Dr. ZeNan Chang joined the Department of Medicine in the Division of Gastroenterology as an Instructor in July 2024. His major research focus is on the small intestine, the primary nutrient-absorbing organ of the body. The small intestine demonstrates marked ability to adapt to diverse settings including diet changes, injury, and loss of functional surface area. His current focus is on the small intestine’s relationship with commensal gut microbes and the dramatic physiologic shifts that occur in pregnancy. Specifically, under the mentorship of Dr. Jeffrey Gordon, he is investigating these topics in the context of environmental enteric dysfunction (EED), a small intestinal condition associated with undernourished women, stunted growth in their children, and changes in the small intestinal microbiota. They utilize gnotobiotic animal models, large transcriptomic datasets (obtained with bulk and single-cell RNA sequencing), and metagenomic analyses to investigate the impacts of the commensal gut microbial communities from women with and without EED on host physiology.
He has additional research background in utilizing biomolecular engineering in the development of novel therapeutics including chimeric antigen receptor-expressing T cell therapies, and in cell and protein biology investigations governing protein degradation. Altogether, their investigational efforts work toward identification of clinically useful biomarkers of disease and the development of the next generation of gut-directed therapies. His clinical interests are in general gastroenterology including endoscopy, colon cancer screening, swallowing disorders, gastroesophageal reflux disorder, and irritable bowel syndrome, with a specific focus on relationships of gastrointestinal conditions with nutritional intake. He enjoys mentoring fellows, residents, and medical students in the clinic and in the research laboratory. In his spare time, he appreciates nature excursions with his family, sampling various cuisines, and attempts to stay active on the basketball court or in the pool.