W. Allen WalkerDr. Walker is a professor in the Harvard School of Public Health. His research is focused within the Developmental Gastroenterology Laboratory at Massachusetts General Hospital-East and has been in the development of gastrointestinal host defenses, prticularly as they pertain to the role of enteric nutrients.

He has studied the passive and active properties of human breast milk, specifically in the pre-term infant as it relates to necrotizing enterocolitis, a devastating gastrointestinal infection in the neonatal period. He has also developed human models of intestinal development (cell lines, organ cultures, microUssing chambers and fetal intestinal xenografts) to determine the effect of protective nutrients (pre- and probiotics, omega-3 fatty acids, nucleotides, etc.) on stimulating mucosal defenses in the immature intestine and in preventing neonatal diseases.

A major commitment of his lab is to train clinical/postdoctoral fellows in clinical translational research. They collaborative with clinical investigators to translate observations made in human models of intestinal development at the laboratory level, into clinical trials and ultimately to multicenter studies.

Dr. Walker has a FWCI of 2.83 and has 36.2% of his content published in gastroenterology journals. 34.1% of his work appears in the top 10% most cited journals worldwide.

Dr. Walker has experience with national, international, institutional and single authorship. Read More Read Less