Dr. Michael Rosen is a pediatric gastroenterologist and physician scientist, who has been devoted to inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) research since beginning medical training over 20 years ago. He is also Director of the Stanford Center for Pediatric IBD and Celiac Disease. Dr. Rosen has expertise crossing mucosal immunology and epithelial biology, formal training and experience in clinical and translational investigation with human biospecimens, and direct insight regarding the important clinical challenges caring for children with complicated IBD.

Dr. Rosen's translational research program focuses on how the immune system regulates epithelial function in chronic intestinal inflammation as it relates to IBD. His clinical research program has focused on optimization of anti-TNF therapy in pediatric IBD, and in particular acute severe ulcerative colitis (ASUC). The Rosen laboratory has demonstrated a protective role for IL33, a cytokine that induces type 2 cytokines from T cells an innate lymphoid cells (ILCs), in acute oxazolone colitis through preservation of epithelial goblet cells and barrier function. In line with this finding, they have also shown in a large prospective patient cohort that mucosal expression of type 2 and type 17 immune response genes distinguishes ulcerative colitis (UC) from colon-only Crohn’s disease, and that type 2 gene expression is associated with superior clinical outcome in pediatric UC. They have now developed an organoid-immune cell in vitro culture system to demonstrate the ILC2-dependent mechanism through which IL33 induces goblet cell differentiation in the intestinal epithelium. 

Dr. Michael Rosen led the multicenter study Anti-TNF for Refractory Colitis in Hospitalized Children (ARCH) Study, which aims to establish determinants of anti-TNF response in pediatric ASUC, and is currently Co-Chair of the Crohn's & Colitis Foundations Cohort for Pediatric Translational and Clinical Research in IBD (CAPTURE IBD) and PRO-KIIDS Pediatric IBD clinical research network.