Digestive Diseases and Nutrition Research

Objectives: To encourage basic and clinical biomedical research and research training for a greater understanding of the basic and clinical studies on normal abnormal function of the enteric nervous system, on gastrointestinal hormones and peptides including their structure, biological actions, receptors, release, and correlation with physiological events. Other studies include the action of drugs on gastrointestinal motility, intestinal obstruction, the biochemistry of contractile processes and diseases such as irritable bowel syndrome, colonic diverticular disease, swallowing disorder, and gastroesophageal reflux, as well as studies on the process of food digestion in the gastrointestinal tract; the assembly of digestive enzymes; the growth and differentiation of gastrointestinal cells in normal and disease states; and studies on gastrointestinal diseases such as maldigestion and malabsorption syndromes, celiac sprue, diarrhea, inflammatory bowel disease, and gastric and duodenal ulcers. To encourage biomedical research and research training for a greater understanding of the normal function and the diseases of the liver and biliary tract including factors leading to liver cell injury, fibrosis, and death; basic and applied studies on liver transplantation; metabolism of bile acids and bilirubin; and factors controlling cholesterol levels in bile as well as disease research on inborn errors in bile metabolism, hepatitis, and various liver diseases such as Wilson's disease, primary biliary cirrhosis, and others. To encourage biomedical research on the structure, function, and diseases of the exocrine pancreas. To encourage biomedical research and research training in obesity, anorexia, bulimia and other eating disorders, the metabolism of nutrients and other dietary components at the organ, cellular and subcellular levels in normal and diseased states. To extramurally support basic laboratory research and clinical investigations and provide postdoctoral biomedical resear