Our Team

Our Team

Our network is multidisciplinary with expertise in patient engagement, epidemiology, genetics, microbiology, immunology, neurobiology, health economics, and knowledge translation. The group also engages many disciplines including gastroenterology, psychiatry and psychology that encompasses both adult and pediatric disease with researchers that have international reputations in the study of IBD, IBS and psychiatric disorders.

Executive Leadership

Aida Fernandes
Executive Director
Dr. Paul Moayyedi
Principal Investigator
Dr. Deborah Marshall
Co-Principal Investigator

IBD

Dr. Charles Bernstein
Research Lead
Anny Fernandez
IBD Patient Research Partner
Dr. Remo Panaccione
IBD Clinical Lead

IBS

Dr. Stephen Vanner
Research Lead
Dr. Premsyl Bercik
Research Lead
Megan Marsiglio
IBS Patient Research Partner

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Psychiatry
Gail Bellissimo
Psychiatry Patient Research Partner
Dr. Dean Tripp
Research Lead
Pediatrics
Dr. Tony Otley
Research Lead
Sophie LeBlanc
Pediatrics Patient Research Partner
Shauna Jones
Pediatrics Patient Research Partner
Microbiome & Metabolomics
Dr. Mike Surette
Microbiome Research Lead
Diet & Environment
Sara Blake
Diet Patient Research Partner
Dr. Elena Verdu
Research Lead
Dr. Leo Dieleman
Research Lead
Inflammation/Basic Science
Dr. Stephen Collins
Research Lead
Genetics
Dr. John Rioux
Research Lead
Knowledge Translation, Education & Policy
Dr. John Lavis
KT Research Lead
Dr. Gil Kaplan
Admin Data Lead
Dr. Paul Beck
Capacity Building Lead
CDHF
Patient Oriented Leads
CCC
Patient Oriented Leads
Alysia De Nino
KT Patient Research Partner
Ellen Keunzig
KT Patient Research Partner
Karthika Yogaratnam
KT Patient Research Partner
Patient Engagement
Sandra Zelinsky
Co-Lead Patient Engagement
Dr. Deborah Marshall
Co-Lead
Sex & Gender
Kim Daley
Sex and Gender Patient Research Partner
Dr. Laura Targownik
Research Lead
Amy van Engelen

Governance

In order for us to be accountable to our stakeholders, the IMAGINE Network has a robust governance structure. Each committee has defined responsibilities and clear leadership roles to promote strategic goals such as interaction with international global partners, policy change, as well as direct involvement of our patient support organisations.

The Network is governed by the Executive Oversight Committee. It provides overall operational, governance and monitoring of performance responsibility of the IMAGINE Network. The Executive Oversight Committee receives guidance from an External Advisory Panel. The External Advisory Panel is made up of a small group of internationally-recognized experts that assesses the scientific accomplishments of the Network and facilitates linkages with international research networks and consortia to generate a global impact.

Executive Oversight Committee

Aida Fernandes
Executive Director
Dr. Paul Moayyedi
Principal Investigator
Dr. Charles Bernstein
Research Lead
Dr. Jon Meddings
Megan Marsiglio
IBS Patient Research Partner
Dr. Paul O’Byrne
Paul Sinclair
Dr. Stephen Vanner
Research Lead
Dr. Deborah Marshall
Co-Principal Investigator

External Advisory Panel

Dr. Curtis Huttenhower
Dr. Eamonn Quigley
Dr. Ernst Kuipers
Dr. Gert van Assche
Dr. Jack Satsangi
Dr. Jan Tack
Dr. Jeff Hyams
Dr. Magnus Simrén
Dr. Nick Talley
Emily Morgan

IMAGINE’s PaCER interns

In November 2018, a nationwide call was sent out for digestive health patients interested in enrolling in the PaCER (Patient and Community Engagement Research) program. The year-long program is delivered through Continuing Education at the University of Calgary and delivered using a blended distance learning model.

Ten participants were selected to join 1 of 2 PaCER cohorts (Alberta or National) sponsored by IMAGINE. Team “We’ve Got Guts” (Alberta): “Our Alberta group represents a broad range of experience with IBD/IBS, with the common goal of better understanding these diseases as they impact ourselves and our families, and with the desire to help others who have been or will be confronted with IBD/IBS in the future.“The MOB” (National): “Are interested in how individuals diagnosed with IBD cope with their illness on a day-to-day basis. More specifically, topics that we are interested include mental health, sexual health, and diet.”

Check out the intern bios here: https://pacerinnovates.ca/blog/2019/student-inter-teams

 

Executive Director

Aida Fernandes

Aida Fernandes is the current Executive Director of the IMAGINE Network – a patient-oriented research initiative in gastrointestinal diseases. Aida has over 15 years of experience in research administration and strategic partnerships in the health charitable sector. Aida was the Vice-President of Research & Patient Programs at Crohn’s and Colitis Canada (CCC) where she oversaw the organization’s research, patient education and advocacy programs for the Canadian IBD community. Prior to her time at CCC, Aida worked at Cystic Fibrosis Canada in several different capacities, including Manager, Chapter Relations; Director, Volunteer & Personnel Resources; and Director, Medical/Scientific and Community Programs.

Aida also has served on a number of governing bodies in the voluntary health sector including: Public Health Agency of Canada’s Respiratory Diseases Surveillance Advisory Committee, HealthPartners Board of Directors, Health Charities’ Coalition of Canada Research Committee, Canadian Genetics Coalition, CIHR’s Institute of Infection and Immunity Institute Advisory Board, and the Canadian Blood Services’ National Liaison Committee.

Aida holds a bachelor’s degree in Human Biology from the University of Toronto and a Master of Business Administration in Non-Profit Management & Leadership from York University’s Schulich School of Business.

Principal Investigator

Dr. Paul Moayyedi

Dr Paul Moayyedi qualified from Bristol University and obtained a PhD and Masters in Public Health from the University of Leeds.  He moved to McMaster University in 2004 and was Director of the Division of Gastroenterology at McMaster in 2006-2017.  He holds the Audrey Campbell Chair of Ulcerative Colitis Research and is currently the Assistant Dean of Research at McMaster University.  He has published 385 peer-reviewed articles that have been cited over 44,400 times with an h index of 104. He was Co-Editor in Chief of the American Journal of Gastroenterology 2010-2015.  He is currently joint Coordinating Editor of the Upper GI and Pancreatic Disease Cochrane Review Group and a proponent of Evidence Based Medicine.  He is PI of the IMAGINE network that aims to evaluate how the diet and microbiome impact on IBD, IBS and associated psychological disorders.

Co-Principal Investigator

Dr. Deborah Marshall

Dr. Deborah Marshall is a health economist and health services researcher leading a programme of applied research using patient preferences, patient engagement and simulation modelling methods.

Dr. Marshall leads the health economics, socioeconomic benefits, patient preferences and patient engagement activities for several national and international research programmes (funded by CIHR and/or Genome Canada) in precision health and patient-oriented research to develop health economic tools and approaches to evaluate outcomes: 1) UCAN CAN-DU (Understanding Childhood Arthritis Network Canada-Netherlands) and 2) UCAN CURE (Precision Decisions for Childhood Arthritis personalized medicine networks in childhood arthritis combining genomic techniques, machine learning methods and simulation modelling to predict response to treatment and its associated health outcomes and economic impact; 3) SOLVE Care4Rare Canada – harnessing multi-omics to deliver innovative diagnostic care for rare genetic diseases; 4) TIGeR (Translational Implementation of Genomics for Rare diseases), partnership with Medical Genetics and Alberta Provincial Laboratory for the clinical application of genome wide sequencing; and 5) IMAGINEStrategy for Patient Oriented Research (SPOR) Chronic Disease Network (Inflammation, Microbiome, and Alimentation: Gastro-Intestinal and Neuropsychiatric Effects, CIHR SPOR) on inflammatory bowel disease and the microbiome. 6) OCEC (One Child Every Child) – Dr. Marshall is leading the Impact, Evaluation and Knowledge Mobilization Cross-cutting Accelerator of this national child health and wellness research initiative.

Deborah is the Principal Applicant of the CIHR Health Systems Impact Fellowship National Training Program – “Enhancing a Community of Practice for the Health System Impact Fellowship Program: Advancing Capacity for Sustainable & Patient-Centered Learning Health Systems across Canada” to create a community of practice towards achieving high-performing, patient-centered learning health systems across Canada. In addition, she is the former chair of both the Arthur J.E. Child Chair of Rheumatology Outcomes Research; and Canada Research Chair, Health Services and Systems Research (2008 – 2018). Deborah also holds various memberships in University of Calgary and Alberta Health Services: 1) Alberta Children’s Hospital Research Institute (ACHRI) Member as well as Scientific Director of Research and Partnership Evaluation and Impact; 2) O’Brien Institute of Public Health Member; 3) McCaig Institute of Bone and Joint Health Member; 4) Senior Scientist at Arthritis Research Canada.

She is a Founding Member of the Global Economics and Evaluation of Clinical Genomics Sequencing Working Group (GEECS). Deborah is also a founding co-investigator of the innovative Patient and Community Engagement Research (PaCER) programme at the University of Calgary which trains patients to design and conduct health research, using specific adapted methods of qualitative inquiry. She is an active member of the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR) as the Past President of the Board of Directors, the Chair of the Dynamic Simulation Modeling Applications in Health Care Delivery Research Task Force and as a member of the Patient Preferences Special Interest Group, the Optimization Methods Task Force and co-author of related ISPOR Task Force Reports. She has also served as a member of the Board of Directors for Health Technology Assessment International (HTAi) and is a member of the HTAi Patient Preferences Working Group. She was co-chair of the Scientific Research Committee and Board of Directors of the Arthritis Alliance of Canada (AAC), and is a member of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Alberta PROMs & EQ-5D Research & Support Unit (APERSU).

Research Lead

Dr. Charles Bernstein

Dr. Charles Bernstein, a graduate from the University of Manitoba Faculty of Medicine, and the UCLA Division of Gastroenterology Fellowship Training Program is Distinguished Professor of Medicine, Bingham Chair in Gastroenterology Research and Director, Inflammatory Bowel Disease Clinical and Research Centre at the University of Manitoba. He is a fellow of both the Canadian Academy of health Sciences and the Royal Society of Canada, Science Division

Dr. Bernstein has developed among the largest validated population based databases of IBD. He has received funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and its forerunners (the MRC and NHRDP) since 1995. His main research interests are primarily related to IBD; in terms of optimizing management approaches; exploring predictors of clinical outcomes; and disease etiology. More recently he has been actively involved in exploring the biological and clinical intersection between different chronic immune mediated inflammatory diseases. He has also helped develop ground breaking work in the epidemiology of Helicobacter pylori infection among Canada’s Aboriginal populations, colorectal cancer screening and outcomes of gastrointestinal endoscopy and biopsy. He has published over 400 peer reviewed papers.

IBD Patient Research Partner

Anny Fernandez

IBD Clinical Lead

Dr. Remo Panaccione

Dr. Panaccione is a Professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Calgary, Director of the Inflammatory Bowel Disease Clinic, Director of the Gastrointestinal Research , and an internationally recognized expert in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). His special interest lies in the implementation and performance of clinical trials of new therapies in IBD. He also performs research in identifying new targets to develop new therapies in IBD. The University of Calgary IBD Clinical Trials Unit is ranked among the top five units in the world. He is the recipient of the Finkelstein award, the highest award  given out by Crohn’s and Colitis Canada for dedication and contribution to the field of IBD as well as the Canadian Association of Gastroenterology Visiting Professor award recognizing his expertise and excellence in education.

 

Research Lead

Dr. Stephen Vanner

Dr. Vanner received a undergraduate degree in Life Sciences and a concurrent MD and MSc degree from Queen’s University. After completing his Internal Medicine and Gastroenterology training at Queen’s and he carried out post doctoral research training in enteric neurophysiology at the Vollum Institute in Portland Oregon. Since returning to Queen’s University in 1991 he has been an attending staff in Gastroenterology at the Kingston General and Hotel Dieu Hospitals and cares for patients with gastrointestinal disorders in both the inpatient and outpatient departments. He performs a full range of endoscopic procedures including ERCP.

He has subspecialty expertise in gastrointestinal motility disorders involving the lower GI tract including the small intestine, colon and anorectum and is director of the anorectal motility laboratory.

He has an established translational research program that examines mechanisms underlying pain signaling and motility in the gastrointestinal tract.

Research Lead

Dr. Premsyl Bercik

IBS Patient Research Partner

Megan Marsiglio

Megan Marsiglio is a communications manager, lifestyle blogger and a digestive health advocate based in Toronto. In 2006 Megan began experiencing abnormal digestive issues, which lead to a diagnosis of Crohn’s disease and IBS in 2008 – her first year at university. While she was there she realized there wasn’t any support on campus for students dealing with digestive issues, so she started a support group and launched a blog – www.thegutgazette.com. Creating awareness and advocating for digestive disease understanding became one of Megan’s passions and has lead her to become a patient representative for the IBS studies for IMAGINE.

Psychiatry Patient Research Partner

Gail Bellissimo

Gail is a member of the Patient and Public Advisory Group (P2AG) at Clinical Trials Ontario, the Lived Experience Reference Panel of the Mental Health and Addiction Leadership Advisory Council, and CAMH Constituency Council.  She promotes improved access to mental health services, treatments and research, having spoken at conferences for the Council of Academic Hospitals of Ontario and Ontario Hospital Association, in addition to numerous television and print interviews.

Gail’s passion for helping others, and her goal of translating and disseminating her own knowledge and that of evidenced-based science, concerning the intersection of gut and brain health, was founded in her work in healthcare and research administrative support, as well as her own lived experience as a patient. Being a research participant in clinical trials improved the quality of Gail’s healthcare experience in both the realms of psychiatry and gastroenterology, increased her knowledge of her illnesses, and empowered her to become an active member in her care. Gail is excited to be a part of organizations aiming to transform healthcare and enrich research initiatives through the inclusion of patient engagement and patient partnership.

Research Lead

Dr. Dean Tripp

Dr. Dean Tripp is the new lead for our Mental Health (psychiatry/psychology) Working Group. Dr. Tripp is currently a Professor in the Dept of Psychology, Anesthesiology & Urology at Queen’s University; Chair of the Queen’s University General Research Ethics Board (GREB); and Mental Training Coach for the Department of Athletics at Queen’s. Already an active researcher within IMAGINE, Dr. Tripp is one of our Incubator Grant recipients for his study: Effect of Resilience, Childhood Trauma on Suicidal Ideation in IBD.

Research Lead

Dr. Tony Otley

Dr. Anthony Otley is a Professor of Paediatrics and Medicine at Dalhousie University. He is the Division Head of the Division of Gastroenterology & Nutrition at the IWK Health Centre in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The IWK Health Centre is the tertiary children’s hospital which serves the three Canadian Maritime provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. Paediatric patients who require a liver transplant are followed pre and post transplant through the IWK, but the actual transplantation is carried out through the SickKids program.

The main focus of Dr. Otley’s clinical research is the development and assessment of outcome measures used in paediatric gastrointestinal disease. He has been involved with the development of the IMPACT questionnaire, a disease-specific HRQOL tool for paediatric patients with inflammatory bowel disease. He was also a developer of the Pediatric Ulcerative Colitis Activity Index (PUCAI). He has an ongoing interest on the development of web-based tools to help in disease self-management and ultimately, to improve HRQOL and adherence to therapy.

Pediatrics Patient Research Partner

Sophie LeBlanc

Sophie LeBlanc is a Grade 11 student at Prince Andrew High School in Dartmouth, NS in the International Baccalaureate (IB) program. Diagnosed with Crohn’s disease at age 8 in 2010, she has a secondary development of arthritis. She has been through the wringer in battling Crohn’s, including many treatment types over the past nine years (she has lost count at about 10 different types of medications and therapies). Currently she is on Stelara and Methotrexate for Crohn’s and Celebrex for arthritis, and has undergone bowel resection surgery. Sophie is determined to live actively, and is captain of her high school volleyball team and also plays competitive club ball. She wants to take an active role in Crohn’s research and has lent herself to a number of research and patient engagement studies and initiatives. She volunteers for the Crohn’s and Colitis foundation, having raised over $3,000 so far through their annual Gutsy Walk. She also is an eager camper at Brigadoon Camp Guts & Glory and participates in their fundraising efforts as well. Sophie aspires to a career in the medical field to help others like her.

Pediatrics Patient Research Partner

Shauna Jones

Shauna Jones is a busy, full-time working wife and mom of two daughters, one of whom has Crohn’s disease. Her education includes a Bachelor of Arts BA, Bachelor of Journalism (Honours) BJH and Masters in Adult Education M.Ed. She currently work as a Campus Registrar at NSCC, Nova Scotia Community College. Shauna has worked in adult education, including admissions, recruitment and registrarial work for over 25 years. She enjoys running and doing volunteer and advocacy work in health care for the elderly and disabled, as well as for Crohn’s disease. Shauna chose to volunteer with IMAGINE to help support finding the cause and cure for Crohn’s disease.

Microbiome Research Lead

Dr. Mike Surette

Dr. Surette’s primary area of research investigates the role of normal flora-pathogen interactions in health and disease in the area of respiratory infections with a focus in cystic fibrosis. A polymicrobial perspective on these infections has lead to identification of overlooked pathogens in airway disease as well as synergistic interactions between avirulent organisms and pathogens. This is a fundamentally different view of airway infections and has lead to direct benefits to patients through altered treatment strategies.

Diet Patient Research Partner

Sara Blake

Sara Blake is a General Counsel for the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General and is the author of a legal textbook, Administrative Law in Canada – the 6th edition to be published in 2017.

Sara has food intolerances and has lost the ability to digest 95% of the foods that others typically eat. The cause of her symptoms (primarily diarrhea) remains unknown but she’s made significant dietary changes and now, by living on a severely restricted diet with some herbal supplements, has stabilized her gastrointestinal health. She has written a book explaining everything she has figured out: www.foodintolerance.net. The purpose of writing the book was to help other sufferers figure out their own elimination diets and to encourage them share what they have figured out. Sara also hopes to encourage more scientific research into these problems. Except for this gastrointestinal problem, she is a fit and healthy 60 year old. Sarah will be joining the Diet & Environment Scientific Working Group as a patient representative.

Research Lead

Dr. Elena Verdu

Research Lead

Dr. Leo Dieleman

Dr. Leo A. Dieleman is Professor of Medicine, clinician-scientist and the Director of IBD Clinical Research at the Division of Gastroenterology.

Dr. Dieleman is originally from the Netherlands, received his MD degree from Catholic University of Nijmegen in 1983, finished his Internal Medicine training at Leiden in 1989, and his clinical GI training at the Free University of Amsterdam in 1996. Between his clinical training he received a Fogarty Fellowship from NIH that formed the basis of his PhD studies on the role of cytokines in experimental and human IBD with Dr. Charles Elson at UAB Birmingham, Alabama and he subsequently received his PhD degree in 1995 at the Free University of msterdam during his clinical GI Fellowship. Dr Dieleman then emigrated to join the GI Division as Assistant Professor in Chapel Hill North Carolina. Under the mentorship of Dr. Balfour Sartor he received a KO8 and RO3 Award from NIH.

Since 2003 Dr Dieleman is at the University of Alberta. Dr. Dieleman is an internationally recognized scientist on the role of intestinal bacteria, probiotics, prebiotics and diets for the pathogenesis and treatment of IBD. He has been continuously funded by NIH, CIHR, Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of Canada and Alberta Innovates since 1998 and has published over 100 original articles and book chapters in several high ranked journals.

Research Lead

Dr. Stephen Collins

Dr. Collins obtained his medical training at London University in England where he later specialized in internal medicine. He trained in gastroenterology at McMaster University in Canada before completing 3 years of research training in cell biology at the Digestive Diseases Branch, National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland USA. He has been on staff at McMaster University since 1981 where he was the Director of the Intestinal Diseases Research Unit from 1983-1993, and Head of the Division of Gastroenterology since 1993-2006. He is past president of the Canadian Association of Gastroenterology. His areas of interest include: the impact of inflammation on gut function, neuron-immune interactions, and the role of commensal bacteria in health and disease. He has over 200 publications including papers in Nature Medicine, Lancet, JCI, Gastroenterology and Gut. He has received continuous CIHR funding for over 20 years, has been a member of the MRC Science & Research Committee, and chaired the CIHR Experimental Medicine grants review committee for 5 years. He has also been an advisor to the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America and Chaired the Strategic Initiatives Committee for The Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of Canada. He was the Associate Dean for Research at the Faculty of Health Sciences, McMaster University and holds the title of Distinguished University Professor – the highest rank awarded by the University.

Research Lead

Dr. John Rioux

John D. Rioux is a Professor of Medicine at the Université de Montréal and is holder of the Canada Research Chair in Genetics and Genomic Medicine. He is also a senior researcher at the Montreal Heart Institute and Director of its Laboratory for Genetics and Genomic Medicine as well as its Integrative Biology Platform. He has been a leader in gene identification for chronic inflammatory diseases (including Crohn’s disease, Ulcerative Colitis, Lupus, and multiple sclerosis) using genome-wide association approaches.

John’s work is supported by the NIH (NIDDK), CIHR, CFI, Genome Canada, Génome Québec and Crohn’s Colitis Canada.

KT Research Lead

Dr. John Lavis

John Lavis is relied on by policymakers and stakeholders in Canada and a broad range of countries internationally to harness research evidence, citizen values and stakeholder insights to strengthen health and social systems and get the right programs, services and products to the people who need them.

He founded and continues to direct the McMaster Health Forum and has now launched Forum+ to expand the Forum’s work into social systems and supporting the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. He is committed to helping policymakers and stakeholders to: 1) learn how to make decisions based on the best available research evidence; 2) find evidence through the Forum’s own products and the best available sources of pre-appraised, synthesized research evidence (including the Forum’s Health Systems Evidence and Social Systems Evidence and the Forum-supported and citizen-targeted McMaster Optimal Aging Portal); 3) spark action through stakeholder dialogues, citizen panels and more; 4) embed supports for evidence-informed decision-making, by institutionalizing promising and proven approaches; and 5) evaluate innovations in supporting evidence-informed decision-making.

He is co-chair of the World Health Organization (WHO)-sponsored Evidence-Informed Policy Network (EVIPNet) Global Steering Group, and a member of the WHO Eastern Mediterranean Region’s Advisory Committee on Health Research. He holds an MD from Queen’s University, an MSc from the London School of Economics, and a PhD (in Health Policy) from Harvard University.

Admin Data Lead

Dr. Gil Kaplan

Dr. Kaplan is a gastroenterologist and epidemiologist with a clincal and research interest in the inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD). He graduated with a Masters of Public Health from the Harvard School of Public Health and completed an IBD Fellowship at the Massachusetts General Hospital. He is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Calgary with 80% protected time for his research program. He is a CIHR New Investigator and an Alberta-Innovates Health Solutions Population Health Investigator. Dr. Kaplan is the Director of the Environmental Health Research Group in the Institute of Public Health at the University of Calgary as well as an executive member of the Alberta IBD Consortium, which is a mulit-disciplinary team that is studying gene-environment-microbial interactions in a province wide cohort of IBD patients. In 2011, Dr. Kaplan was selected as one of Avenue Magazine’s in Calgary, Top 40 Under 40.

Capacity Building Lead

Dr. Paul Beck

Dr. Beck’s research interests include defining mechanisms involved in the development of IBD and how the gastrointestinal tract heals itself after injury. The lining of the gastrointestinal is commonly injured in everyday life by insults such as arthritis medications, bacteria, viruses’ acid and others. Why this injury occurs more commonly in some and causes more problems is unclear, however, it appears that some people are susceptible to injury where others fail to heal the injury and likely IBD is a result of increased susceptibility to injury and failure to properly heal following injury. By using both animal models of colitis as well as tissue culture models the goal of his research is to determine import factors that protect the gastrointestinal tract from injury and/or improve tissue repair after injury. By determining which factors may be involved in these processes one can develop strategies aimed at treating IBD with the ultimate goal of finding a cure for this group of devastating diseases. Dr. Beck’s lab is also interested in Clostridium difficile colitis and the pathways involved in causing damage and how the gut protects against it.

Patient Oriented Leads

CDHF

Patient Oriented Leads

CCC

KT Patient Research Partner

Alysia De Nino

Alysia is a public health professional with a Bachelor of Science and Masters of Public Health in Health Promotion. She has worked in schools, workplaces and communities building health and medical programs as well as creating healthy public policy. Alysia currently works in the field of knowledge translation and evaluation for the Alberta Health Services Chronic Disease Prevention unit. Alysia has struggled with digestive issues since she was in her teens and has been diagnosed with IBS. She has found that a diet low in FODMAPs (types of carbohydrates), has alleviated many of her symptoms. Wanting to help others find the same relief, she created a food blog called The Calming Kitchen: Whole Food Recipes for Digestive Health. Alysia will be joining IMAGINE’s Knowledge Translation, Education & Policy working group as a patient representative.

KT Patient Research Partner

Ellen Keunzig

Ellen Kuenzig completed her Master’s in epidemiology from the University of Western Ontario in 2012 and her PhD in epidemiology from the University of Calgary in 2016. Combining her experiences living with Crohn’s disease and her passion for better understanding IBD, her research during her PhD focused on genetic and environmental risk factors IBD. After finishing her PhD, Ellen began working as a post-doctoral fellow with Dr. Eric Benchimol at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario and the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Studies. Ellen received the AbbVie IBD Scholarship from Crohn’s and Colitis Canada and twice received a Student Research Prize from Crohn’s and Colitis Canada at Canadian Digestive Diseases Week. Her fellowship is funded through an award from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Crohn’s and Colitis Canada, and the Canadian Association of Gastroenterology.

KT Patient Research Partner

Karthika Yogaratnam

Karthika Yogaratnam is a public health professional, with a Master of Public Health in Population Health Sciences. In her current role as a Research Associate with Saint Elizabeth Research Centre, she is actively working on projects that emphasize bridging the gap between system innovation and current practice.

After a long struggle with digestive issues in her late teens, she was formally diagnosed with Crohn’s disease in 2018. The long road to a formal diagnosis sparked her interest in joining IMAGINE, where she wants to help equip those who may be going through similar experiences with the right tools to access the services they need, when they need it. Karthika will be joining the IMAGINE’s Knowledge Translation, Education and Policy working group as a patient representative.

Co-Lead Patient Engagement

Sandra Zelinsky

Sandra Zelinsky is the Co-Lead with Dr. Deborah Marshall, for the IMAGINE SPOR Patient Engagement Sub-Committee.  She has been working as a patient engagement researcher for the past 7 years, is a graduate of the Patient and Community Engagement Research program at the University of Calgary and is passionate about bringing the collective patient voice to health research and healthcare. She is also currently working as the Lead Patient Research Partner for the Alberta SPOR SUPPORT Unit, Patient Engagement Platform and is the Project Lead for the IBD Partnerships project. She has been living with Crohn’s disease for 27 years and it is her lived experience that motivates her to work in patient-oriented research.

Co-Lead

Dr. Deborah Marshall

Dr. Deborah Marshall is a health economist and health services researcher leading a programme of applied research using patient preferences, patient engagement and simulation modelling methods.

Dr. Marshall leads the health economics, socioeconomic benefits, patient preferences and patient engagement activities for several national and international research programmes (funded by CIHR and/or Genome Canada) in precision health and patient-oriented research to develop health economic tools and approaches to evaluate outcomes: 1) UCAN CAN-DU (Understanding Childhood Arthritis Network Canada-Netherlands) and 2) UCAN CURE (Precision Decisions for Childhood Arthritis personalized medicine networks in childhood arthritis combining genomic techniques, machine learning methods and simulation modelling to predict response to treatment and its associated health outcomes and economic impact; 3) SOLVE Care4Rare Canada – harnessing multi-omics to deliver innovative diagnostic care for rare genetic diseases; 4) TIGeR (Translational Implementation of Genomics for Rare diseases), partnership with Medical Genetics and Alberta Provincial Laboratory for the clinical application of genome wide sequencing; and 5) IMAGINEStrategy for Patient Oriented Research (SPOR) Chronic Disease Network (Inflammation, Microbiome, and Alimentation: Gastro-Intestinal and Neuropsychiatric Effects, CIHR SPOR) on inflammatory bowel disease and the microbiome. 6) OCEC (One Child Every Child) – Dr. Marshall is leading the Impact, Evaluation and Knowledge Mobilization Cross-cutting Accelerator of this national child health and wellness research initiative.

Deborah is the Principal Applicant of the CIHR Health Systems Impact Fellowship National Training Program – “Enhancing a Community of Practice for the Health System Impact Fellowship Program: Advancing Capacity for Sustainable & Patient-Centered Learning Health Systems across Canada” to create a community of practice towards achieving high-performing, patient-centered learning health systems across Canada. In addition, she is the former chair of both the Arthur J.E. Child Chair of Rheumatology Outcomes Research; and Canada Research Chair, Health Services and Systems Research (2008 – 2018). Deborah also holds various memberships in University of Calgary and Alberta Health Services: 1) Alberta Children’s Hospital Research Institute (ACHRI) Member as well as Scientific Director of Research and Partnership Evaluation and Impact; 2) O’Brien Institute of Public Health Member; 3) McCaig Institute of Bone and Joint Health Member; 4) Senior Scientist at Arthritis Research Canada.

She is a Founding Member of the Global Economics and Evaluation of Clinical Genomics Sequencing Working Group (GEECS). Deborah is also a founding co-investigator of the innovative Patient and Community Engagement Research (PaCER) programme at the University of Calgary which trains patients to design and conduct health research, using specific adapted methods of qualitative inquiry. She is an active member of the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR) as the Past President of the Board of Directors, the Chair of the Dynamic Simulation Modeling Applications in Health Care Delivery Research Task Force and as a member of the Patient Preferences Special Interest Group, the Optimization Methods Task Force and co-author of related ISPOR Task Force Reports. She has also served as a member of the Board of Directors for Health Technology Assessment International (HTAi) and is a member of the HTAi Patient Preferences Working Group. She was co-chair of the Scientific Research Committee and Board of Directors of the Arthritis Alliance of Canada (AAC), and is a member of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Alberta PROMs & EQ-5D Research & Support Unit (APERSU).

Sex and Gender Patient Research Partner

Kim Daley

Kim Daley is a Patient Researcher and Patient Partner in the IBD research community. She has 26 years of lived experience with chronic illness spanning many life stages. After ileostomy surgery, Kim became passionate about increasing ostomy awareness through patient advocacy as a volunteer and board member of the Winnipeg Ostomy Association. As a Patient Researcher, Kim is trained in peer-to-peer qualitative research through the Patient and Community Engagement Research program at the University of Calgary. While an intern in the program, she co-led the study ‘A patient-led, peer to peer qualitative study on the psychosocial relationship between young adults with IBD and food’. The peer-reviewed paper from this research is published in the Health Expectations journal. As a Patient Partner, Kim is engaged in patient-oriented research through the University of Manitoba Chronic Disease Advisory Committee. In 2020 she was the recipient of the MacNaught-Taillon (M&T) Emerging Patient Leader Bursary Award for her contributions to bringing the patient voice to health care and research.

Research Lead

Dr. Laura Targownik

Dr. Laura Targownik joined the Section of Gastroenterology in the Division of Internal Medicine at the University of Manitoba since 2003, after completing her fellowship in Digestive Diseases and obtaining a Master’s of Science in Health Services from the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). She is currently the Section Head for Gastroenterology at the University of Manitoba, and the Associate director of the Manitoba IBD Clinical and Research Center.

She is a nationally recognized researcher for her work on the epidemiology of drug use in inflammatory bowel disease, and has authored or co-authored over 90 peer-reviewed publications. She is currently a principal investigator or co-investigator on grants funded by the American College of Gastroenterology, The Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of Canada, and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR).

Amy van Engelen

Amy van Engelen is a Patient Advisor on the Digestive Health Strategic Care Network in Alberta and is also a PaCER graduate which is the Patient and Community Engagement Research Program through the University of Calgary.  Being able to use her experiences within the medical system as both a patient advocate and researcher have provided incredible insight into the value patients can truly provide. Amy lives in Calgary with her daughter who is attending the University of Calgary. She is a Celiac and Colitis patient.

Executive Director

Aida Fernandes

Aida Fernandes is the current Executive Director of the IMAGINE Network – a patient-oriented research initiative in gastrointestinal diseases. Aida has over 15 years of experience in research administration and strategic partnerships in the health charitable sector. Aida was the Vice-President of Research & Patient Programs at Crohn’s and Colitis Canada (CCC) where she oversaw the organization’s research, patient education and advocacy programs for the Canadian IBD community. Prior to her time at CCC, Aida worked at Cystic Fibrosis Canada in several different capacities, including Manager, Chapter Relations; Director, Volunteer & Personnel Resources; and Director, Medical/Scientific and Community Programs.

Aida also has served on a number of governing bodies in the voluntary health sector including: Public Health Agency of Canada’s Respiratory Diseases Surveillance Advisory Committee, HealthPartners Board of Directors, Health Charities’ Coalition of Canada Research Committee, Canadian Genetics Coalition, CIHR’s Institute of Infection and Immunity Institute Advisory Board, and the Canadian Blood Services’ National Liaison Committee.

Aida holds a bachelor’s degree in Human Biology from the University of Toronto and a Master of Business Administration in Non-Profit Management & Leadership from York University’s Schulich School of Business.

Principal Investigator

Dr. Paul Moayyedi

Dr Paul Moayyedi qualified from Bristol University and obtained a PhD and Masters in Public Health from the University of Leeds.  He moved to McMaster University in 2004 and was Director of the Division of Gastroenterology at McMaster in 2006-2017.  He holds the Audrey Campbell Chair of Ulcerative Colitis Research and is currently the Assistant Dean of Research at McMaster University.  He has published 385 peer-reviewed articles that have been cited over 44,400 times with an h index of 104. He was Co-Editor in Chief of the American Journal of Gastroenterology 2010-2015.  He is currently joint Coordinating Editor of the Upper GI and Pancreatic Disease Cochrane Review Group and a proponent of Evidence Based Medicine.  He is PI of the IMAGINE network that aims to evaluate how the diet and microbiome impact on IBD, IBS and associated psychological disorders.

Research Lead

Dr. Charles Bernstein

Dr. Charles Bernstein, a graduate from the University of Manitoba Faculty of Medicine, and the UCLA Division of Gastroenterology Fellowship Training Program is Distinguished Professor of Medicine, Bingham Chair in Gastroenterology Research and Director, Inflammatory Bowel Disease Clinical and Research Centre at the University of Manitoba. He is a fellow of both the Canadian Academy of health Sciences and the Royal Society of Canada, Science Division

Dr. Bernstein has developed among the largest validated population based databases of IBD. He has received funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and its forerunners (the MRC and NHRDP) since 1995. His main research interests are primarily related to IBD; in terms of optimizing management approaches; exploring predictors of clinical outcomes; and disease etiology. More recently he has been actively involved in exploring the biological and clinical intersection between different chronic immune mediated inflammatory diseases. He has also helped develop ground breaking work in the epidemiology of Helicobacter pylori infection among Canada’s Aboriginal populations, colorectal cancer screening and outcomes of gastrointestinal endoscopy and biopsy. He has published over 400 peer reviewed papers.

Dr. Jon Meddings

Dr. Meddings began his first term as Dean of the faculty in July 2012 having served as Vice Dean since 2009, and previously as Interim Vice-President (Research) of the University of Calgary (2010), head of the Division of Gastroenterology, and as a professor in the Department of Medicine, while continuing to be an active member of the medical community. He also served as Chair of the Department of Medicine at the University of Alberta from 2004 to 2009.

After receiving his BMSc and MD from the University of Alberta, Dr. Meddings completed his internship in Dunedin, New Zealand at Wakari Hospital, his residency in Edmonton at the University of Alberta Hospital, and two fellowships in Dallas at the University of Texas Health Science Centre. He became a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1983 and was inducted into the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences in 2010.

He has been honoured with several awards and distinctions for his research innovations in celiac disease, inflammatory bowel disease and bowel permeability. He is dedicated to excellence in research and education, and improving patient care in Calgary and beyond.

IBS Patient Research Partner

Megan Marsiglio

Megan Marsiglio is a communications manager, lifestyle blogger and a digestive health advocate based in Toronto. In 2006 Megan began experiencing abnormal digestive issues, which lead to a diagnosis of Crohn’s disease and IBS in 2008 – her first year at university. While she was there she realized there wasn’t any support on campus for students dealing with digestive issues, so she started a support group and launched a blog – www.thegutgazette.com. Creating awareness and advocating for digestive disease understanding became one of Megan’s passions and has lead her to become a patient representative for the IBS studies for IMAGINE.

Dr. Paul O’Byrne

Dr. Paul M. O’Byrne is the dean and vice-president of the Faculty of Health Sciences at McMaster University, and the dean of the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine. He is also a Distinguished University Professor of Medicine of McMaster, a world-renowned researcher and a practicing respirologist.

He became dean and vice-president in July 2016 after 14 years as chair of the Faculty’s largest department, the Department of Medicine.

O’Byrne obtained his medical degree at University College, Dublin, Ireland, and his training in Internal medicine and respiratory medicine at McMaster University.  He undertook research training at both McMaster and the Cardiovascular Research Institute in San Francisco, California.  He joined the faculty at McMaster in 1984.

His research interests are on the mechanisms and treatment of asthma, particularly the role of environmental allergens and the mechanisms by which these cause airway inflammation.

He has published more than 400 peer reviewed papers, including papers in New England Journal of Medicine, Lancet, Nature Medicine, AJRCCM, JACI and Journal of Immunology.  He has authored 98 book chapters and edited 12 books.

O’Byrne was the executive director of the Firestone Institute for Respiratory Health at St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton from 2002 to 2016 and held the position as the E.J. Moran Campbell Professor of Medicine from 1998 to 2016.

He has received the James H. Graham Award of Merit, Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, and has been the distinguished lecturer in respiratory sciences for the Institute of Circulatory and Respiratory Health of the Canadian Institutes for Health Research.  He was elected to the Royal Society of Canada in 2010, and he was awarded the European Respiratory Society Congress Award and Medal in 2011. He was elected to the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences and received McMaster’s top academic award, appointment as a Distinguished Professor, in 2015.

O’Byrne is the past-chair of the executive committee of the Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA). He is associate editor of Chest and International Archives of Allergy and Immunology, and he is on the editorial board of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine and Thorax.

Paul Sinclair

Research Lead

Dr. Stephen Vanner

Dr. Vanner received a undergraduate degree in Life Sciences and a concurrent MD and MSc degree from Queen’s University. After completing his Internal Medicine and Gastroenterology training at Queen’s and he carried out post doctoral research training in enteric neurophysiology at the Vollum Institute in Portland Oregon. Since returning to Queen’s University in 1991 he has been an attending staff in Gastroenterology at the Kingston General and Hotel Dieu Hospitals and cares for patients with gastrointestinal disorders in both the inpatient and outpatient departments. He performs a full range of endoscopic procedures including ERCP.

He has subspecialty expertise in gastrointestinal motility disorders involving the lower GI tract including the small intestine, colon and anorectum and is director of the anorectal motility laboratory.

He has an established translational research program that examines mechanisms underlying pain signaling and motility in the gastrointestinal tract.

Co-Principal Investigator

Dr. Deborah Marshall

Dr. Deborah Marshall is a health economist and health services researcher leading a programme of applied research using patient preferences, patient engagement and simulation modelling methods.

Dr. Marshall leads the health economics, socioeconomic benefits, patient preferences and patient engagement activities for several national and international research programmes (funded by CIHR and/or Genome Canada) in precision health and patient-oriented research to develop health economic tools and approaches to evaluate outcomes: 1) UCAN CAN-DU (Understanding Childhood Arthritis Network Canada-Netherlands) and 2) UCAN CURE (Precision Decisions for Childhood Arthritis personalized medicine networks in childhood arthritis combining genomic techniques, machine learning methods and simulation modelling to predict response to treatment and its associated health outcomes and economic impact; 3) SOLVE Care4Rare Canada – harnessing multi-omics to deliver innovative diagnostic care for rare genetic diseases; 4) TIGeR (Translational Implementation of Genomics for Rare diseases), partnership with Medical Genetics and Alberta Provincial Laboratory for the clinical application of genome wide sequencing; and 5) IMAGINEStrategy for Patient Oriented Research (SPOR) Chronic Disease Network (Inflammation, Microbiome, and Alimentation: Gastro-Intestinal and Neuropsychiatric Effects, CIHR SPOR) on inflammatory bowel disease and the microbiome. 6) OCEC (One Child Every Child) – Dr. Marshall is leading the Impact, Evaluation and Knowledge Mobilization Cross-cutting Accelerator of this national child health and wellness research initiative.

Deborah is the Principal Applicant of the CIHR Health Systems Impact Fellowship National Training Program – “Enhancing a Community of Practice for the Health System Impact Fellowship Program: Advancing Capacity for Sustainable & Patient-Centered Learning Health Systems across Canada” to create a community of practice towards achieving high-performing, patient-centered learning health systems across Canada. In addition, she is the former chair of both the Arthur J.E. Child Chair of Rheumatology Outcomes Research; and Canada Research Chair, Health Services and Systems Research (2008 – 2018). Deborah also holds various memberships in University of Calgary and Alberta Health Services: 1) Alberta Children’s Hospital Research Institute (ACHRI) Member as well as Scientific Director of Research and Partnership Evaluation and Impact; 2) O’Brien Institute of Public Health Member; 3) McCaig Institute of Bone and Joint Health Member; 4) Senior Scientist at Arthritis Research Canada.

She is a Founding Member of the Global Economics and Evaluation of Clinical Genomics Sequencing Working Group (GEECS). Deborah is also a founding co-investigator of the innovative Patient and Community Engagement Research (PaCER) programme at the University of Calgary which trains patients to design and conduct health research, using specific adapted methods of qualitative inquiry. She is an active member of the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR) as the Past President of the Board of Directors, the Chair of the Dynamic Simulation Modeling Applications in Health Care Delivery Research Task Force and as a member of the Patient Preferences Special Interest Group, the Optimization Methods Task Force and co-author of related ISPOR Task Force Reports. She has also served as a member of the Board of Directors for Health Technology Assessment International (HTAi) and is a member of the HTAi Patient Preferences Working Group. She was co-chair of the Scientific Research Committee and Board of Directors of the Arthritis Alliance of Canada (AAC), and is a member of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Alberta PROMs & EQ-5D Research & Support Unit (APERSU).

Dr. Curtis Huttenhower

Dr. Huttenhower’s research focuses on computational biology at the intersection of microbial community function and human health. The human body carries some four pounds of microbes, primarily in the gut, and understanding their biomolecular functions, their influences on human hosts, and the metabolic and functional roles of microbial communities generally is one of the key areas of study enabled by high-throughput sequencing. First, computational methods are needed to advance functional metagenomics. How can we understand what a microbial community is doing, what small molecule metabolites or signaling mechanisms it’s employing, and how its function relates to its organismal composition? Second, our understanding of the human microbiome and its relationship with public health remains limited. Pathogens have been examined by centuries of microbiology and epidemiology, but we know relatively little about the transmission or heritability of the normal commensal microbiota, its carriage of pathogenic functionality, or its interaction with host immunity, environment, and genetics. Finally, more broadly, novel machine learning methodology is needed to leverage structured biological knowledge in high-dimensional genomic data analysis. The Huttenhower group works on a variety of computational methods for data mining in microbial communities, model organisms, pathogens, and the human genome.

In practice, this entails a combination of computational methods development for mining and integrating large multi’omic data collections, as well as biological analyses and laboratory experiments to link the microbiome in human populations to specific microbiological mechanisms. The lab has worked extensively with the NIH Human Microbiome Project to help develop the first comprehensive map of the healthy Western adult microbiome, and it currently co-leads one of the “HMP2” Centers for Characterizing the Gut Microbial Ecosystem in Inflammatory Bowel Disease. This is one of many open problems in understanding how human-associated microbial communities can be used as a means of diagnosis or therapeutic intervention on the continuum between health and disease.

Dr. Eamonn Quigley

Dr. Eamonn M. M. Quigley, past president of the American College of Gastroenterology and the World Gastroenterology Organization, joined the faculty at Houston Methodist Hospital as head of its Gastroenterology and Hepatology division in 2013.

Prior to his move to Houston, Quigley was professor of medicine and human physiology and a principal investigator at the Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre at the National University of Ireland in Cork. He is internationally known for his research on gastrointestinal motility disorders, primarily irritable bowel syndrome (IBS); gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD); neurogastroenterology (the relationship between the central nervous system and the gut); the gut microbiome and probiotics in health and disease. A highlight of his ongoing research includes how bacteria in the digestive tract play a major role in pulling nutrients from food to nourish the body, as well as participating in protecting the body from disease.

IBS is the most common, chronic medical condition in the United States. Approximately 40 percent of those with IBS have symptoms severe or frequent enough to disrupt their daily lives. While the cause of IBS has not been clearly identified, Quigley’s clinical research suggests that an alteration of the normal gut bacteria flora may be a cause. His research team is working toward developing new biomarkers for IBS which would eventually lead to the development of new treatments. Quigley’s clinical interests focus on the use of probiotics for the treatment of IBS.

He has published more than 800 peer-reviewed articles, reviews, editorials, book chapters and case reports, mostly in the areas of gut motility, functional gastrointestinal disorders, and GERD. Quigley has received numerous international honors and awards. He served as Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of Gastroenterology from 1997 to 2003.

Quigley received his medical degree from University College Cork in Cork, Ireland; completed internal medicine residency in Glasgow, Scotland; and did GI fellowship training at the Mayo Clinic and the University of Manchester in England. He served as the Chief of Gastroenterology at the University of Nebraska from 1991 to 1998 and as Dean of the Medical School in Cork, Ireland from 2000 to 2007.

Dr. Ernst Kuipers

Ernst Kuipers trained in gastroenterology and hepatology. He was appointed as member of the Erasmus MC Board of Directors on 1 December 2012 and has been chairman of the Board since 15 March 2013. He was educated in the Netherlands (Groningen, Enschede, Deventer and Amsterdam), and worked in Nashville, USA for several years after obtaining his PhD. In 2000, he was appointed as Professor and head of Erasmus MC’s department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology and in 2006 he also became head of the department of Internal Medicine. He was, among others, the driving force behind the introduction of the national screening program for colon cancer.

His academic and professional interests, combined with his management experience within various international organizations and committees, has brought him a very broad-minded view on national as well international issues.

Dr. Gert van Assche

Gert Van Assche is professor of medicine in the Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine at the University of Leuven (Belgium). His research focuses on novel therapies in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), fibrogenesis, and mucosal immunology in IBD. Dr. Van Assche is head of the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology at the University Hospitals of Leuven, where he also served as clinical operational officer in the executive board until 2015. He is the former chair of the guidelines and of the educational committee of the European Crohn’s and Colitis Organisation.

Dr. Van Assche received a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and his medical degree from the University of Leuven. He subsequently trained in internal medicine and gastroenterology in Leuven. From 1994 to 1998, Dr. Van Assche combined his GI fellowship with a doctoral program on regulatory peptides in motility and inflammation in the GI Hormones Lab in Leuven and the Intestinal Diseases Research Program at McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada. From 2012 until 2013 he was Director of Clinical and Translational IBD Research at Mt Sinai Hospital, Toronto and Professor of Medicine at the U of Toronto, ON, Canada and he currently is Clinician Adjunct at the UofT. He has been an invited professor at the U of Michigan, Ann Arbor and the Cleveland Clinic, Lerner Institute. For his research, he received grants and awards from the Flemish Foundation for Scientific Research (FWO Vlaanderen), the Désiré Collen Research Foundation, the Royal Society of Medicine, and the Inbev-Baillet Latour Foundation.

Dr. Van Assche’s scientific work has resulted in authorship or co-authorship of more than 200 peer-reviewed papers. He has been consulting several pharmaceutical and Biotech companies for IBD clinical development programs. He holds a senior clinical research position at the Flemish Foundation for Scientific Research (FWO Vlaanderen).

Dr. Jack Satsangi

Dr. Jack Satsangi is a professor at The University of Edinburgh. His research combines clinical gastroenterology, in which his main focus is the management of inflammatory bowel disease, with an extensive programme of academic activities – including basic, clinical and translational research. His main clinical interests include the efficacy and safety of biological agents, and management of childhood-onset disease in adulthood. Major active research interests include IBD genetics, epigenetics and biomarker discovery, and a series of clinical trials -most notably in post-operative prophylaxis, stem cell transplantation, and severe colitis. He is a PI of the UKIBD Genetics Consortium, and founder member of the International IBD Genetics Consortium.

He co-chaired the Working Party involved in the Montreal Classification of IBD in 2005. He established the first BSG IBD Research Strategy committee in 2009/2010, and the IBD Clinical Studies Group as the founding chairman, responsible for drafting 2010 research agenda. He served as Secretary to the BSG IBD Section, heavily involved in re-writing the current Clinical Guidelines. He has mentored or trained several of the highly productive group of research-active IBD clinicians in Scotland. He is a Medical Advisor to CCUK in Scotland, and chairs the National NIHR GI Speciality Group. He has won career grant support of over 40 million pounds, with current support of over 19 million pounds in 2012/13, including grants from from Wellcome Trust, MRC, and the EC, and published over 200 papers/reviews in peer-reviewed journals (2013 G-index 84, H-index 38). He has been elected as FRSE as well as Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences.

Dr. Jan Tack

Professor Jan Tack is currently a Head of Clinic in the Department of Gastroenterology, a Professor in Internal Medicine and head of the Department of Clinical and Experimental medicine at the University of Leuven, and a principal researcher in TARGID (the Translational Research Center for Gastrointestinal Disorders) at the University of Leuven. He graduated summa cum laude in 1987 from the University of Leuven and specialized in internal medicine and gastroenterology at the same institution. A research fellow at the Department of Physiology at the Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA, from 1989 to 1990, he has been conducting research at Leuven University since 1990. Professor Tack’s scientific interest focuses on neurogastroenterology and motility, and includes diverse topics such as the pathophysiology and management of gastrointestinal functional and motor disorders (including GERD, globus, dysphagia, FD, gastroparesis, dumping syndrome, chronic constipation, IBS and opioid-induced bowel dysfunction), the physiology and pharmacology of the enteric nervous system, GI hormones and the control of satiation and food intake. He has published more than 600 articles and 40 book chapters on various aspects of scientific and clinical gastroenterology.

Professor Tack won several awards for Basic and Clinical Research in GI Science. Professor Tack is Editor-in-chief of the United European Gastroenterology Journal, Past-President of the European Society of Esophagology, Past-President of the International Society for Diseases of the Esophagus, and has served as co-editor for Neurogastroenterology and Motility, Gastroenterology, Gut and Digestion. He serves or has served as a member of the editorial board of Gastroenterology, American Journal of Gastroenterology, Alimentary Pharmacology and Therapeutics, Journal of Internal Medicine, Bailliere’s Best Practice and Research in Clinical Gastroenterology, Annals of Gastroenterology and Journal of Gastroenterology.

Dr. Jeff Hyams

Dr. Hyams is one of the world’s leading experts in pediatric inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) including Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. He has led pivotal clinical trials of biological agents in these disorders and has directed a long-term natural history registry that has described the course of almost 2000 children newly diagnosed with IBD. Dr. Hyams is the recent recipient of a $10.4M grant from the National Institutes of Health investigating the response of children newly diagnosed with ulcerative colitis to standardized therapies. He has worked with the FDA developing endpoints for pediatric clinical trials, and serves on the Rome Committee, an international research organization that investigates the course and treatment of functional GI disorders such as irritable bowel syndrome, functional abdominal pain, abdominal migraine and functional dyspepsia.

Dr. Magnus Simrén

Dr. Magnus Simrén is working as Senior Consultant in the Department of Internal Medicine, Sahlgrenska University Hospital, Göteborg, Sweden, and is Professor in Gastroenterology at the Department of Internal Medicine & Clinical Nutrition, Institute of Medicine, Sahlgrenska Academy at the University of Gothenburg.

He graduated from medical school, University of Gothenburg in 1991, and afterwards completed his internship and fellowship in internal medicine at the County Hospital of Lidköping. From 1998 to 1999, Doctor Simrén completed his fellowship in gastroenterology at Sahlgrenska University Hospital. He defended his thesis entitled “Irritable Bowel Syndrome: Pathophysiological and clinical aspects” in 2001. He was a research fellow at the University of Leuven, Belgium, in 2002, focusing on the pathophysiology of functional dyspepsia and GERD.

Dr. Simrén is now head of the Neurogastroenterology Unit at Sahlgrenska University Hospital, and had a Senior Research position (50%) at the Swedish Research Council 2011-2016. His main research areas are the pathogenesis and pathophysiology of functional GI disorders, as well as the treatment of these disorders and the importance of brain-gut interactions. He has published more than 200 original articles and also written book chapters on GI motility diseases and functional GI disorders, and is currently supervisor for eighteen PhD students and several Post-Docs. Doctor Simrén has been the President of the Scandinavian Association for Gastrointestinal Motility (SAGIM), Scientific Secretary to the Swedish Society of Gastroenterology, and a served as council member for several international organizations. He is currently the chair of the United European Gastroenterology (UEG) Scientific Committee, and a member of the UEG council. He has been working as Deputy Editor and Associate Editor of Gut (2005-2009), and Clinical Editor of Neurogastroenterology and Motility (2012-2016). Doctor Simrén received the Rising Star Award from the Association of National European and Mediterranean Societies of Gastroenterology (ASNEMGE) in 2006, and is a member of the Rome Foundation Board of Directors since 2011. 2010-2012 he chaired the Rome Foundation Working team on “Intestinal microbiota in functional bowel disorders”, and has served as a member of the Rome IV committees for Functional Bowel Disorders and Centrally Mediated Disorders of GI Pain. 2015-2016 he was visiting research scientist at the Center for Functional GI and Motility Disorders, University of North Carolina (UNC), Chapel Hill, NC, United States, and he is now an adjunct professor at the Department of Medicine at UNC.

Dr. Nick Talley

A gastroenterologist with a special interest in neurogastroenterology, inflammation and infection, Laureate Professor Talley is considered an international authority in the field. His research covers the local and systemic effects of low grade inflammation in the gut, the role of the gut micro-organisms and the gut-brain axis.

Laureate Professor Talley is a member of the Rome Foundation Board for 17 years (the authority in the classification of all the functional GI disorders), former editor of major journals in the field (Alimentary Pharmacology and Therapeutics, American Journal of Gastroenterology) and is the Editor-in-Chief of the Medial Journal of Australia, and has been PI on an extensive portfolio of research.

Emily Morgan

Emily Morgan received her bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC). After being diagnosed with ulcerative colitis at age 13 and having the opportunity to interact with others with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), Emily realized that not everyone has the support and resources she was lucky to have at such a young age. While in college, Emily joined the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation’s National Council of Collegiate Leaders and served as a cochair for two years. While a member, she hosted on-campus support groups and education seminars. Upon graduating from UNC, she worked as a researcher and patient advisor at The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice in New Hampshire. Her main research involvement was with IBD Qorus, a quality improvement initiative and collaborative project between patients and their providers, with an aim to lead to enhanced patient health outcomes. Because of her healthcare diagnosis and advocacy and research involvement, Emily is passionate about patient goal setting and patient engagement. She is currently a Health Behavior Master’s candidate at UNC Gillings School of Public Health.