the first set of studies to link the potential nutritional intervention of Vitamin A to pancreas health and disease prevention.  

       The studies were performed in a highly collaborative manner. Along with Dr. Husain on the study is co-senior author Dr. Anil Jegga from Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. The first author of the study is a senior scientist at Stanford in the Husain Lab, Dr. Olivia Tsai. The additional co-authors are collaborators from other institutions, including the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Rutgers University, CHU Sainte-Justine (in Montreal), University of Pittsburg, and Columbia University.

Read it on Pubmed!  https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36921036/

Research Areas​
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• ​​The crucial signaling pathways that initiate and transduce the inflammatory profile of pancreatitis
• The factors that turn on pancreatic regeneration and recovery after pancreatic injury
• The mechanisms underlying specific forms of drug-induced pancreatitis (DIP)

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A Glimpse Into Our Work
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