Dr. Joseph Pisegna is Professor of Medicine and Human Genetics at UCLA and Chief of the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology at the VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System. Dr. Pisegna is a member of the faculty of the Molecular, Cellular and Integrative Physiology Program at UCLA. Dr. Pisegna is interested in the molecular pharmacology of hormones and receptors in the gastrointestinal tract, especially the diagnosis and management of islet cell tumors of the pancreas, including the Zollinger-Ellison Syndrome. These research and clinical interests derive from research in the biochemistry and physiology of neuroendocrine tumors. While a fellow at the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Pisegna first developed a clinical interest in the Zollinger-Ellison Syndrome (ZES), where he discovered and cloned the receptor for gastrin and named it the cholecystokinin B receptor as well as the receptor for Pituitary Adenylate Cyclase Activating Polypeptide receptor (PACAP). More recently, Dr. Pisegna has demonstrated that receptors for gastrin are present in the kidney and mediate food-induced regulation of salt excretion as well as shown that PACAP regulates hepatic fat metabolism. Dr. Pisegna is funded by the Department of Veterans Affairs to investigate the microbiome, metabolome and transcriptome of gastrointestinal cancers. He is funded through the National Institutes of Health and National Cancer Institute to investigate the pathophysiology of pancreatic diseases, pancreatic cancer and hepatocellular carcinoma. Dr. Pisegna is the co-director of the NIH T32 grant in gastroenterology at the UCLA and VA and is the Human Core Director of the NIH funded center for digestive diseases.