Dr. Inga Peters

Inga Peter is the Associate Professor in the Department of Genetic and Genomic Sciences at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. Her research interest is to identify variations in the human genome that can explain susceptibility to common diseases such as obesity, diabetes, and Crohn’s disease that can lead to early prevention and personalized treatment of these conditions. She graduated from Tel Aviv University and completed her training at Tufts University in Boston. She lives in Westchester County, NY with her husband and 3 sons.

Health and Living

Broader Lessons from Genetic Studies of the Ashkenazi Jewish Population

By Dr. Inga Peters

This year marks the 80th anniversary of the influential paper published by a Mount Sinai physician, Dr. Burrill Crohn, and his colleagues that for the first time characterized a disease associated with severe inflammation of the intestine. Patients with what was later named Crohn’s disease develop diarrhea, fever, stomach pain, and often lose weight. Crohn’s is now classified as an autoimmune condition in which the immune system attacks its own healthy tissue in the gastrointestinal tract, causing chronic inflammation. It affects young individuals, and, even though it is not curable, it can be treated and controlled by medications and surgery.