Iryna Pinchuk, PhD

Dr. Iryna Pinchuk is a Professor in the Division of Gastroenterology, Department of Medicine, at the Penn State College of Medicine and Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center. Dr. Pinchuk has more than 25 years of experience in immunology, microbiology, and gastrointestinal research. Her research is focused on understanding the mechanisms that drive chronic inflammation, fibrosis, and colorectal cancer in inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD), with particular emphasis on the interactions among intestinal mesenchymal stromal cells, immune cells, and the microbiota. Her laboratory pioneered the concept that intestinal fibroblasts are active regulators of mucosal immunity in the gut. Her work further established that stromal cells undergo profound inflammatory reprogramming in IBD, acquire disease-specific phenotypes in Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, and promote colorectal cancer progression through inflammatory signaling. More recently, her laboratory has identified epigenetic and post-transcriptional mechanisms associated with pathological activity of mesenchymal cells, including BRD4-mediated chromatin remodeling and MAPKAPK2 signaling, as key regulators of chronic intestinal inflammation and fibrotic tissue remodeling. Currently, Dr. Pinchuk team focus is on exploring those pathway for the development of novel therapeutics for IBD. Dr. Pinchuk's research has been continuously supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Department of Defense (DoD), the Crohn's & Colitis Foundation (CCF), the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA), and other extramural funding organizations. She has authored more than 70 peer-reviewed publications and has served on numerous national scientific review panels, including those of the NIH, CCF, and ACS. Mentorship is a central component of Dr. Pinchuk's academic mission. Throughout her independent career, she has mentored undergraduate, medical, and graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, medical research fellows, and junior faculty members. She fosters a collaborative and innovative research environment that emphasizes scientific rigor, creativity, integrity, and translational thinking. Her trainees have consistently published in high-impact journals, received prestigious national and international awards, secured competitive research funding, and successfully advanced to independent careers in academia, industry, and government.