Sara Di Rienzi

Sara Di Rienzi is an Assistant Professor in the Dept. of Neuroscience and Cell Biology and a resident faculty member at the Center for Advanced Biotechnology and Medicine. During her graduate work, Dr. Di Rienzi studied how origins of replication contribute to and are affected by genome duplications and rearrangements. She transitioned to studying the gut microbiome as a postdoctoral research fellow at Cornell University. There she studied how the small intestinal microbiota adapts in concert with changes in the host’s consumption of dietary fat. Following, she moved to Baylor College of Medicine to apply her microbiome knowledge to study beneficial microbes that could be used as therapeutics. In this second postdoc, which later became a non-tenure track faculty position, she discovered that the probiotic Limosilactobacillus reuteri stimulates the release of oxytocin and other hormones not previously characterized in the intestinal epithelium. Her active research is pursuing the functions of these new intestinal hormones and how microbes that regulate these hormones can be utilized to promote health.

Gut hormones, gut microbes, gut-brain axis, intestinal physiology, beneficial microbes

AB, Biology, Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, PA, 2006, PhD, Genome Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, 2011

Department of Neuroscience and Cell Biology
RBHS, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School

AGA-Pfizer Pilot Research Awardee in Inflammatory Bowel Disease, 2024

Texas Medical Center Digestive Diseases Center Pilot Feasibility Grantee, 2021

Weston Family Fellow, 2020

National Library of Medicine Training Fellow in Biomedical Informatics, 2017

Eli & Edythe Broad Fellow of the Life Sciences Research Foundation, 2013

Assistant Professor of Neuroscience and Cell Biology

-American Gastroenterological Association Center for Gut Microbiome Research and Education Scientific Advisory Board and Biotherapeutics Subcommittee Member

-American Society for Microbiology Member

Taking Microbiome Science to the Next Level: Recommendations to Advance the Emerging Field of Microbiome-Based Therapeutics and Diagnostics., Microbial stimulation of oxytocin release from the intestinal epithelium via secretin signaling., Human intestinal organoids from Cronkhite-Canada syndrome patients reveal link between serotonin and proliferation., Adaptation of the Gut Microbiota to Modern Dietary Sugars and Sweeteners., Resilience of small intestinal beneficial bacteria to the toxicity of soybean oil fatty acids.