Dr Tiing-leong Ang is Chief and Senior Consultant at the Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Changi General Hospital, Singapore. He is also co-Director of the Endoscopy Centre. He is Adj Associate Professor at the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore. He is the chairman of the Chapter of Gastroenterologist, Academy of Medicine, Singapore and past President of the Gastroenterological Society of Singapore. He is member of the Singapore Gastroenterology Residency Advisory Committee. He has subspecialty clinical interests in pancreaticobiliary diseases, early GI cancers and advanced therapeutic endoscopy, in particular therapeutic ERCP and interventional EUS. His research interests include acid-related disorders, H. pylori infection, pancreatico-biliary diseases, image enhanced endoscopy, therapeutic ERCP and interventional EUS.

Shannon Chan is currently an Assistant Professor in the Division of Upper Gastrointestinal & Metabolic Surgery of The Chinese University of Hong Kong. She graduated from the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2007. She completed general surgical training and received fellowships of the College of Surgeons of Hong Kong and Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 2014. Dr. Chan’s interest is in gastric and esophageal cancers, mainly focusing in the laparoscopic and robotic approach. She did her overseas training in National Cancer Centre in Tokyo, Yonsei University in Seoul and also Amsterdam Medical Centre in Amsterdam. Her research interests include upper gastrointestinal surgical oncology and advanced diagnostic and therapeutic endoscopy especially in interventional endoscopic ultrasound. She also has special interests in peritoneal surface malignancy and has started a multidisciplinary team for these rare, yet important group of patients. She is a member of the stomach and duodenal diseases subcommittee of the World Endoscopy Organisation (WEO) and is a reviewer for Digestive Endoscopy and Surgical Endoscopy. She has published over 20 peer-reviewed journals.

Apart from her research interest, Dr. Chan has also devoted herself to humanitarian aid work. In 2014, she joined the Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF, also named Doctors without borders). MSF is an international humanitarian non-governmental organization working in war-torn and under-developed regions. Dr. Chan joined their surgical missions to South Sudan from Oct 2016 - Dec 2016 and to Yemen from Dec 2019 to Feb 2020. After her return, she has further affirmed her commitment to providing humanitarian aid to the less developed parts of the world.

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 Campus, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. He is the Editor in Chief of the journal Gut. His research interests include all aspects of the microbiome, inflammation driven GI cancer and IBD. He is the Director of the UNSW Microbiome Research Centre at St George Hospital, Sydney.

Jimmy Lai graduated from the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2015 with honours. He obtained MRCP(UK) in 2018 and received training in Gastroenterology and Hepatology in Prince of Wales Hospital. He obtained the fellowship of Gastroenterology and Hepatology in 2022.

Dr. Lai earned numerous academic awards and scholarships throughout the years. He is active in liver diseases and hepatitis B research, and has published original research papers in peer-reviewed journals. With his research findings, he has presented in international hepatology conferences, was awarded Poster of Distinction Award in Asia Pacific Digestive Week Forum 2017, Distinguished Research Paper Award for Young Investigators in 2019 from Hong Kong College of Physicians, as well as Prize for Best Original Research by Trainees in 2021 from Hong Kong Academy of Medicine.

Rohit Loomba is a Professor of Medicine (with tenure), Director of Hepatology, at University of California at San Diego. He is an internationally recognized thought leader in the management of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease and has established a thriving and vibrant center for clinical and research in NAFLD at UCSD.

Professor Loomba is the Founding Director of the UCSD NAFLD Research Center. Along with his collaborators, he has led several innovative applications such as establishment of MRI-PDFF as a non-invasive biomarker of treatment response in early phase trials in NASH, which has now been adopted in more than 50 clinical trials conducted worldwide. He holds two patents on non-invasive biomarkers of NAFLD and fibrosis.

His research is funded by the National Institutes of Health including R01, U01, P30 and P01 grant mechanisms, Foundation of NIH, National Science Foundation as well as several investigator initiated research projects funded by the industry. He is the Principal Investigator, UCSD, for the NIDDK-sponsored NASH Clinical Research Network. He served as the elected Chair of the NAFLD, Special Interest Group of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases. And is the elected member to the National Board of Directors of the American Liver Foundation.

He serves on the Editorial Board of Gastroenterology, Journal of Hepatology, GUT and Nature Reviews in Gastroenterology and Hepatology. He served as the Deputy Editor of HEPATOLOGY, the official journal of the AASLD, from 2017-2021.

Professor Loomba has published more than 300 manuscripts and has an H-index of 87. He is among the top 1% of the globally highly cited scientists across all fields in 2019 and 2020 by Web of Science. He is an elected member of American Society of Clinical Investigation.

UCSD Gastroenterology and Hepatology were listed as the number 1 research and education program in the World by the US World News ranking in 2020.

Dr Brigette Ma is currently Professor (CA2) and Honorary Consultant at the Department of Clinical Oncology, Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), Medical Director of the Phase I Clinical Trial Centre (Oncology), Co-Director of the Cancer Drug Testing Unit and Chair, NTEC-CUHK ethics committee. She received her undergraduate degree with Honours at Monash University, Australia, and was awarded Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (2001), Fellow of Hong Kong College of Physicians (2004), and Doctor of Medicine in 2014 (CUHK). She underwent training in Medical Oncology at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Institute, Melbourne, and was Research Fellow at the Princess Margaret Hospital, Toronto, Canada. She has published over 150 peer- reviewed papers. Notably, she is a Faculty member of the European Society of Medical Oncology (ESMO) in Gastrointestinal Cancer, and was a member of the Consensus Working Group for the management of metastatic colorectal cancer; executive member of the National Cancer Institute (Bethesda, USA) Head and Neck Cancer Steering Committee - Clinical Trials Planning Group on Nasopharyngeal Cancer, Co-chair of Widely Metastatic Group (since 2017); and mentor and committee member of the Women in Cancer Research of the American Association of Cancer Research (since 2016). Her other current roles include: member of the Joint Scientific Committee for Phase 1 Clinical Trials, Centre of Health Protection, Hong Kong Hospital Authority; Chair/ member of the Scientific Committee at the 2016 American Association of Cancer Research, ESMO (GI cancer) meeting in Barcelona, (since 2017) and ESMO (Asia) conference in Singapore.

Nageshwar Reddy is currently the Chairman of Asian Institute of Gastroenterology and AIG Hospitals, Hyderabad, India. Past President of World Endoscopy Organization.

He graduated from Kurnool Medical College obtaining internal medicine, Masters in Madras Medical College and D.M in Gastroenterology from PGIMER, Chandigarh. He subsequently worked as a Professor of Gastroenterology in Andhra Pradesh Health Sciences before setting up Asian Institute of Gastroenterology, a tertiary care Gastro intestinal Specialties Hospital.

His main area of research interest has been in G.I. Endoscopy particularly in Therapeutic Pancreatio Biliary Endoscopy and Innovations in Transgastric Endoscopic Surgery. He has published over 670 papers in National & International Peer review journals and has contributed chapters in 20 International Text Books of Gastroenterology and has edited 8 G.I. Endoscopy Text Books. He is on the Editorial Board of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, Digestive Endoscopy, World Journal of Gastroenterology, World Gastroenterology News, Gastroenterology Today, Recent Patents on Medical Imaging, and Gastro-Hep.com. He is the peer reviewer of the Journals like Lancet, Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, Endoscopy, World Journal of Gastroenterology, Journal of Gastroenterology & Hepatology and Indian Journal of Gastroenterology. He was the President of Society of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy of India in 2001. He has been a visiting faculty for over 200 international endoscopy workshops and forum member of Asian Endoscopy Masters Forum.

Dr. Kewin Siah is a Gastroenterologist specialised in Functional Gastrointestinal Diseases (FGID). He completed his specialist training at National University Hospital and underwent further colonoscopy training at Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine in Japan, as part of the JSGE research fellowship award. He also received the NMRC award to perform to study Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) in Oppenheimer Neurobiology of Stress Centre in UCLA. He is currently running the Gastro Motility Lab and a multi-disciplinary IBS Clinic in NUH.

Dr. Siah is an Assistant Professor of the Department of Medicine, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine. He has been regularly speaking at various local and regional conferences on FGID, and has had multiple publications in international peer-reviewed journals. He is now the Secretary General of Asian Neurogastroenterology and Motility Association, President of Singapore’s IBS Support Group and Executive Committee of National Foundation Digestive Disease.

Dr Jun Sun is a tenured Professor of Medicine at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), U.S.A. She is an elected Fellow of American Gastroenterological Associate (AGA) and Fellow of American Physiological Society. She is the Chair for the AGA Microbiome and Microbial Therapy Section. Her research interests are host-microbiome interactions in inflammation and cancer. Dr Sun has published over 180 scientific articles in peer-reviewed journals. She is the leading editor of three books, including a recent Nature/Spring book entitled “Mechanisms underlying host-microbiome interactions in pathophysiology of human diseases.” She serves the editorial board of more than 10 peer-reviewed international scientific journals. She services study sections for the NIH, American Cancer Society, and other national and international research foundations. She is actively involved in advocating microbiome research at the international, national and institutional levels. Her research is supported by the NIH, DOD, VA, and other research awards.

Alexander Thompson is a Director of the Department of Gastroenterology at St Vincent’s Hospital and the University of Melbourne, Australia, NHMRC Practitioner Fellow and Adjunct Assistant Professor of the Department of Gastroenterology, Duke University Medical Center. Professor Thompson is the lead hepatologist for the Statewide Prison Hepatitis Service in Victoria, Australia. He is a current board member of the Gastroenterology Society of Australia, and former executive council member of the Asia Pacific Association for the Study of the Liver.

His research focusses on improving outcomes for people living with viral hepatitis. He was involved in the discovery of IL28B polymorphism as a predictor of treatment outcome in HCV, and is an active clinical investigator for trials evaluating the efficacy of novel antiviral DAA regimens. With the development of DAA therapy for HCV, he has more recently been actively pursuing the development and evaluation of new models of care for people with HCV, with a focus on prisoners and treatment as prevention to eliminate transmission and reduce prevalence of HCV in Australia.

Professor Thompson has published widely in journals including Nature, New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of the American Medical Association, Gastroenterology, Hepatology, Gut and Journal of Hepatology.

Dennis Wong obtained his BSc (2003-2005) and M.Phil. (2005-2007) degrees from the University of Hong Kong, before pursuing a Ph.D. in the University of Leeds, UK in 2008 and graduating in 2011. After two and a half years of postdoctoral training at Stony Brook University, NY, USA, Dr. Wong joined the Chinese University of Hong Kong in October, 2013, as Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine and Therapeutics and a member of the State Key Laboratory of Digestive Disease. His research interests are primarily in the field of gastrointestinal cancers, trying to understand their molecular basis and develop therapeutic approaches to inhibit tumorigenesis, ultimately contributing to improved patient care. He has published over 78 papers in peer-reviewed international journals including Gastroenterology, Science Translational Medicine, Cancer Research, Oncogene and Seminars in Cancer Biology. He has also been invited to speak in national and international conferences, including the Digestive Disease Week and United European Gastroenterology Week. His work is supported by external competitive grants from the Research Grant Council-General Research Fund (RGC-GRF), Health and Medical Research Fund (HMRF), National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC).

Grace Wong is the Professor of The Chinese University of Hong Kong. She graduated from the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2001 with honors and distinctions in Medicine. In 2010, she received the Doctorial Degree of Medicine of the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Grace Wong’s main research interest includes big data research in hepatology, chronic viral hepatitis, and risk prediction and risk reduction of hepatocellular carcinoma, and non-invasive assessment of liver fibrosis. She has published over 390 articles in peer-reviewed journals including Lancet Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Journal of Hepatology. Gastroenterology and Gut. She is currently the editor-in-chief of Hepatology (Hong Kong edition), the associate editor of Alimentary Pharmacology and Therapeutics and Journal of Gastroenterology and Hepatology. She has been awarded for the Young Investigator Award of the Asian Pacific Association for the Study of the Liver in 2009, the Distinguished Research Paper Award for Young Investigators of the Hong Kong College of Physicians in 2010, 2013, 2014 and 2015, the Ten Outstanding Young Persons (TOYP) of Hong Kong in 2014, the Distinguished Young Fellow of Hong Kong Academy of Medicine in 2017, the Emerging Leader Lectureship of the Journal of Gastroenterology and Hepatology Foundation (JGHF), the Presidential Awards in the Global Hepatitis Summit 2021, the Richard Yu Lectureship of Hong Kong College of Physicians in 2021, and the Best Reviewer Award of the Journal of Hepatology in 2022.

Marc Wong graduated from the Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, the University of Hong Kong in 2009, receiving two scholarships and the Woo Kai Fun Prize. He completed his training in Gastroenterology and Hepatology in 2016 before joining the Department of Medicine and Therapeutics, Prince of Wale Hospital as a Resident Specialist in 2018. Dr Wong is currently in charge of the Motility services in Prince of Wales Hospital, with special focus on oesophageal motility disorders and gastro-oesophageal reflux disease (GERD). His work includes collaboration with the Flinders University, Australia on pharyngeal manometry and is the first in Asia to have performed the FLIP topography using the EndoFLIP 2.0 system. Marc also has strong interest in advanced endoscopy including EUS and ERCP. He has been nominated for various international Train-the-Trainer Courses on EUS.

Vincent Wong is Mok Hing Yiu Professor of Medicine at the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. His research focuses on viral hepatitis and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), in particular the use of non-invasive tests for screening and diagnosis. He has authored over 500 articles in international medical journals, and his latest h index is 91. Together with the Asia-Pacific Working Party, he wrote the Asia-Pacific Guidelines on the Management of NAFLD in 2018. He is an associate editor of Alimentary Pharmacology and Therapeutics and an editorial board member of the Journal of Hepatology, Hepatology, JHEP Reports and Hepatology Communications. He served as the president of the Hong Kong Association for the Study of Liver Diseases from 2015 to 2017. His team received research awards from the Asian Pacific Association for the Study of the Liver, Asian Pacific Digestive Week Federation, British Society of Gastroenterology, Hong Kong College of Physicians and the Food and Health Bureau.

In medical research career, 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. Prof. Wu has positions as the Director of Translational Research and Professor of Gastroenterology in Taipei Veterans General Hospital, Joint Appointment Researcher of National Institute of Cancer Research, and also Professor of Graduate Institute of Clinical Medicine, including National Yang-Ming University (NYMU). Prof. Wu establishes Taiwan Microbiome Consortium and currently serves as the first President in the consortium. Prof. Wu is now the Editor-in-Chief of Advances in Digestive Medicine (the joint official journal of GEST, DEST & TASL), editorial member of Gut, Vice-Secretary General of both the Gastroenterological Society of Taiwan and the Digestive Endoscopy Society of Taiwan, the executive of the Taiwan Liver Cancer Association, and the control board of the Taiwan Evidence-based Medicine Association. Prof. Wu has published many articles in top ranking journals such as JAMA, J Clinical Oncology, Gastroenterology, Gut, Hepatology, etc. Prof. Wu owns several patterns, including gastric cancer screening and hepatitis B virus quantitative detection. Prof. Wu is the winner of National Innovation Award 2016, Taiwan Institute for Biotechnology & Medicine Industry; Outstanding Research Award 2015, Taiwan’s Ministry of Science and Technology; and Emerging Leadership Award 2015, Asia-Pacific Digestive Week. Prof. Wu also got several Best Teaching Awards from NYMU.

Prof. Wu is also very active in legal societies. He received his LL.B. degree from Tunghai University (TU) in 2000 and LL.M. degree from Harvard Law School in 2003. He is the current President of Taiwan Society of Law and Medicine and Professor of Law in College of Law at the TU. He is also the member of Medical Dispute Assessment Committee of Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW), the member of Institute Review Board of the National Health Research Institutes (NHRI), the member of the Ethical Committee of many central governments’ departments, including MOHW and NHRI. His legal research interests include medical malpractice litigation and biotechnology regulation. Prof. Wu has published four law textbooks, four chapters in law books, and more than 60 articles in peer-reviewed journals. Prof. Wu’s evidence-based research has become the important basis of many Taiwan’s nationwide policies regarding medical malpractice.

Gary D. Wu, MD is the Ferdinand G. Weisbrod Professor in Gastroenterology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania where he is the Associate Chief for Research in the Division of Gastroenterology and is also the Associate Director of the Center for Molecular Studies in Digestive and Liver Disease. He was the inaugural Director and Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board for the American Gastroenterological Association Center for Gut Microbiome Research and Education and is an elected member of both the American Society for Clinical Investigation and the Association of American Physicians. He was the 2015 recipient of the CCFA Achievement in IBD Basic Research Award and is currently the Co-Director of the PennCHOP Microbiome Program. Dr. Wu is an acknowledged leader in the field of diet, nutrition, and the gut microbiome where he has published senior authored manuscripts in Science, Science Translational Medicine, Cell Host & Microbe, PNAS, the Journal of Clinical Investigation, and Gastroenterology. Dr. Wu’s current research portfolio spans nearly 20 project grants from NIH, private foundations, industry partnerships, and intramural programs funded by $6 million dollars (directs) to his lab over the next 4 years in support of over $20 million in project funds to both Penn and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. He serves on multiple scientific advisory boards for digestive disease centers across the United States, National Institutes of Health, the National Academy of Sciences, the United States Department of Agriculture, as well as both the food and pharmaceutical industry on topics related to the gut microbiome, human health, diet, and nutrition. The research programs in the Wu laboratory focus on the mutualistic interactions between the gut microbiota and the host with a particular focus on metabolism. As a physician-scientist, he has gained international recognition for his highly innovative multidisciplinary team research approach to translational avenues of investigation that will help to guide the development of therapeutic strategies relevant to IBD and metabolic diseases.

Dr Peter Wu graduated in Medicine from the University of New South Wales in 2006 and completed his training in adult gastroenterology in 2014. He was awarded a PhD in 2018 for thesis where he investigated several novel diagnostic and therapeutic tools in the management of swallowing disorders. In 2019, Peter undertook a fellowship at Prince of Wales Hospital, Hong Kong, where he developed advanced therapeutic endoscopic skills with a focus in the third space endoscopy. During the same year, he commenced several ongoing international collaborative research projects evaluating novel therapeutic procedures as treatment for dysphagia. Peter currently works at St George Hospital, Sydney, where he serves as the director of the St George Motility Services, overseeing the clinical operation of the Swallow Clinic and GI Motility Laboratory.

Terry Yip is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine and Therapeutics at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. He graduated from The Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2014 with First Class Honor in B.Sc. in Statistics. He obtained his M.Phil. in Risk Management Science from The Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2016. In 2019, he obtained his PhD in Medical Sciences from The Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Dr. Yip’s main research interest is big data approaches on patients with chronic liver diseases including chronic hepatitis B and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. His research includes different subpopulations in chronic hepatitis B including patients with resolved chronic hepatitis B, and patients who received different antiviral treatment. He has over 100 publications in peer-reviewed journals including Gastroenterology, Gut, Journal of Hepatology, and Hepatology.

Jun Yu is Choh-Ming Li Professor of Medicine and Therapeutics, Assistant Dean of Faculty of Medicine, Director of Research Laboratory of Institute of Digestive Disease, and Associate Director of State Key Laboratory of Digestive Disease, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. She serves as Council Member of American Gastrointestinal Association (AGA) Oncology (2017-2018) and Council Member of AGA Microbiome and Microbial Diseases (2018-present), USA. Her research interests being molecular pathogenesis, microbiome and diagnostic biomarkers and therapeutic targets of gastrointestinal cancers. She has over 440 peer-reviewed publications (115 papers IF>10, h index=70). She obtained over 30 prestigious awards including Top 10 People in Global Intestinal Bacteria Study-Enthusiasm Daily 2019 List; He Liang He Li Science and Technology Progress Award 2018; AGA Council Research Mentor Award 2017; WuXi PharmaTech Life Science Award 2017; State Natural Science Award 2016; Croucher Senior Research Fellowship 2016; State Science and Technology Progress Award 2012.