Jean-Frederic Colombel, MD, is the Director of the Susan and Leonard Feinstein Inflammatory Bowel Disease Clinical Center and the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust Inflammatory Bowel Disease Research Center at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Since 1984, his research has focused on IBD, and thanks to the development of multiple local, national, and international collaborations, he has been able to contribute to important advances in the pathophysiology of the disease. He is past president of the GETAID, European Crohn’s and Colitis Organization and past chair of International Organization for Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IOIBD).

Dr. Colombel was awarded the United European Gastroenterology Federation Research Prize in 2009, the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation Clinical Research Award in 2014, the Sherman Prize in 2018 and the Jacobi Medallion in 2022. One tangible result of Dr. Colombel’s work has been the publication as primary author or co-author of more than 1,070 peer-reviewed papers with an H index of 185.

Program Director, Colorectal Surgery Residency, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center

Clinical Professor of Surgery UCLA School of Medicine

Phillip R. Fleshner, M.D., holds an academic appointment of Clinical Professor of Surgery from the UCLA School of Medicine. He holds the Shierley, Jesslyne, and Emmeline Widjaja Chair in Colorectal Surgery. He has been an integral part of the Cedars Sinai Medical Center teaching staff on a number of levels. First, in conjunction with the Department of Surgery, he has remained the Program Director of the ACGME accredited residency and has successfully trained board certified colorectal surgeons.

Dr. Fleshner has been engaged in the study of colorectal surgery and for over 25 years and has been treating patients with colorectal disease surgically for the same period of time. He has presented at multiple invited lectures and served on multiple panels at various fora on surgical topics. He has also been invited to present state of the art lectures and serve on panels at meetings of two national, non-surgical entities, the American Gastroenterological Association and the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America.

Dr. Fleshner has published over 100 peer reviewed papers on a variety of colorectal surgical issues. A primary focus of his research has been multidisciplinary examinations of clinical and subclinical factors affecting the perioperative care of the surgical patient. Also related to inflammatory bowel diseases, he has focused on research aimed at stratification of Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis phenotypic subgroups, relating these to surgical outcomes and using the results to shape pre-and post-operative protocols. Another area of key interest is optimizing the surgical outcomes of Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. Finally, he has been interested in examining the effects of perioperative immune suppression on the outcomes of IBD surgery.

Dr. Fleshner received his bachelor's degree from McGill University and his medical degree from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He completed his General Surgery Residency at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York and his Colorectal Surgery Fellowship at the Lahey Clinic in Boston.

Subrata Ghosh is the Chair and Head of Medicine, College of Medicine and Health at University College Cork since March 2021. He is a principal investigator and deputy director at APC Microbiome Ireland. Subrata has recently been awarded the SFI Research professorship.

Subrata did his doctoral research on the immunology of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) at University of Edinburgh where he was appointed as faculty.

His predominant research interests are precision medicine in IBD, innovative clinical trials, immune cell plasticity, targeted immunotherapies in IBD, interaction of nutrients, microbes and immune system, innate immunity and epidemiology and health care in IBD. His research has been published in New England Journal of Medicine, Lancet, Nature Medicine, Gastroenterology, Gut, American Journal of Pathology and American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.  He has delivered over 700 international invited lectures including over 50 named keynote lectures.

Previously he was the inaugural director of the Institute of Translational Medicine, and Professor of Translational Medicine, University of Birmingham between 2016 and 2020. Between 2009 and 2016 he was the Professor and Chairman of Medicine, University of Calgary, and Head of Medicine, Alberta Health Services, Canada. Between 2002 and 2008 he was the Professor and Chair of Gastroenterology at Imperial College London, Hammersmith Hospital.  

Subrata Ghosh is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences UK, and the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences, both highest honours in health sciences in UK and Canada.  He is currently the second member from Ireland on the prestigious International Organisation for Study of IBD (IOIBD). He has served on numerous committees, councils, and grant panels regionally, nationally and internationally, and has been chief editor, associate editor and editorial board member of a number of international reputable journals.

​Björn has been Professor of Medicine and Gastroenterology at University of Oslo and Consultant gastroenterologist at Oslo University Hospital with research focus on clinical epidemiology, genetics and therapies in IBD. He was appointed as professor emeritus in 2022
and is a scientific advisor at Hospital of Kalnes and consultant gastroenterologist at Colosseum Faust Clinic. Together with his own doctoral program on IBSEN study he has been main supervisor for more than 20 Phd candidates. He has received national and
international research prices as well as scientific grants. He has been President of the Norwegian Gastroenterology Association for four years and board member for ten years.

Professor Colm O’Morain graduated from University College Dublin and received his post-graduate training in Dublin, Nice, London and New York.

• He is immediate past President of the BioMedical Alliance for Health Research in Europe representing 28 major European Scientific societies of which serve the interest of 300,000 medical scientists.
• He is the past President of United European Gastroenterology from 2011 to 2013.
• He is the past President of the Bockus International Society of Gastroenterology.
• He was the foundation Professor of Medicine at Tallaght Hospital, Trinity College Dublin. He was
  elected Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences at Trinity College from 2007 – 2012.
• He has held many positions of authority in National, European and World Organisations most
  notably President of the Irish Society of Gastroenterology between 2000 – 2004, President of the
  European National Societies of Gastroenterology 1997 – 2000.
• He has published over 300 peer reviewed articles and authored eight books.
• He was the President of the European Helicobacter Study of which he is a founder member.
• He was the Irish representative on the European Crohn’s and Colitis Organisation.
• He is a patron of the European Federation of Crohn’s Colitis Association.
• He is a founder member of the European Board of Gastroenterology.
• He is a co-author of the European Guidelines for Colorectal Cancer Screening and an advisor to the National Cancer Screening Service in Ireland.
• He was awarded a D.Sc from the University of London for his published work and a D.Sc from the University of Athens for his contribution to Gastroenterology.
• He is a fellow of The Royal College of Physicians in Ireland, the London College of Physicians and of Trinity College Dublin.
• He is an elected member of the Royal Irish Academy of Ireland.
• He has been awarded the Max Suirala Medal by the Finnish Society of Gastroenterology and was made an honorary member of the Belgian Society of Gastroenterology and of the Hungarian Society
  of Gastroenterology and an Orator of the Malaysian Society of Gastroenterology. He was awarded the Felix Burda prize for his efforts to promote colorectal cancer in Europe.
• His research interests are in Helicobacter pylori, Inflammatory Bowel Disease and Colorectal Cancer Screening.

Dr. Julian Panes is senior investigator at Institut Investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi i Sunyer, and formerly the head of the IBD Unit at Hospital Clínic de Barcelona for 1996 – 2022.

His research group is focused on the development of new diagnostic tools particularly imaging modalities, the identification of new molecular targets for treatment of inflammatory bowel diseases, and the development of cell therapies.
He has published more than 400 manuscripts in international peer-reviewed journals, has served as a member of the Scientific Committee of the United European Gastroenterology Federation, the Scientific Committee of European Crohn’s and Colitis organization, has been member of the board of International Organization for the study of Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IOIBD), Associate Editor of Gut, and President of ECCO.

Eduard F. Stange was Professor of Medicine and Chief, Division of Gastroenterology, Department of

Internal Medicine at the University of Lübeck 1992-2000. He became Chief, Department of Internal Medicne I (Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Endocrinology), at the Robert-Bosch-Krankenhaus (RBK), Stuttgart in 2000-2016. Thereafter he was Senior Professor at the Medical Clinic I, University of Tübingen (2016-2020) and currently is Consultant for the Medical Clinic I, University of Tübingen (since 2020).

He was President of the German Society of Coloproctology and Vice President of the German Society of Mucosal Immunology and Microbiome. Also, he is a former secretary of the International Organisation for Inflammatory Bowel Diseases (IOIBD) and past member of Faculty of 1000.

He organized the first German (DGVS) and European (ECCO) guidelines in IBD. He has a special interest in the pathogenesis and therapy of inflammatory bowel diseases and works on the identification of novel targets for treatment. He was member of several pharmaceutical industry advisory boards and has published over 350 peer reviewed articles (PubMed) including original papers and reviews as well as several books on IBD and the microbiome.

Since 1979, he has been working at Rikshospitalet university hospital, and after 1980 as a specialist in gastroenterology and internal medicine, and from 1988 as a consultant at the department of gastroenterology and hepatology until clinical retirement in 2012, whereafter he has been a professor emeritus at the Institute of Clinical Medicine, the university of Oslo (UiO).

Major areas of research have been gastrointestinal pathophysiology, intestinal neoplasia, including endocrine tumors and especially colorectal polyps, clinical nutrition, and gastrointestinal inflammation.
He was appointed professor of gastroenterology first time in 1985, and later of clinical nutrition, and full professor of clinical epidemiology, advising many PhD candidates, master students and student fellows.
His international collaboration includes several EU-projects, editorial work, opponent at dissertations, international prizes, invited member of the New York academy of Science, Fellow of the American gastroenterological association, honorary member of the Norwegian Gastroenterology association, appointed visiting professor at the university of Lanzhou, China, and in 1989, founder of the IBSEN study group.

Since 1995, member of the International Organisation for the study of Inflammatory Bowel Diseases (IOIBD).

The publication list counts close to 500 articles in addition to many conference presentations. Morten Vatn still has advisory tasks in his major fields, partly on behalf of the university.