Dr. Abigail Koppes-
Principal Investigator

Erika Wheeler

Investigation and Characterization of Sex-Based differences in Irritable Bowel Syndrome and Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Irritable Bowel Syndrome and Irritable Bowel Disease are both medical conditions of the gastrointestinal (GI) tract. IBS alone affects 60 to 70 million people in the United States and women are twice as likely to be diagnosed than men. Erika’s work focuses on investigating and characterizing sex-based differences in IBS and IBD patients.

Erika joined ABNEL as a bioengineering BS/MS student in January 2021. She began her master thesis in ABNEL in Fall 2021. Prior to this, she co-oped at Sanofi and Cygnal Therapeutics in their oncology department investigating and validating novel oncology targets.

Dr. Koppes receives the 2020 CMBE Young Innovator Award

Dr. Koppes receives the 2020 CMBE Young Innovator Award

2020 CMBE Young Innovators were recognized at the 2020 BMES conference where they gave invited talks. Dr. Koppes was awarded a 2020 CMBE Young Innovator award for the recent paper: Cholinergic Activation of Primary Human Derived Intestinal Epithelium Does Not Ameliorate TNF-α Induced Injury. The paper (first author by lab alumni Sanjin Hosic) was published […]