Rate My Professor Jake Begun

Associate Professor Jakob Begun, also known as Jake Begun, is an Associate Professor in the University of Queensland Faculty of Medicine. He completed a Bachelor of Science at Cornell University, an MPhil in Biochemistry at the University of Cambridge, and an MD and PhD in Genetics at Harvard Medical School, where his doctoral work focused on host-pathogen interactions using C. elegans as a model. He completed clinical training in internal medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and general gastroenterology training at Massachusetts General Hospital, followed by advanced training in the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease.

Dr Begun joined Mater Research – University of Queensland in 2014, receiving a concurrent clinical staff appointment in Gastroenterology at the Mater Hospital Brisbane. He serves as the IBD Group leader in the Immunity, Infection, and Inflammation Program at Mater Research and directs a basic and translational laboratory at the Translational Research Institute in Brisbane. His research examines interactions between the innate immune system and the gut microbiome, as well as genetic contributions to disease. He also conducts clinical research on predictors of response to therapy, barriers to care for adolescents and young adults with IBD, outcomes in pregnancy and IBD, and the use of intestinal ultrasound in IBD. He is the director of the IBD unit at the Mater Hospital Brisbane and the Mater Young Adult Health Centre Brisbane. In 2015, he received the University of Queensland Reginald Ferguson Fellowship in Gastroenterology. He chairs the Gastroenterology Society of Australia IBD Faculty and has served as president of the Gastroenterology Network of Intestinal Ultrasound. His professional email address is jakob.begun@mater.uq.edu.au.