Rodney D. Newberry MD Professor of Medicine
rnewberry@wustl.edu
https://profiles.wustl.edu/en/persons/rodney-newberry
Dr. Rodney D. Newberry is a Danforth Physician-Scientist Scholar and the Nicholas V. Costrini endowed Professor of Gastroenterology and Inflammatory Bowel Disease in the Department of Medicine and Division of Gastroenterology. Dr. Newberry was born in Niles, Michigan and grew up in south central Illinois in a rural farming community, where he attended Jersey Community High School. During high school he enjoyed sports, math, and science. Dr. Newberry attended Washington University in Saint Louis graduating Magna Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Art majoring in biology and minoring in mathematics in 1987. He subsequently attended Washington University in Saint Louis School of Medicine where he continued to participate in work leading to landmark studies on the process of thymocyte selection and graduated in 1991 with a Medical Doctorate degree. Dr. Newberry received training as an intern and resident in Internal Medicine at the Barnes Hospital Washington University A Internal Medicine Residency program, completing training in 1994. After working on the Attending Inpatient Medicine service at Barnes Hospital for a year, Dr. Newberry completed fellowship training in Gastroenterology in 1999 at Washington University in Saint Louis. During and following his Gastroenterology fellowship, Dr. Newberry performed a post-doctoral fellowship with Dr. Robin Lorenz MD, PhD in mucosal immunology. In 2000 Dr. Newberry formally joined the faculty at Washington University in Saint Louis School of Medicine as an Assistant Professor of Medicine, where he was subsequently promoted to Associate Professor of Medicine and Professor of Medicine in the Department of Medicine Division of Gastroenterology.
Dr. Newberry started his own research program in 2000 focusing on basic biology of the intestinal immune system related to inflammatory diseases such as Celiac Disease and Inflammatory Bowel Diseases. His group was one of the first to identify how intestinal isolated lymphoid follicles develop and function. In addition, his group has contributed to national and international multi-institutional studies on genetics and inflammatory bowel diseases. More recently his group made the transformative identification of a new function for intestinal goblet cells in delivering gut luminal substances to the immune system to generate antigen specific responses. Paradigm shifting work by his group identified how this process was regulated, how it contributes to the development of a healthy immune system, and how it can become dysregulated to contribute to intestinal disease and extra-intestinal diseases such as allergy. His work has been presented at numerous National and International meetings and symposia including twice as a keynote presentation for the National Institutes of Health National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease Division of Allergy Immunology and Transplant council meetings.
Dr. Newberry’s research program has been funded since its inception by multiple National Institutes of Health and private foundation grants including the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation, the American Gastroenterological Association, the Broad Medical Research Foundation, the Helmsley Charitable Trust, and the Children’s Discovery Institute. Dr. Newberry has received multiple awards including the Glaxo Institute for Digestive Health Research Award, the Fitterman Basic Research Award, and the Providence Food Intolerance Research Award. Dr. Newberry has served on multiple National Institutes of Health and private foundation committees and study sections. He was recently elected as President of the international Society for Mucosal Immunology. In recognition of his contributions Washington University in Saint Louis School of Medicine named Dr. Newberry a William Danforth Physician-Scientist Scholar in January 2023.
Dr. Newberry is committed to empowering the next generation of researchers by offering research opportunities to undergraduates, mentoring postdoctoral fellows and instructors, as well as clinical fellows. His open-door policy and collaborations within the University and abroad have been at the core of his success.
Keely McDonald, Senior Lab Manager
kmcdonald@wustl.edu
Keely McDonald graduated from the University of Missouri Columbia in 2001 with a Bachelor’s of Science in Animal Science and Pre-Veterinary Medicine. Keely is a founding member of the Newberry Lab and masterfully manages all its people and resources. She has been and continues to be crucial for the success of the Newberry Lab with her expertise in animal models of intestinal inflammation.
Olivia Gorushi, PhD Staff Scientist
Research Technicians
Sushma Sundras, Research Technician II
sundas@wustl.edu
Sushma joined the Newberry Lab in 2023 after graduating from Southeast Missouri State University majoring in Biomedical Sciences in May 2023. She has been assisting the postdoctoral fellows and instructors in the lab as well as keeping an eye on our mouse colony. Her goal is I to go to graduate school for further studies in Biomedical Sciences.
Khushi Talati, Research Tech II
Khushi joined Dr. Devesha Kulkarni as an undergraduate in 2022 and has stayed on for a gap year as a research tech. Her work is mainly focused on intestinal immune populations in obesity and inflammatory bowel disease. Her goal is to go to medical school.
ktalati@wustl.edu
Dalia Harris, Research Tech II
daliah@wustl.edu
Kayla Burgess, Research Technician II
burgess.k@wustl.edu
Kayla joined the Newberry Lab in 2023 to get research experience. She graduated in 2020 from Northwest Missouri State University with a B.S. in marine biology. She plans to go to graduate school in marine biology.
Ellie Joyce, BS
ejoyce@wustl.edu
Ellie Joyce has worked as a research technician in the Newberry lab for 3 years including time spent as an undergraduate student at Saint Louis University and before she started medical school at Saint Louis University in Saint Louis. Ellie works part time during the school year and returns to the lab full time during the summer break.
Students
Andrew Martin, BS, Graduate Student
andrew.martin@wustl.edu
Andrew has an affinity for creepy crawly bacteria. Andrew graduated from WashU undergrad in 2023 and is a graduate student in the Molecular Microbiology and Microbial Pathogenesis (MMMP) program and joined the lab in 2024. During undergrad, Andrew did work on molecular mechanisms of axon guidance in developmental neuroscience, development of synthetic probiotics to sense and treat infection, and internships in Cell Line Development and Cell Therapy High Throughput Systems at AstraZeneca Rare Disease and Takeda, respectively.
Post Doctoral Fellows
Bibiana Barrios, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow
bbarrios@wustl.edu
Bibi graduated in Biology from the University of Córdoba, Argentina. She did her PhD in circadian rhythms and mucosal immunity at the same university. After a first postdoc experience in Argentina, she moved to Saint Louis and joined the Newberry Lab in 2019. Her work is focused on how Goblet cells modulate regulatory T cells subsets functions in the gut. She loves outdoors activities like hiking, cycling, camping. She likes beers and hanging out with friends.
Rafael Gutierrez, MD, Fellow Neonatology
grafael@wustl.edu
Rafael Gutiérrez, MD was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois. He received his degree in Biology from Loyola University Chicago. He was briefly a lab technician at Loyola University Chicago’s Cardinal Bernardin Cancer Center and worked on MLL-AF9 Leukemia cells and the necroptotic signaling pathway. He then received his medical degree at the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2020. He was a Pediatric Resident at Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin from 2020-23. He is currently a Fellow of Perinatal-Neonatal Medicine at Washington University in St. Louis/St. Louis Children’s Hospital.
Dr. Gutiérrez is currently working on understanding the effects of prenatal antibiotic exposure on the microbiota, goblet cell-associated antigen passages (GAPs) opening, and risk of sepsis.
Gaston Rizzo, PhD Postdoctoral Fellow
Junior Faculty
Rusconi Group
Brigida Rusconi, PhD, Instructor
b.a.rusconi@wustl.edu
https://profiles.wustl.edu/en/persons/brigida-rusconi
Brigida got her PhD at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland working on Chlamydia-related bacteria and innate immune responses and did a first postdoc at the University of Texas in San Antonio on bacterial outbreak tracking. With her background in microbiology and bioinformatics she then joined WUSM as a postdoctoral fellow in the group of Dr. Tarr in the Department of Pediatrics to work on necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) in 2016. Through her work on NEC she has started a close collaboration with the Newberry Lab and is continuing to work on early life host-microbial interactions. Since 2019 she has been promoted to instructor and has developed her own research program on early life imprinted immune populations and maternal protections. Combining microbiology, immunology and bioinformatics her groups i interested in dissecting the role of early life imprinted immune populations in the gut in providing passive protection to the offspring against enteric and systemic infections. She is the go-to person if there are any computer issues or bioinformatic analyses that need to be done.
Jackie Wang, Research Tech II
jackie.wang@wustl.edu
Born and raised in Kingston, Jamaica, she graduated from Washington University in St. Louis in 2022 with a B.A. in Biology: Neuroscience and a minor in Accounting. She joined the lab in May 2023 and has been working under the mentorship of Dr. Rusconi. In the future, she hopes to pursue a career in medicine as a physician.
Schill Group
Ellen Schill, MD PhD, Neonatology Instructor
merricke@wustl.edu
Ellen Schill MD. PhD. is from Alexandria, Virginia. She graduated from the University of Virginia in 2009 with a degree in Neuroscience before matriculating in the Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine Medical Scientist Training Program in 2017. After graduation, Dr. Schill completed her Pediatrics Residency and Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine Fellowship at St. Louis Children’s Hospital/Washington University in St. Louis through the American Board of Pediatrics Accelerated Research Program. She is currently an instructor in the Department of Pediatrics/Division of Newborn Medicine.
Dr. Schill completed her Ph.D. studies in the lab of Dr. Robert Heuckeroth where she focused on the role of gene-environment interactions in the pathophysiology of Hirschsprung Disease, a congenital defect of the enteric nervous system (ENS). After starting her postdoctoral studies in Dr. Newberry’s lab in 2020, Dr. Schill’s investigations have focused on the impact of early life antibiotic exposure on the development of the ENS and intestinal neuroimmune interactions.
Jocelyn Pauta, BS, Kornfeld Post-Bac scholar
pauta@wustl.edu
Jocelyn joined the lab for a two-year Post-Bac program in 2023 after graduating from Drake University with a B.S. in health sciences. Under the supervision of Dr. Ellen Schill she has been working on neuronal-microbial interactions in early life. She is planning on applying for medical school this upcoming cycle.
Alumni
Vini John, PhD
Sreeram Udayan, PhD
