ALEXANDER KHORUTS
Professor of Medicine
Division Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition
Microbiology Immunology and Cancer Biology Program
MD, Gastroenterology, University of Minnesota
khoru001@umn.edu
med.umn.edu/bio/dom-a-z/alexander-khoruts
microbiota-therapeutics.umn.edu/
Research Interests
Microbiota-host interactions in health and disease; microbiota therapeutics, mechanisms for how restoration microbiota therapies impact disease pathogenesis, the role of secondary bile acid metabolism in the pathogenesis of C. difficile infection and development of therapeutic bile acid derivative drugs, host-microbiota interactions in energy metabolism, and microbiota-based therapeutics for inflammatory bowel disease.
Bio
Alex Khoruts is most interested in translating basic scientific discoveries and ideas into clinical applications. His main focus since mid-2000s has been on development of treatments to repair antibiotic injury to intestinal microbial communities, also known as the “microbiota.” His lab has developed therapeutic preparations of donor microbiota to treat patients with difficult C. difficile infections, commonly known as Fecal Microbiota Transplants (FMT) or Intestinal Microbiota Transplants (IMT). Alex’s research program is committed to support academic trials for a variety of applications in the areas of ulcerative colitis, autism, advanced liver disease, and others.