Juan Abraldes is a Transplant Hepatologist, Professor and Director of the Liver Unit at the University of Alberta, and the AHS hepatology lead for the Edmonton Zone.

He gained his MD in 1995 from the University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain, and got his Board Certificate in Gastroenterology and Hepatology at the Liver Unit, Hospital Clinic, University of Barcelona (2000). He did a postdoctoral training at Yale University (2003–2004).

His main interest is the diagnosis, risk prediction and management of chronic liver disease. He is the co-author of the American Association for the Liver (AASLD) Clinical Guidance for the management of varices and variceal bleeding in cirrhosis 2016, and the chair of the AASLD guidance on TIPS and endovascular therapies for variceal hemorrhage 2023. He has contributed to Baveno guidelines for the management of portal hypertension since 2005. He is associated editor of Hepatology.

Enrik Aguila is a consultant gastroenterologist and advanced endoscopist at St. Luke’s Medical Center Global City and Ospital ng Maynila Medical Center. He also serves as the head of the research committee in the Gastroenterology departments of both institutions. In addition, he is a faculty member at the Ateneo School of Medicine and Public Health (ASMPH).

He earned his MD-MBA degree from ASMPH in 2014, and received board certification in gastroenterology and digestive endoscopy after completing his fellowship training at St. Luke’s Medical Center Global City in 2020. He subsequently underwent advanced endoscopy training in Adelaide, Australia, under an APAGE Clinician-Scientist Training scholarship. Most recently, he completed a two-month clinical observership in advanced endoscopy as a Berenson Scholar at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts, USA, supported by the Berenson International Scholarship and a JGHF Grant.

Dr. Aguila is an active member of several professional organizations. He serves on various committees of the Philippine Society of Gastroenterology and Philippine Society of Digestive Endoscopy. Internationally, he is a member of the Emerging Leaders Committee of the Asian Pacific Association of Gastroenterology and part of the 4th cohort of the World Endoscopy Organization’s Emerging Stars program. He also serves as Associate Editor of the Philippine Journal of Gastroenterology and Deputy Social Media Editor for the Journal of Gastroenterology and Hepatology.

In addition, Dr. Aguila is a faculty member of both the Asian Novel Bio-Imaging and Intervention Group (ANBIIG) and the Academy of Endoscopy—organizations dedicated to advancing endoscopic education and improving patient care across the region through initiatives such as simulation-based mastery learning (SBML). He completed an SBML certification course at the Northwestern University in Chicago, Illinois, as part of his dedication to high-quality endoscopic training and education.

Johan Burisch is a Professor and Consultant in Gastroenterology at Hvidovre Hospital and the University of Copenhagen. His research focuses on inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), with a particular interest in disease epidemiology, disease course, and precision medicine. He leads several national and international projects, including multi-omics studies aimed at identifying new IBD subtypes to support individualized treatment strategies. Johan is also involved in developing and evaluating digital health interventions to improve care for patients with mild to moderate IBD. He is a member of the International Organization for the Study of Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IOIBD).

Wah-kheong Chan is Professor of Medicine, Director of the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, and Senior Consultant Gastroenterologist and Hepatologist at the University of Malaya, the University of Malaya Medical Centre and the University of Malaya Specialist Centre. He served as an Executive Committee Member for the Malaysian Society of Gastroenterology and Hepatology (MSGH) between 2015 and 2021. He was the Scientific Co-Chair and a core member of the Organizing Committee for the Asian Pacific Digestive Week (APDW) 2021. He completed two terms as Associate Editor for the Journal of Gastroenterology and Hepatology between 2018 and 2023, and is a current member of the Editorial Board for Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Alimentary Pharmacology and Therapeutics, and Clinical and Molecular Hepatology. He has published numerous full papers in peer-reviewed journals and presented in both local and international conferences. His main area of research interest is metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease.
 

Dr. Anna Mae Diehl received her Bachelors of Science and MD degrees at Georgetown University in 1974 and 1978, respectively. She then moved to Johns Hopkins for her internship and residency in internal medicine from 1978-1981, followed by gastroenterology fellowship training from 1981-1984. She was a member of the US Army and had her first faculty appointment at the United State Health Services University from 1984-1987. After completing her military service, she joined the faculty at Georgetown University/Washington Veterans Administration Medical Center as an Assistant Professor of Medicine/gastroenterologist in 1987. In 1990, she was recruited back to Johns Hopkins and rose through the ranks to become a tenured Professor of Medicine in 1997. She was recruited to Duke to chair the GI Division there in 2004, a position she held for the next decade.

Currently, Dr. Diehl is the Florence McAlister Professor of Medicine at Duke University. She is a physician scientist and clinical hepatologist. Her lab-based research activities focus on basic mechanisms of liver repair and complement her translational/clinical research programs in alcoholic- and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. Dr Diehl’s basic research program has enjoyed uninterrupted NIH RO1 support since 1990. She has been the Principal Investigator for the NASH CRN UO1 clinical research program at Duke since its inception almost 20 years ago, as well as the Duke PI for the Liver Cirrhosis UO1 Network that began in 2021.

Dr. Diehl is viewed internationally as an authority on liver regeneration and fatty liver disease. Her research contributions to the fields of regenerative medicine, alcohol-related liver disease and NAFLD have been acknowledged by election to membership in the American Society for Clinical Investigation and Association of Academic Professors, as well as awards such as an NIH/NIAAA Merit Award, the NIAAA Mendelson Award, the Duke Distinguished Faculty Award, and the AASLD Distinguished Scientific Achievement Award. She has also been the primary research mentor for over 70 individuals and received mentoring awards from Johns Hopkins, Duke and the AGA.

Emad El-Omar graduated in Medicine from Glasgow University, Scotland, and trained as a gastroenterologist. He worked as a Visiting Scholar/Scientist at Vanderbilt University, TN, and National Cancer Institute, MD, USA, and was Professor of Gastroenterology at Aberdeen University, Scotland, for 16 years before taking up the Chair of Medicine at St George & Sutherland Clinical School, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. He is the Editor in Chief of the journal Gut. His research interests include the gut microbiome, inflammation driven GI cancer and IBD. He is the Director of the Microbiome Research Centre at St George Hospital, Sydney.

Professor Gerhard studied medicine in Heidelberg and Hamburg and earned his MD in 1996. From 1997 to 2004 he completed his medical training leading to German medical board certification in internal medicine in the Department of Internal Medicine at Klinikum rechts der Isar. From 2006 he headed a research group in the Department of Internal Medicine at TUM, where he also acquired his postdoctoral teaching qualification (habilitation) in internal medicine in 2009. In 2010 he was appointed associate professor of medical microbiology and immunology at the Institute for Medical Microbiology and Immunology, a unit within TUM. He also serves as academic director of the TUM Venture Lab Healthcare, TUM`s biotech incubator.

The research work of Professor Gerhard explores how pathogens interact with the host in gastrointestinal infections. Professor Gerhard’s research group investigates the mechanisms that suppress the immune response of the host to allow the establishment of chronic infection as well as inflammatory factors involved in the development of cancer, in order to leverage this know-how for the development of novel preventive and therapeutic strategies.

Prof. Gerhard has published > 120 papers, many in prestigious journals such as Nature Medicine, Nature Microbiology, Gastroenterology, GUT etc.

Chun-jun Guo is an Associate Professor at the Jill Roberts Institute (JRI) for Research in IBD and Halvorsen Family Research Scholar at Weill Cornell Medicine. My group uses bioinformatics, molecular genetics, metabolomics, and chemical biology approaches to examine how the microbiota genes and metabolic pathways affect host metabolism and immunity in the context of health and diseases. I am a recipient of the 2019 NIH Director’s New Innovator Award and 2024 NIH Director’s Transformative Research Award, the Scialog Fellow, the 2022 Kenneth Rainin Innovator Award, the 2020 Medical Research Award W. M. Keck Foundation, the 2020 AGA-Allergan Foundation Pilot Research Award in IBD, and one of the three finalists of the 2020 Science & Noster Microbiome Prize.

Akio Katanuma is currently an Associate Professor the Department of Digestive Cancer of Telemedicine and Department of Gastroenterology at the Sapporo medical university, Sapporo, Japan. He is also Visiting Professor of Tokyo Medical University and Clinical Professor of Sapporo Medical University. He graduated from Sapporo Medical University School of Medicine in 1991 and trained in Muroran Municipal Hospital. He earned his doctoral degree (PhD) at Sapporo Medical University in 2020. Subsequently, Dr. Katanuma underwent training on EUS and ERCP related procedures at Teine-Keijinkai hospital. He was a director of the center for Gastroenterology from 1998 to 2025.
He is an ERCP and EUS expert. His research interests include EUS- and ERCP-related procedures. He has more than 200 peer-reviewed papers published in English. He is currently a Director of the Japan Gastroenterological Endoscopy Society (JGES), Japan Biliary Association (JBA), and a councilor of the Japanese society of Gastroenterology (JSGE), and Japan Pancreas society (JPS).

Jimmy Lai graduated from the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2015 with honours. He received training in Gastroenterology and Hepatology in Prince of Wales Hospital and obtained the fellowship of Gastroenterology and Hepatology in 2022. He is now a Clinical Assistant Professor of Faculty of Medicine, CUHK.

Dr. Lai is active in cirrhosis and viral hepatitis research with special interest in portal hypertension. He has published extensively in high-impact journals. With his research findings, he had numerous awards including Prize for Best Original Research by Trainees in 2021 from Hong Kong Academy of Medicine, Young Investigator Research Grant and Best Thesis Award (gold medal) in 2022 and Distinguished Research Paper Award for Young Investigators in 2019 and 2024 from Hong Kong College of Physician, and Investigator Award in Asian Pacific Association for the Study of the Liver in 2024. Dr. Lai was named Distinguished Young Fellows by Hong Kong Academy of Medicine. He is now a member of the Baveno Cooperation and the Co-director of Center for Liver Health, CUHK.

Joyce Mak is currently Associate Consultant at Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Department of Medicine and Therapeutics at Prince of Wales Hospital. She is also the honorary clinical assistant professor at Department of Medicine and Therapeutics at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. She graduated from the University of Hong Kong in 2008 and trained as a gastroenterologist. She was elected to be the Fellow of the Hong Kong College of Physicians in 2015. She is passionate about inflammatory bowel disease and gut microbiota. She worked as an honorary clinical research fellow in Inflammatory Bowel Disease Unit in St. Marks Academic Institute, London and honorary research fellow in IBD Unit in University of Chicago. She further obtained her PhD in Medical Sciences in inflammatory bowel disease in CUHK in 2022. She has published over 50 articles in peer-reviewed journals on inflammatory bowel disease and gut microbiota, including Lancet Gastroenterology and Hepatology and 3 book chapters on inflammatory bowel disease. She is currently the President of the Hong Kong IBD Society and serves as an editorial member of Alimentary Pharmacology and Therapeutics (APT). She is also an active member of the Emerging Leader Committee of the Asian Pacific Association of Gastroenterology (APAGE) and is an active member of Journal Scan for Gut.

After receiving a PhD in cell biology from UT Southwestern, Steve Mao did his postdoctoral work at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and Harvard University. Steve was a senior editor at Cell and Science before joining Cancer Cell in 2020.

Dr. Rhonda Souza, M.D. is Co-Director of the Center for Esophageal Diseases at Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas, Co-Director of the Center for Esophageal Research at the Baylor Scott & White Research Institute, and Professor of Medicine at Texas A&M School of Medicine. Prior to joining Baylor University Medical Center in January 2017, Dr. Souza was Professor of Medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and the Dallas VA Medical Center.

Dr. Souza’s laboratory has focused primarily on disorders of the esophagus, especially GERD and its complications including Barrett’s esophagus and esophageal adenocarcinoma, as well as eosinophilic esophagitis and esophageal motility disorders. For over 20 years, she has worked closely with her scientific partner, Dr. Stuart Spechler, to establish a translational research center that incorporates cell culture models, animal models, and in vivo patient studies to answer research questions regarding esophageal diseases. Their studies in rats and humans suggest that reflux esophagitis develops as a cytokine-mediated inflammatory injury, rather than a caustic chemical injury, challenging decades of dogma on the role of acid in reflux esophagitis. Her team has uncovered that squamous epithelial progenitor cells from esophageal submucosal gland ducts contribute to esophageal re-epithelialization following radiofrequency ablation of non-dysplastic Barrett’s esophagus, providing a potential source for the origin of Barrett’s esophagus in humans. Most recently, her lab has elucidated mechanisms whereby substances produced by the esophagogastric fat pad of obese patients impair esophageal barrier integrity, independent of GERD, and propose a new concept for the pathogenesis of dilated intercellular spaces uncovering a role for cytoskeletal contraction of squamous cells that expands their intercellular spaces, challenging decades of dogma on the caustic damage caused by refluxed acid and pepsin on intercellular junctional complexes.

Her truly translational approach to research in GERD and Barrett’s esophagus has allowed her to contribute to numerous publications on the clinical science of Barrett’s esophagus including co-authoring the 2011 AGA guidelines for management of Barrett’s esophagus and the 2022 guidelines for the American College of Gastroenterology on the management of Barrett’s esophagus, in which her focus is on the role of biomarkers in predicting cancer progression. She is currently a multi-PI on a NIH-funded U01 trial entitled “A Multicenter Randomized Controlled Trial of Surveillance versus Endoscopic Therapy for Barrett’s Esophagus with Low-Grade Dysplasia: The SURVENT Trial” and a R01 entitled “Stratification of Cancer Risk in Patients with Non-Dysplastic Barrett’s Esophagus using TissueCypher: The SCRiBE study”.

Dr. Souza has published more than 150 scientific reports, editorials, review articles, and book chapters on esophageal disorders. In 2010, she was elected to the American Society of Clinical Investigation. Dr. Souza is the 2025 recipient of the John S. Fordtran Gastrointestinal and Liver Section Distinguished Research Award by the American Physiology Society, and the Morton I. Grossman Awardee for outstanding research related to the discipline of gastroenterology by the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA). She has more than 20 years of leadership experience, and recently completed a 6-year term as Council Chair for the AGA.

Dennis Wong obtained his BSc and M.Phil. degrees from the University of Hong Kong before completing a Ph.D. in the University of Leeds, UK in 2011. He joined the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2013. Since 2024, He is Associate Professor in Department of Medicine & Therapeutics and a member of the State Key Laboratory of Digestive Disease at the CUHK. His research interests are primarily in the field of gastrointestinal cancers, trying to understand their molecular basis and develop therapeutic strategies to inhibit tumorigenesis, ultimately contributing to improved patient care. He has published >120 peer-reviewed articles in international journals, including Cell, Cancer Cell, Nat Rev Clin Oncol, Cell Host Microbe, Nat Microbiol, Sci Transl Med, Gastroenterology, Gut, Hepatology, Nat Commun, etc.

Chun-ying Wu received his M.D. degree from the National Taiwan University (NTU) in 1991, M.P.H. degree from Harvard School of Public Health in 1993, and Ph.D. degree from NTU in 2007.

He currently is the Director, Institute Biomedical Informatics at National Ying Ming Chiao Tung University (NYCU). He is also appointed as Director at the Health Innovation Center and Microbiota Research Center in the NYCU.

Professor Wu has positions as Director, National Human Microbiota Core Facility, National Science and Technology Council and the Professor at the Division of Translational Research in Taipei Veterans General Hospital. He has established Taiwan Microbiome Consortium and currently serves as the first President in the consortium.

He received an Outstanding Research Award in 2015 and 2021 at Taiwan National Science & Technology Council. In 2018, he received Medical Model Award presented by Taiwan Medical Association. He also received National Innovation Awards from Taiwan Institute for Biotechnology & Medicine Industry in 2016 and Emerging Leadership Lectureship Award in 2015 given by Asian Pacific Association of Gastroenterology.

Professor Wu’s research interests focus on digestive cancer and microbiota. Prof. Wu has published hundreds of articles in top-ranking journals, such as JAMA, JAMA Int Med, JAMA Ped, J Clinical Oncology, Gastroenterology, Gut, J of Hepatology, Hepatology, etc. with H-index=64 and more than 14,000 citations.

Terry Yip is an Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine and Therapeutics at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. Terry’s research interest is risk prediction in patients with chronic liver diseases by big healthcare database approaches. He has over 190 publications in peer-reviewed journals. He received the Young Investigator Award at APASL meetings in 2018, 2022, and 2023, The Best Poster Presentation Award: Viral Hepatitis - Clinical at EASL Congress 2024, and the Early Career Investigator Award in Clinical/Translational Science at AASLD meeting 2020. He is now a Statistical Consultant of the Journal of Hepatology, Statistical Editor of Clinical and Molecular Hepatology; and an Editorial Board member of Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Alimentary Pharmacology & Therapeutics, Hepatology Communications, and Hepatoma Research.

Jennifer Zhang is an Assistant Professor at Department of Medicine and Therapeutics, State Key Laboratory of Digestive Disease, CUHK. She is an awardee of the Excellent Young Scientists Fund by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC). Dr. Zhang serves as Youth Vice Chairman of the Gastroenterology Branch of the Cross-Strait Medical and Health Exchange Association and Council Member of Hong Kong Society for Immunology.

Her research interests focuses on metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver diseases, particularly the mechanism, diagnosis, and treatment of MASH and its related HCC. She has published 83 papers (44 papers with IF > 10) in international peer-reviewed journals, including Cell, Cancer Cell, Cell Metabolism, Nature Metabolism, Journal of Hepatology, Gut, Gastroenterology. She has obtained over 20 awards including National Natural Sciences Award (Second-class) 2020; MOE Award (First-class) 2022; Hebei Province Science and Technology Progress Award (First-class) 2024, An Expertscape Expert in Fatty Liver 2022; and National Scholar Award 2015. She has secured 10 competitive grants as the principal investigator, including funding from GRF, HMRF, ITF and NSFC.


Her research interests primarily focuses on metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver diseases, particularly the mechanism, diagnosis, and treatment of MASH and its related HCC. She has published 73 papers (38 papers with impact factor > 10) in international peer-reviewed journals, including Cell, Cancer Cell, Cell metabolism, Journal of Hepatology, Gut, Gastroenterology, and 5 book chapters. She has obtained over 20 awards including National Natural Sciences Award 2020; First-class MOE Award 2022; An Expertscape Expert in Fatty Liver 2022; and National Scholar Award 2015. She has secured 10 competitive grants as the principal investigator, including funding from GRF, HMRF, ITF and NSFC.

Ming-Hua Zheng is Professor of Medicine. He works in MAFLD Research Center, Department of Hepatology, the First Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University. His research interests include clinical, basic and translational research on MASH. He has authored or co-authored over 200 peer-review papers, reviews and several consensuses/guidelines, including Nature, Cell, Science Translational Medicine, Nature Review Gastroenterology Hepatology, Nature Review Nephrology, Nature Review Endocrinology, Nature Communications, Journal of Clinical Investigation, Journal of Hepatology, Gut, Hepatology, Lancet Gastroenterology & hepatology, et al. He had founded the PERSONS platform and has dedicated to the development of its infrastructure since 2016-12-07. The platform is an ongoing prospective cohort consisting of more than 2000 cases of biopsy-proven MAFLD (2024-09-01) and supported by a multidisciplinary team. He is the member of Global MASH Council, Gut and Obesity Asia Workgroup, APASL MAIDEN, CHESS-MAFLD.