Robert Heuckeroth, MD PhD

Dr. Heuckeroth is a pediatric gastroenterologist who has cared for hundreds of children with Hirschsprung disease. He is also a basic and translational research scientist who studies Hirschsprung disease and other bowel motility disorders. During his undergraduate studies at University of Maryland, he trained in organic chemistry and then pursued MD PhD training at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. He completed his pediatrics residency and gastroenterology fellowship at St. Louis Children’s Hospital. He then pursued post-doctoral training at Washington University in developmental biology and neuroscience. In 1998, he opened an independent laboratory focused on enteric nervous system (ENS) research. His research group defined functional roles for over 60 molecules that impact ENS development or function, identified the first gene-environment interactions that affect ENS development, and defined signal transduction pathways needed for ENS development. He is currently pursuing clinical and translational research on Hirschsprung disease and other bowel motility disorders, and he is Research Director of the Suzi and Scott Lustgarten Center for Gastrointestinal Motility at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. In addition, he is Professor of pediatrics at the Perelman School of Medicine at University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Heuckeroth’s laboratory collaborated closely with Dr. Soret and Dr. Pilon on the GDNF enema studies in Hirschsprung mouse models that led to the foundation of Neurenati Therapeutics.