Dr. David Binion is a Professor of Medicine and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) investigator whose career has focused on defining the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying human chronic gut inflammation and the translation of this knowledge into improved care for patients suffering from Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis.

Current work has centered on Big Data analytics and the development and transformation of the UPMC IBD Registry, a prospective, multi-year, longitudinal natural history registry database of >3,000 consented IBD patients into a metadata platform for scientific discovery. Working in collaboration with computer scientists from the University of Pittsburgh School of Information Science, this relational database continuously curates and transforms observational clinical information from the electronic medical record (EMR) and maintains >10,000 person-years of associated metadata in a secure data warehouse.

Areas of active investigation include:

• Developing prognostic biomarkers of IBD severity.
• Characterizing the impact of diet and nutrition on IBD natural history.
• Identification of biomarker patterns to predict development of dysplasia/cancer in IBD.
• Identification of predictive biomarkers to guide therapeutic selection in IBD.
• Comparative effectiveness studies in IBD maintenance therapy.
• Defining the impact of surgical anastomotic technique on longterm clinical outcomes in Crohn’s disease.
• Use of healthcare charge data as a comprehensive phenotype.
• Defining the impact of Clostridium difficile infection on IBD natural history.
• Characterizing extra-intestinal manifestations including anemia and autonomic dysfunction on the natural history of IBD.
• Developing clinical decision support tools to optimize IBD care and implement precision medicine.