Allen Banegura is a Gastroenterologist in Catonsville, Maryland. Dr. Banegura is rated as an Advanced provider by MediFind in the treatment of Nonalcoholic Steatohepatitis (NASH). His top areas of expertise are Familial Adenomatous Polyposis, Angiodysplasia of the Colon, Esophagitis, Gastrectomy, and Colonoscopy.

Thomas Abernathy is a Gastroenterologist in Catonsville, Maryland. Dr. Abernathy is rated as an Experienced provider by MediFind in the treatment of Nonalcoholic Steatohepatitis (NASH). His top areas of expertise are Lactose Intolerance, Familial Adenomatous Polyposis, Hemorrhoids, Gastrectomy, and Colonoscopy.

Mukul Khandelwal is a Gastroenterologist in Elkridge, Maryland. His top areas of expertise are Gastrointestinal Bleeding, Familial Adenomatous Polyposis, Angiodysplasia of the Colon, Endoscopy, and Gastrectomy.

Paul Thuluvath is a Gastroenterologist in Lutherville, Maryland. Dr. Thuluvath is rated as an Elite provider by MediFind in the treatment of Nonalcoholic Steatohepatitis (NASH). His top areas of expertise are Liver Failure, Hepatitis, Hepatitis C, Liver Transplant, and Endoscopy.

Mahmood Solaiman is a Gastroenterologist in Elkridge, Maryland. Dr. Solaiman is rated as an Experienced provider by MediFind in the treatment of Nonalcoholic Steatohepatitis (NASH). His top areas of expertise are Gastrointestinal Bleeding, Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), Menetrier Disease, Gastrostomy, and Gastrectomy.

Jae Ok Lee is a nurse practitioner who specializes in liver diseases and post-liver transplantation management. Lee earned an advanced nurse practitioner degree from The Johns Hopkins University and a doctor of philosophy degree at the University of Maryland School of Nursing for the living liver donation trend in the U.S. and strategies for increasing the donation rate, especially among underserved populations. Ms. Lee is rated as an Advanced provider by MediFind in the treatment of Nonalcoholic Steatohepatitis (NASH). Her top areas of expertise are Nonalcoholic Steatohepatitis (NASH), Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease, and Liver Failure.

Marvin Lawrence is a Gastroenterologist in Columbia, Maryland. Dr. Lawrence is rated as an Advanced provider by MediFind in the treatment of Nonalcoholic Steatohepatitis (NASH). His top areas of expertise are Swallowing Difficulty, Painful Swallowing, Berdon Syndrome, Diverticular Disease, and Endoscopy.

Priti Bijpuria is a Gastroenterologist in Columbia, Maryland. Dr. Bijpuria is rated as an Advanced provider by MediFind in the treatment of Nonalcoholic Steatohepatitis (NASH). Her top areas of expertise are Gastric Dysmotility, Bacterial Gastroenteritis, Indigestion, Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease (GERD), and Gastrectomy.

Nathalie Urrunaga is a Hepatologist in Baltimore, Maryland. Dr. Urrunaga is rated as a Distinguished provider by MediFind in the treatment of Nonalcoholic Steatohepatitis (NASH). Her top areas of expertise are Alcoholic Cirrhosis, Nonalcoholic Steatohepatitis (NASH), Cirrhosis, Liver Transplant, and Endoscopy.

Dr. Gurakar joined Johns Hopkins from the Nazih Zuhdi Transplantation Institute at the Integris Baptist Medical Center in Oklahoma City, where he was the chief of Hepatology Research and the program director of the Liver Transplantation Medicine/ Hepatology Fellowship. He served at various capacities in the Liver Medicine Section, since its first establishment in 1993. Dr. Gurakar's clinical interests include pre and post-transplant, clinical and endoscopic management of liver diseases and viral hepatitis. His research interests include bioartificial liver dialysis systems and application of total plasma exchange in the treatment of liver disorders. Dr. Gurakar is rated as an Experienced provider by MediFind in the treatment of Nonalcoholic Steatohepatitis (NASH). His top areas of expertise are Hepatitis, Liver Failure, Alcoholic Cirrhosis, Liver Transplant, and Kidney Transplant.

Dr. Ma is an assistant professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She received her medical degree from the University of Michigan Medical School and completed her internal medicine residency at the University of Pennsylvania. Following her residency, she performed a fellowship in transplant hepatology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Dr. Ma specializes in liver disorders including alcoholic liver disease, viral hepatitis, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, metabolic liver disorders, as well as the care of patients after liver transplant. Dr. Ma also has interests in medical education and currently serves as the Associate Program Director of the Gastroenterology Fellowship. Dr. Ma is rated as an Experienced provider by MediFind in the treatment of Nonalcoholic Steatohepatitis (NASH). Her top areas of expertise are Hepatitis, Cirrhosis, Hepatitis C, Endoscopy, and Gastrectomy.

Dr. Robert Liddell is an Assistant Professor of Radiology and Surgery and Division Chief of Interventional Radiology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. His specialty is interventional radiology, with an expertise in interventional oncology and vascular and interventional radiology. Dr. Liddell received his MBBCh at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. He completed his residency at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Diagnostic Radiology and his fellowship in Interventional Radiology. Videos Interventional Radiology. Dr. Liddell is rated as an Experienced provider by MediFind in the treatment of Nonalcoholic Steatohepatitis (NASH). His top areas of expertise are Bile Duct Obstruction, Ascites, Fibrolamellar Carcinoma, Liver Embolization, and Pancreaticoduodenectomy.

Dr. Benjamin Philosophe is the surgical director of the Johns Hopkins Comprehensive Transplant Center. He also serves as the lead transplant surgeon at Sibley Memorial Hospital’s Hepatology Multidisciplinary Center. Dr. Philosophe was the first physician to perform robotic total right and total left hepatic resections in the state of Maryland. He has expanded the application of minimally invasive surgical approaches to other hepatobiliary diseases and has improved outcomes and reduced effects of surgery on these patients. Dr. Philosophe practices out of The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Md., as well as Johns Hopkins Community Physician locations in Bethesda, Md. and Lutherville, Md. He is also affiliated with Suburban Hospital and Johns Hopkins Howard County Medical Center. Dr. Philosophe has a wide range of expertise, including cirrhosis; hepatic surgery, hepatitis, hepatobiliary conditions and surgeries; biliary tract surgery and hepatopancreatobiliary surgery; laparoscopic surgeries; vascular surgery; and robotic surgeries. He also has an expertise in various kinds of transplant surgeries, such as kidney, live donor liver, liver and pancreas, as well as various kinds of cancer, such as bile duct, gallbladder, hepatocellular, liver and pancreatic. Dr. Philosophe earned his medical degree from Boston University School of Medicine. He completed a residency in general surgery at Barnes-Jewish Hospital, followed by a liver transplantation fellowship at the University of Toronto. Dr. Philosophe also completed a transplant surgery fellowship at the University of Maryland, where he went on to work as a professor of surgery and the head of liver transplantation and hepatobiliary surgery. Dr. Philosophe is a member of the American Board of Surgery, the Clinical Robotic Surgery Association, the American Society of Transplant Surgeons, the Transplantation Society and the International Liver Transplantation Society. He has earned a Super Doctors Award in general surgery from the Washington Post Magazine, as well as a Top Doctor Award for hepatobiliary surgery and transplant specialists from Baltimore Magazine. Dr. Philosophe has also been repeatedly named one of America’s Top Doctors and one of America’s Top Doctors for Cancer by Castle Connolly. Dr. Philosophe has contributed to numerous publications and presentations. His research interests include uncovering the mechanisms that contribute to transplant rejection and determining characteristics that can be used to better predict donor organ function. He has completed pioneering work in developing a scoring system called the Maryland Aggregate Pathology Index (MAPI), which is used by transplant surgeons worldwide to assess the likelihood of a deceased donor’s kidney function after transplantation. MAPI has increased the utilization of donor kidneys and saved many lives. Dr. Philosophe is rated as an Experienced provider by MediFind in the treatment of Nonalcoholic Steatohepatitis (NASH). His top areas of expertise are Hepatitis, End-Stage Renal Disease (ESRD), Cholestasis, Liver Transplant, and Kidney Transplant.

Alexandra (Aly) Strauss is a transplant hepatologist who treats patients with acute and chronic liver disease, such as cirrhosis and liver cancer. Dr. Strauss completed medical school at the University of South Florida (USF), where she continued for internal medicine residency training and served as chief resident. She then went to The Johns Hopkins University for fellowship training in gastroenterology, followed by a fellowship in transplant hepatology. Her research training began when she completed a master’s degree in industrial/systems engineering at USF. Later, at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, she earned her Ph.D. in clinical investigation. Dr. Strauss’s research focus is on the use of systems engineering and data science to improve access to liver transplantation. She serves as core faculty in the Johns Hopkins University Malone Center for Engineering in Healthcare and is a faculty member in the Center for Data Science in Emergency Medicine. Recent News Articles and Media Coverage What Does AI Mean for GI, What does AI mean for GI? - American Gastroenterological Association (07/03/2023) Selected Publications Vong, Tyrus, Nicholas Rizer, Vedant Jain, Valerie L. Thompson, Mark Dredze, Eili Y. Klein, Jeremiah S. Hinson, et al. “Automated Identification of Incidental Hepatic Steatosis on Emergency Department Imaging Using Large Language Models.” Hepatology Communications 9, no. 3 (March 1, 2025). https://doi.org/10.1097/HC9.0000000000000638. Mankowski, Michal A., Sunjae Bae, Alexandra T. Strauss, Bonnie E. Lonze, Babak J. Orandi, Darren Stewart, Allan B. Massie, et al. “Generalizability of Kidney Transplant Data in Electronic Health Records - The Epic Cosmos Database vs the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients.” American Journal of Transplantation: Official Journal of the American Society of Transplantation and the American Society of Transplant Surgeons, November 15, 2024. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajt.2024.11.008. Xu, Jingzhi, Michal Mankowski, Karen B. Vanterpool, Alexandra T. Strauss, Bonnie E. Lonze, Babak J. Orandi, Darren Stewart, et al. “Trials and Tribulations: Responses of ChatGPT to Patient Questions about Kidney Transplantation.” Transplantation 109, no. 3 (March 1, 2025): 399–402. https://doi.org/10.1097/TP.0000000000005261. Strauss AT, Morgan C, El Khuri C, Slogeris B, Smith AG, Klein E, Toerper M, Peterson S, Gurses AP, DeAngelo A, Debraine, A, Levin S, Hinson J. Human-centered design and usability evaluation of LOOP, a patient outcomes-driven feedback platform for emergency medicine clinicians. JMIR Human Factors. 2022;9(1):e30130; *corresponding author. Strauss AT, Yeh J, Martinez D, Yanokyan G, Yoder J, Nehra R, Feller T, Bull-Henry K, Stein E, Hsu L, Al-Grain H, Zabko C, Fain C. A patient-centered framework for health systems engineering in gastroenterology: improving inpatient colonoscopy bowel preparation. BMC Gastroenterol. 2021;21(1):89;. Dr. Strauss is rated as an Experienced provider by MediFind in the treatment of Nonalcoholic Steatohepatitis (NASH). Her top areas of expertise are Hepatitis, Hepatitis C, Alcoholic Cirrhosis, Liver Transplant, and Endoscopy.

David S. Cooper, MD, MACP is a graduate of the Tufts University School of Medicine and completed his endocrinology training at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. He is currently Professor of Medicine and Radiology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Professor of International Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He is one of the editors of the iconic textbook on thyroid disease, Werner and Ingbar’s The Thyroid, and he co-edits two other textbooks: Medical Management of Thyroid Disease and Thyroid Cancer. He is also the co-author of a book for patients with thyroid disease entitled Your Thyroid: A Home Reference. He is the past Chair of the Subspecialty Board for Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Metabolism of the American Board of Internal Medicine. He is an Editor-in-Chief for Endocrinology at Up-to-Date, and he has served as the Chair of the Endocrine Society’s annual Board Review Course. Dr. Cooper was the Chair of the American Thyroid Association’s (ATA) 2006 and 2009 task forces that first drafted clinical practice guidelines for the management of thyroid nodules and thyroid cancer. He also served on ATA sponsored task forces that promulgated guidelines for the management of hypothyroidism and for the management of hyperthyroidism. He is the past Treasurer and past President of the ATA, and the recipient of the ATA’s Distinguished Service Award, its Paul Starr Award, and the Lewis Braverman Lectureship Award. He is also the recipient of the Distinction in Endocrinology Award given by the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists, as well as the Endocrine Society’s Outstanding Scholarly Physician Laureate Award and the Outstanding Educator Laureate Award. . His top areas of expertise are Thyroid Cancer, Graves Disease, Follicular Thyroid Cancer, Thyroidectomy, and Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT).

Dr. David W. Cooke is an associate professor of pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Dr. Cooke’s clinical activities include both a general pediatric endocrine clinic and a pediatric diabetes clinic. His clinical interests include all endocrine disorders in children and adolescents, including short stature, abnormal pubertal development, growth hormone dysregulation, thyroid disorders, hormone deficiencies, hypopituitarism, diabetes insipidis, pituitary adenoma, prolactinoma, goiter, Cushing's disease, Addison's disease, polycystic ovary syndrome, congenital adrenal hyperplasia and disorders of sexual differentiation, Turner syndrome and Klinefelter syndrome, among others. He serves as clinical director of the division of pediatric endocrinology and director of the Pediatric Endocrinology Fellowship Training Program at Johns Hopkins. He is a member of the Johns Hopkins Klinefelter Syndrome Center. Dr. Cooke completed his undergraduate studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and received his medical degree from the Duke University School of Medicine. He then completed his residency in pediatrics at The Johns Hopkins Hospital, where he also completed a fellowship in pediatric endocrinology. He has been a faculty member in the Division of Pediatric Endocrinology at the Johns Hopkins since 1993. After his fellowship, Dr. Cooke spent five years of additional research training in the Department of Biological Chemistry at Johns Hopkins, supported by an individual Physician Scientist Award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Dr. Cooke’s past research interest was the molecular basis of insulin resistance and obesity, with studies examining the role the adipocyte plays in these conditions. He had received research funding for these studies from the NIH and from the American Diabetes Association. Dr. Cooke is a recipient of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine Institute for Excellence in Education award for Outstanding Achievement in Medical and Biomedical Education. He also has been recognized as a Top Doctor by Baltimore magazine. Dr. Cooke is a member of the Society for Pediatric Research, the American Diabetes Association, the Endocrine Society and Pediatric Endocrinology Society. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics. . His top areas of expertise are Klinefelter Syndrome, Type 1 Diabetes (T1D), Precocious Puberty, and Diabetic Ketoacidosis.

Dr. Paul Ladenson is a professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He is also a professor of oncology; pathology; and radiology and radiological science. His areas of clinical expertise include Thyroid diseases, Endocrine & Metabolic disorders. Dr. Ladenson is the John Eager Howard Professor of Endocrinology and Metabolism. He earned his M.D. from Harvard Medical School. He completed his residency and performed a fellowship in endocrinology, diabetes and metabolism at Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. Ladenson's research interests include cardiac actions of thyroid hormone, thyroid cancer and thyroid hormone analogs. He was recognized with the Lewis E. Braverman Lectureship Award at the 82nd Annual Meeting of the American Thyroid Association (ATA) in 2012. . His top areas of expertise are Thyroid Nodule, Secondary Adrenal Insufficiency, Neuroendocrine Tumor, Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease, and Thyroidectomy.

Dr. Dobs is presently an active clinical researcher in the field of endocrine gonadal function. She is particularly interested in new forms of male hormone replacement therapy and has published extensively in the area of hormonal changes with aging and chronic disease. Her clinical practice covers general endocrinology, with a focus on sex hormone disorders in both men and women. As Director of the Johns Hopkins Clinical Research Network, she oversees a multi-institutional consortium of hospitals in the mid-Atlantic states dedicated to facilitating clinical research through an academic-community hospital partnership. . Her top areas of expertise are Hypogonadism, Eunuchoidism Familial Hypogonadotropic, Testicular Failure, Isolated Hypogonadotropic Hypogonadism, and Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT).

Dr. Donner's clinical and research interests have focused on the prevention of complications in patients with type 1 and 2 diabetes. For 6 years, he was the Associate Medical Director of the Joslin Diabetes Center affiliate at the University of Maryland, and then Medical Director from 2004 - 2010. After joining the faculty at Johns Hopkins University in 2010, his clinical and research interests became fully dedicated to diabetes. He became the Director of The Johns Hopkins Diabetes Center in 2011. He has been a clinical investigator in a number of NIH- and industry-funded diabetes research trials. Dr. Donner was a co-PI in the NIH-funded Veterans Affairs Implantable Insulin Pump Study, a Co-PI on the NIDDK-funded Diabetes Control and Complications Trial / Epidemiology of Diabetes Intervention and Complications (DCCT / EDIC) Study for 16 years, and Co-PI for the Bypass Angioplasty Revascularization Investigation 2 Diabetes (BARI 2D) for 7 years. Recently, he has served as PI for the Durable-response therapy Evaluation For Early or New-onset type 1 Diabetes (DEFEND-1). Dr. Donner is currently collaborating with Dr. Abdel Hamad in Immunology on preventing B-regulatory cell apoptosis using a novel monoclonal antibody targeting the presumptive apoptotic factor. This antibody prevents the development of type 1 diabetes in non obese diabetic mice. Dr. Donner is the PI for Johns Hopkins for TrialNet, a multicenter, international consortium of investigators studying ways to prevent Type 1 diabetes and preserve insulin secretion in individuals with newly diagnosed Type 1 diabetes. He is also a PI for a study investigating FIAsp, a faster-acting insulin aspart in subjects with type 1 diabetes, and is working with investigators at the Johns Hopkins School of Engineering on an implantable insulin pump which delivers insulin intravenously. . His top areas of expertise are Type 1 Diabetes (T1D), Diabetic Nephropathy, Type 2 Diabetes (T2D), and Maturity Onset Diabetes of the Young.

Todd T. Brown, MD, PhD is a clinical investigator who focuses on body composition, metabolic, and skeletal abnormalities observed in people with HIV, particularly as related to aging. Through translational investigation, epidemiologic studies, and clinical trials, he has been interested in understanding the pathogenesis of glucose disorders, fat changes, hormonal dysregulation, and osteoporosis in people with HIV, the consequences of these conditions (eg cardiovascular disease, frailty), and their optimal evaluation and management. . His top areas of expertise are Low Blood Sugar, Osteoporosis, Malnutrition, Gastric Bypass, and Gastrostomy.