His work is focused on the mechanisms of gastrointestinal epithelial cell injury and repair during development, especially as it relates to neonatal necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC), where medical treatments and mortality have been essentially unchanged since its discovery in the 1960s. His long-term goal is to better understand how different gastrointestinal developmental stages differ in their response to inflammation, and specifically the mechanism by which immaturity of the small intestine predisposes the development of NEC.