Nitika Gupta, MD
Meet our researcher…My journey with Autoimmune hepatitis started with taking care of children, some as young as a few months old who were diagnosed with this disease. But it took on a different meaning when I met Nicole as her medical provider and walked with her through her trials and tribulations as she bravely faced the burden of this disease along with the extensive side effects of medications. What subsequently started as a small research study, revealed startling results: that African American children, particularly females, had a worse outcome of with Autoimmune hepatitis despite receiving the same therapy as Caucasian children racial disparities in presentation and outcomes of paediatric autoimmune hepatitis. This was a landmark study which has now left me asking the question: Why? What makes African American children more vulnerable to this disease despite receiving adequate treatment. And who could be a better partner to help answer this question than Nicole herself. Our foundation’s approach is to invest in high-quality research to better understand Autoimmune hepatitis in African American children particularly females. Our goal is to investigate the impact of race and ethnic background in response to standard treatment so that we can develop a personalized treatment approach to improve outcomes of African American children with Autoimmune hepatitis.