Shanthi Srinivasan, MD named director of the Division of Digestive Diseases

We are pleased to announce that Shanthi Srinivasan, MD, professor of medicine, has been appointed director for the Division of Digestive Diseases and has been named the R. Bruce Logue Endowed Chair in Digestive Diseases. Dr. Srinivasan has served as the division’s interim director since February 2018, and we are thrilled to have her continue in this leadership capacity.

Dr. Srinivasan received her MD from Wayne State University’s School of Medicine and completed her residency and digestive diseases fellowship at the University of Michigan. She continued her digestive diseases training at Washington University, where she also served on the faculty. She joined the Emory School of Medicine faculty in 2003, where she has been a leader in the Division of Digestive Disease’s academic programs.

Dr. Srinivasan is engaged in laboratory-based research at Emory and the Atlanta VA Medical Center. She has built a strong research program upon her interest in gastrointestinal motility disorders. She has received both NIH and VA Merit Funding for her research which is focused on gastrointestinal neurobiology and changes in gut microbiota. She examines the key factors regulating gastrointestinal motility in diabetes, obesity, and inflammation. A major focus of Dr. Srinivasan’s research has been the role of Glial Derived Neurotrophic Factor (GDNF) in the enteric nervous system as it relates to diabetes and intestinal inflammation. She was the first to recognize that GDNF can reduce hyperglycemia-induced enteric neuronal loss and prevent gastrointestinal motility changes in an animal model of diabetes. She extended these findings to humans in a study of colectomy specimens from healthy patients and patients with diabetes. Her work is widely regarded as unique and pioneering, and it has consequently opened up new fields of investigation for other researchers.

Dr. Srinivasan has served as the chief of gastroenterology at the Atlanta VA. In this role, she has led day-to-day operations and physician and staff recruitment. In addition, she helped open the new GI endoscopy lab at the Atlanta VA in 2018.

Dr. Srinivasan has made excellent contributions to the Department of Medicine’s education mission. She teaches medical students and residents in the department’s internal medicine residency program and undergraduate students in Emory’s neuroscience program. She directed the M1-GI section of the School of Medicine’s curriculum for three years, which led to the gastroenterology module being commended as one of the best modules in the school’s curriculum.

We recognize and thank Dr. Srinivasan’s outstanding leadership during the division’s interim period, and we look forward to seeing her continue to guide the Division of Digestive Diseases and the Department of Medicine’s mission to advance health through discovery, education, and care.