Massachusetts General Hospital

Biography

Dr. Yajnik received his medical and graduate degree at New York University School of Medicine in New York. His PhD is in Cell and Molecular Biology. His postgraduate medical training included an internship and residency in Internal Medicine at the Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School. He also completed clinical and research fellowships at Mass General as well. He is certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine and holds subspecialty certification in gastroenterology.

Dr. Yajnik's research interests include treatment of Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis and understanding the genetic basis of inflammatory bowel disease. He also has a laboratory based research mission in understanding cell signaling in lymphocytes, tumor and normal epithelial cells of the GI tract. He has published numerous articles and abstracts in journals as Cell, Nature, Oncogene and Molecular Cell Biology. In addition to his extensive research background, Dr. Yajnik is reviewer for prominent scientific journals and is actively involved in medical education.

Research

The overall goal of our research is to understand human GI pathology and develop novel therapies for the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease. Specific description of our ongoing research projects are as follows:

• Clinical trials of novel therapeutic agents and modalities for Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis
• Clinical correlations in Crohn's and Colitis with disease genotype
• Functional studies on newly identified genes linked to Crohn's disease and Ulcerative colitis. Specifically, to understand how IL23 receptor polymorphisms affect Crohn's disease and Ulcerative Colitis
• To understand the molecular basis of tumor and immune cell migration
• GI epithelial cell biology and cell signaling

Publications

View my most recent publications at PubMed

Yajnik V, Blaikie P, Bork P, Margolis B. Identification of residues within the Shc PTB/PI domain crucial for phosphopeptide interaction. J Biol Chem 1996;271:1813-1816.

Yajnik V, Paulding C, Sordella R, McClatchey A, Saito M, Wahrer D, Bell D, Lake R, van den Huevel S, Settleman J, Haber D. DOCK4, a GTPase activator, is disrupted during tumorigenesis. Cell 2003;112: 673-684.

Reynolds PA, Smolen GA, Palmer RE, Sgroi D, Yajnik V, Gerald WL, Haber DA (2003) Identification of a DNA-binding site and transcriptional target for the EWS-WT1(+KTS) oncoprotein. Genes Dev. 17:2094-107.

Thayer SP, Pasca di Margliano M, Heiser PW, Roberts DJ, Nielsen CM, Lauwers GY, Qi YP, Gysin S, Fernandez-del Castillo C, Yajnik V, Antoniu B, McMahan M, Warshaw AL, Hebrok M (2003). Hedgehog an early and late mediator of pancreatic tumorigenesis. Nature 425:851-6

Geeta Upadhyay, Wolfram Goessling, Trista E. North, Ramnik Xavier, Leonard I Zon and Vijay Yajnik. Molecular association between ?-catenin degradation complex and guanine exchange factor DOCK4 is essential for Wnt signaling. (2008) Oncogene 27 (44): 5845-55.

Kenji Kawada, Geeta Upadhyay, Sebastien Ferrandon, Sailajah Janarthanan, Matthew Hall Jean Pierre Vilardaga and Vijay Yajnik. Cell Migration is regulated by PDGF receptor endocytosis. (2009) Molecular and Cellular Biology, 29 (16) 4508-18.

Innovations in Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Research at the Massachusetts General Hospital Digestive Healthcare Center, including clinical trials of new biologic medications, as well new minimally invasive surgical techniques, is helping expand treatment and management of patients with inflammatory bowel disease.