Walter Park

Walter G. Park, MD, MS, Associate Professor, Department of Medicine, Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Stanford University School of Medicine; Medical Director, Benign Pancreas Program, Stanford Hospital & Clinics, Director of the SDRC Clinical & Translational Research Core Bio-repository 

Research Description: Dr. Park is a clinical and translational investigator of pancreatic disorders with specific projects on acute pancreatitis, chronic pancreatitis, pancreatic cysts, and early detection strategies for pancreatic cancer. He has investigated the natural history of chronic pancreatitis including predicting which patients will develop diabetes, developing and validating cyst-based biomarkers for early diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, and developing novel approaches for the early detection of pancreatic cancer. He is PI on a UO1 multi-institutional consortium organized by NIDDK/NCI to investigate mechanisms linking Chronic Pancreatitis, Pancreatogenic Diabetes and Pancreas Cancer (CPDPC). The focus of the UO1 studies at Stanford is to identify diagnostic biomarkers for chronic pancreatitis, so-called type 3c diabetes, and early-stage pancreatic adenocarcinoma (see below): as such he and these other investigators use the SDRC Clinical & Translational Core, and Islet Research Core. He is also the contact PI on a U01 multi-institutional consortium with Dr. Marina Basina (co-PI) studying the development of diabetes in acute pancreatitis (Type 1 Diabetes in Acute Pancreatitis Consortium). Dr. Park is also a leader of the human islet transplantation program at Stanford (SPIRIT), with Drs. Kim, Visser, Thakor, Basina, Busque, Buckingham, Maahs and Meyer, and the Stanford University Hospital and Clinics. Additionally, with his experience in development of bio-repositories with clinical databases, he is serving as the Director of the SDRC Clinical and Translational Core Bio-repository to support human tissue/sample procurement for research by SDRC members including fresh and banked samples. 

Selected relevant publications (Stanford DRC Members in BOLD):

  1. Park WG, Li L, Appana S, Wei W, Stello K, Andersen DK, Hughes SJ, Whitcomb DC, Brand RE, Yadav D, Habtezion A; Consortium for the Study of Chronic Pancreatitis, Diabetes, and Pancreatic Cancer. Unique circulating immune signatures for recurrent acute pancreatitis, chronic pancreatitis and pancreatic cancer: A pilot study of these conditions with and without diabetes. Pancreatology. 2020 Jan;20(1):51-59. doi: 10.1016/j.pan.2019.11.008. PMID: 31791885; PMCID: PMC6983346. [cites P30 core use] 

  2. Maitra A, Sharma A, Brand RE, Van Den Eeden SK, Fisher WE, Hart PA, Hughes SJ, Mather KJ, Pandol SJ, Park WG, Feng Z, Serrano J, Rinaudo JAS, Srivastava S, Chari ST; Consortium for the Study of Chronic Pancreatitis, Diabetes, and Pancreatic Cancer (CPDPC). A Prospective Study to Establish a New-Onset Diabetes Cohort: From the Consortium for the Study of Chronic Pancreatitis, Diabetes, and Pancreatic Cancer. Pancreas. 2018 Nov/Dec;47(10):1244-1248. doi: 10.1097/MPA.0000000000001169. PMID: 30325864; PMCID: PMC6432934.