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Maisa Abdalla, M.D., M.P.H.

Maisa Abdalla, M.D., M.P.H.

she/her/hers

Gastroenterology & Hepatology

UR Medicine Faculty The University of Rochester Medical Faculty Group (URMFG) consists of over 900 specialist and primary care providers spanning 19 departments. URMFG is certified by the National Committee for Quality Assurance.
Accountable Health Partner Accountable Health Partners (AHP) is a network of over 2,000 community and UR medical faculty and a dozen leading hospitals throughout the region. AHP offers a full range of care.
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Locations

Gastroenterology & Hepatology

180 Sawgrass Drive, Suite 230, 2nd Floor
Rochester, NY 14620

Gastroenterology & Hepatology

156 West Avenue, Suite 107
Brockport, NY 14420

Konar Center for Digestive and Liver Disease

601 Elmwood Avenue, Ambulatory Care Center, 4th & 5th Floor
Rochester, NY 14642

About Me

Providing the best, patient-centered, clinical care is my greatest passion. My clinical and research focus is Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) including Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis and pouch disorders. IBD is chronic, life-long and sometimes debilitating disease. Receiving such diagnosis i...
Providing the best, patient-centered, clinical care is my greatest passion. My clinical and research focus is Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) including Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis and pouch disorders. IBD is chronic, life-long and sometimes debilitating disease. Receiving such diagnosis is frequently overwhelming to patients and their families and it can be quite difficult for them to navigate through the different aspects of this disease with all the required tests and investigations, the therapies involved, and the complications from the disease and therapies. Hence, in addition to providing high quality, evidence-based clinical care, I always try to partner with my patients, listen to them, understand their concerns and address their individual needs. Following this strategy I have made many partners and friends throughout the years.

Professional Background

Dr. Abdalla is a full time faculty member with an academic rank of Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Rochester, Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology. Her clinical and research focus is Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) including Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis and pouch...
Dr. Abdalla is a full time faculty member with an academic rank of Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Rochester, Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology. Her clinical and research focus is Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) including Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis and pouch disorders. She is also interested in other immune-mediated bowel diseases including celiac disease, and microscopic colitis.

Dr. Abdalla received her Medical degree from the University of Jordan and MPH degree in public health policy and administration from the University of Illinois at Chicago. She completed her residency in Internal Medicine at UIC-advocate Christ Program in 2011 and her fellowship training in Gastroenterology and Hepatology at the University of Rochester in 2015. After that, She spent a year at the University of North Carolina for additional training in IBD. Her first post-training academic job was at Loma Linda University (LLU) in Southern California, where she served as a full-time faculty member with academic rank of Assistant Professor of Medicine between 2016 and late 2020. During her tenure at LLU and as the Medical Director for the Gastroenterology Clinic and the Director of the IBD center, she was able to restructure the IBD clinics, create therapy protocols and clinical pathways to monitor patients and improve their access. She also worked closely with her colorectal surgery colleagues and other ancillary services to provide a true multidisciplinary care for all patients. She helped restructure the IBD curriculum for GI fellowship training and directly participated in education sessions to patients, and internal medicine and GI trainees. In January 2021, she moved back to Rochester to join the gastroenterology team at the University of Rochester, where she continues to provide excellent patients’ care, participate in clinical research and work with a dedicated team under the leadership of Dr. Arthur Decross to build a state of art multidisciplinary IBD center.

Faculty Appointments

Associate Professor - Department of Medicine, Gastroenterology/Hepatology (SMD)

Credentials

Residency & Fellowship

Fellowship, University of North Carolina Healthcare-CRNA verifs. 2015 - 2016

Fellowship, Gastroenterology, University of Rochester Medical Center. 2012 - 2015

Residency, Internal Medicine, University of Illinois College of Medicine-Chicago. 2008 - 2012

Internship, Jordan University Hospital (Amman). 2006 - 2007

Education

MPH | University of Illinois College of Medicine (USA). 2014

MBCHB | University of Jordan (Jordan). 2006

Awards

Young investigator award. 2016

Travel grant to attend the 2015 Advances in Inflammatory Bowel Diseases Crohn's and Colitis Foundation's Clinical & Research Con. 2015

Travel Grant to attend the Advances in Inflammatory Bowel Diseases: Crohn's & Colitis Foundation's Clinical and Research Confere. 2014

CCFA's National Visiting IBD Fellow Rotation Program. 2014

Excellence In Research Award. 2011

Academic Excellence Award. 2011

Voted Intern of The Year. 2009

Partial Tuition University Sponsored Scholarship. 2001 - 2002

Research

Dr. Abdalla's clinical research focus and activities primarily involve Inflammatory Bowel Disease. She is specifically interested in IBD epidemiology, patient-outcome research, and in clinical trials investigating new IBD therapies.

Publications

Journal Articles

Enhancing Human Treg Cell Induction through Engineered Dendritic Cells and Zinc Supplementation.

Shaikh NA, Zhang XB, Abdalla MI, Baylink DJ, Tang X

Critical reviews in immunology.. 2024 44 (3):37-52. Epub 1900 01 01.

Clinical long-term outcomes of patient-reported outcomes in the prospective real-world Tofacitinib Response in Ulcerative Colitis (TOUR) registry: Tofacitinib Response in Ulcerative Colitis (TOUR).

Herfarth HH, Afzali A, Fischer M, Hudesman D, Abdalla M, McCabe R, Cohen BL, Ungaro RC, Harlan W, Hanson J, Konijeti GG, Polyak S, Ritter T, Salzberg B, Seminerio J, English E, Zhang X, Long MD

Clinical and translational gastroenterology.. 2023 December 22 Epub 12/22/2023.

Zinc Treated Engineered Human Dendritic Cells Capable of Synthesizing High Active Vitamin D and Retinoic Acid Concentrations Enhance Gut-homing Regulatory T Cell Induction.

Shaikh Nisar Ali; Maisa I Abdalla; Lisa M Cannon; Xiao-Bing Zhang; David J Baylink; Xiaolei Tang.

J Immunol. 2023; 201(1_supplement): 218.16.

Tofacitinib Response in Ulcerative Colitis (TOUR): Early Response After Initiation of Tofacitinib Therapy in a Real-world Setting.

Long MD, Afzali A, Fischer M, Hudesman D, Abdalla M, McCabe R, Cohen BL, Ungaro RC, Harlan W, Hanson J, Konijeti G, Polyak S, Ritter T, Salzberg B, Seminerio J, English E, Zhang X, Sharma PP, Herfarth HH

Inflammatory bowel diseases.. 2022 June 14 Epub 06/14/2022.

Hemolytic Anemia in Inflammatory Bowel Disease: Our "Gut" Tells Us to Blame the Drug.

Berger M, Abdalla M, DeCross A

Crohn's & colitis 360.. 2021 October 3 (4):otab070. Epub 11/20/2021.

Inflammation- and Gut-Homing Macrophages, Engineered to Overexpress Active Vitamin D, Promoted the Regenerative Function of Intestinal Stem Cells.

Xu Y, Baylink DJ, Cao H, Xiao J, Abdalla MI, Wasnik S, Tang X

International journal of molecular sciences.. 2021 September 122 (17)Epub 09/01/2021.

Progress in Corticosteroid Use in the Era of Biologics With Room for Improvement.

Abdalla MI, Levesque BG

The American journal of gastroenterology.. 2021 June 1116 (6):1187-1188. Epub 1900 01 01.

Recurrent Aphthous Stomatitis Improved after Eradication Therapy for .

Gao Y, Gupta N, Abdalla M

Case reports in gastrointestinal medicine. 2021 2021 :5543838. Epub 03/30/2021.

Rethinking Colorectal Cancer Screening in IBD, Is It Time to Revisit the Guidelines?

Abdalla M, Herfarth H

Journal of Crohn's & colitis.. 2018 June 2812 (7):757-759. Epub 1900 01 01.

Prevalence and Impact of Inflammatory Bowel Disease-Irritable Bowel Syndrome on Patient-reported Outcomes in CCFA Partners.

Abdalla MI, Sandler RS, Kappelman MD, Martin CF, Chen W, Anton K, Long MD

Inflammatory bowel diseases.. 2017 February 23 (2):325-331. Epub 1900 01 01.

The Impact of Ostomy on Quality of Life and Functional Status of Crohn's Disease Patients.

Abdalla MI, Sandler RS, Kappelman MD, Martin CF, Chen W, Anton K, Long MD

Inflammatory bowel diseases.. 2016 November 22 (11):2658-2664. Epub 1900 01 01.

Budesonide for the treatment of ulcerative colitis.

Abdalla MI, Herfarth H

Expert opinion on pharmacotherapy.. 2016 August 17 (11):1549-59. Epub 06/16/2016.

Harnessing the Power of Posttranscriptional Gene Silencing in Crohn's Disease.

Abdalla M, Sheikh SZ

Clinical and translational gastroenterology.. 2016 March 317 :e160. Epub 03/31/2016.

Massive duodenal variceal bleed; complication of extra hepatic portal hypertension: Endoscopic management and literature review.

Steevens C, Abdalla M, Kothari TH, Kaul V, Kothari S

World journal of gastrointestinal pharmacology and therapeutics.. 2015 November 66 (4):248-52. Epub 1900 01 01.

Negative surveillance endoscopy occurs frequently in patients with short-segment non-dysplastic Barrett's esophagus.

Melson J, Desai V, Greenspan M, Yau S, Abdalla M, Dhanekula R, Mobarhan S, Shapiro D, Losurdo J, Jakate S

Diseases of the esophagus : official journal of the International Society for Diseases of the Esophagus. 2015 October 28 (7):660-5. Epub 06/18/2014.

Dysplasia detection rate of confirmatory EGD in nondysplastic Barrett's esophagus.

Abdalla M, Dhanekula R, Greenspan M, Mobarhan S, Patil A, Jakate S, Giusto D, Silva R, Li H, Melson J

Diseases of the esophagus : official journal of the International Society for Diseases of the Esophagus. 2014 August 27 (6):505-10. Epub 09/28/2012.

Books

DDSEP 9 - Digestive Disease Self-Education Program (2019)

Chapter: Chapter 13 - Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Authors: Chapter authors - Gary R. Lichtenstein, Yecheskel Schneider. Questions writers - Abdalla M, Long M, Ha C, Dalal S.

Publisher: AGA institute, MD, USA 2019

Ratings & Reviews

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