Meenakshi Bewtra

About

Meenakshi Bewtra, MD, PhD, MPH, is an Associate Professor of Medicine (Gastroenterology) at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. She serves as an Attending Physician at Penn Medicine at Radnor, the Corporal Michael J. Crescenz Veteran's Affairs Medical Center, and the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. She is the Co-Section Head and Research and Education Director for Inflammatory Bowel Disease within the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology at the University of Pennsylvania. Her clinical expertise includes inflammatory bowel disease, ulcerative colitis, Crohn's disease, immune-mediated colitis, and microscopic colitis. Her research focuses on epidemiology, real-world data, discrete choice experiments, and clinical trials related to inflammatory bowel disease. She is actively involved in research initiatives such as the Inflammatory Bowel Disease Program at Penn Medicine and the IBD-Immunology Initiative (I3), which enrolls all IBD patients at UPenn and collaborates nationally and internationally. Dr. Bewtra's educational background includes a BSc from Yale University, an MD from the University of Pennsylvania, an MPH from Harvard University School of Public Health, and a PhD in Epidemiology from the University of Pennsylvania.

Research topics

• Internal medicine
• Medicine
• Gastroenterology
• Family medicine
• Biochemistry
• Surgery
• Chemistry

Selected publications

• Randomized Controlled-Feeding Study of Dietary Emulsifier Carboxymethylcellulose Reveals Detrimental Impacts on the Gut Microbiota and Metabolome

  Gastroenterology · 2021-11-10 · 310 citations

  articleOpen access

  Background & AimsEpidemiologic and murine studies suggest that dietary emulsifiers promote development of diseases associated with microbiota dysbiosis. Although the detrimental impact of these compounds on the intestinal microbiota and intestinal health have been demonstrated in animal and in vitro models, impact of these food additives in healthy humans remains poorly characterized.MethodsTo examine this notion in humans, we performed a double-blind controlled-feeding study of the ubiquitous s…

  PublisherDOI

• A Randomized Trial Comparing the Specific Carbohydrate Diet to a Mediterranean Diet in Adults With Crohn’s Disease

  Gastroenterology · 2021 · 284 citations

  DOI

• Mitochondrial dysfunction in inflammatory bowel disease alters intestinal epithelial metabolism of hepatic acylcarnitines

  Journal of Clinical Investigation · 2020 · 91 citations

  As the interface between the gut microbiota and the mucosal immune system, there has been great interest in the maintenance of colonic epithelial integrity through mitochondrial oxidation of butyrate, a short-chain fatty acid produced by the gut microbiota. Herein, we showed that the intestinal epithelium could also oxidize long-chain fatty acids, and that luminally delivered acylcarnitines in bile could be consumed via apical absorption by the intestinal epithelium, resulting in mitochondrial o…

  DOI

• COVID-19 Vaccine Perceptions Among Patients With Chronic Disease in a Large Gastroenterology and Hepatology Practice

  The American Journal of Gastroenterology · 2021 · 21 citations

  INTRODUCTION: To assess beliefs about safety, effectiveness, and delivery of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccine among chronic Gastroenterology and Hepatology patients at an academic health system. METHODS: We asked about vaccine beliefs, vaccine concerns, and preferred location to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. RESULTS: A total of 1,215 patients responded (response rate: 37%). Most patients believed that vaccines are safe, effective, and that they would take the COVID-19 vaccine at a…

  DOI

• MAIT cell enrichment in Lynch syndrome is associated with immune surveillance and colorectal cancer risk

  bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · 2025-08-27 · 3 citations

  preprintOpen access

  ABSTRACT Tissue microenvironment characteristics associated with elevated risk of colorectal cancer (CRC) in Lynch syndrome (LS) are poorly characterized. We applied the multimodal single cell sequencing platform ExCITE-seq to define the colonic cellular composition and transcriptome of LS carriers with and without a history of CRC compared with general population controls. Our analysis revealed widespread remodeling in LS that included striking expansion of epithelial stem and progenitor cells,…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• NIH Grant K08DK084347

  NIH · $763k · 2014

Frequent coauthors

• Sumona Saha

  UW Health University Hospital

  1034 shared

• David Hudesman

  1028 shared

• Raymond K. Cross

  University of Maryland, Baltimore

  524 shared

• Scott B. Snapper

  Harvard University

  523 shared

• David L. Suskind

  Seattle Children's Hospital

  518 shared

• Themistocles Dassopoulos

  Wockhardt (United States)

  517 shared

• Freddy Caldera

  Pfizer (United States)

  517 shared

• Shrinivas Bishu

  516 shared

Similar researchers at University of Pennsylvania

• John Q. Trojanowskih-296
• Craig B. Thompsonh-277
• Daniel J Raderh-236