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SHC 2026
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Si-rna-mediated HBSAG Reduction And Immune-based Therapy In Chronic Hepatitis B

Miss. Sreekantan Geetha Sreethu

sreethusreekantangeetha@gmail.com

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53.-Sreethu-AB-53

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Malaysian Society of Gastroenterology and Hepatology (MSGH)

Indonesian Association for Study of Liver (Ina ASL)

Thai Association for Study of Liver (THASL)

Myanmar Gastroenterology and Liver Society (MGLS)

Gastroenterological Society of Singapore (GESS)

GLF Myanmar

This program has been supported by an independent educational grant from Gilead Sciences, Inc.

Important links

Asia Pacific Association for Study of Liver (APASL)

© 2026 Singapore Hepatitis Conference Pte Ltd | All Rights Reserved

Dr. Ken Liu

Dr. Ken Liu (MBBS, BSc, PhD, FRACP) is a clinician scientist and staff specialist transplant hepatologist at the Australian National Liver Transplant Unit, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital (RPAH). Prior to becoming a consultant, he spent a year overseas as the hepatology fellow at The Chinese University of Hong Kong conducting clinical and laboratory research. He has also completed a laboratory-based PhD investigating novel systemic treatments to target tumour vasculature and immune response in primary liver cancer using mouse liver injury models. This work was awarded an NHMRC postgraduate scholarship and the Peter Bancroft Prize for Research.

Dr. Anand V Kulkarni

Dr. Anand V Kulkarni is a Hepatologist with a passion for treating patients with liver diseases and an experience of 4 years in this filed. He completed his DM in Hepatology in Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences (ILBS, New Delhi) which is a premier institute in Asia for liver care. He was awarded the Best Fellow by American Association for Study of Liver Disease (AASLD) for presenting the best research abstract and also awarded the Honorary membership of Asia Pacific Association for study of Liver (APASL). He was also awarded the academic excellence award from ILBS. He was selected as a core committee member of AASLD Portal Hypertension Education Special Interest Group. He is now elected as a core member of Liver transplantation Education group of AASLD. He has around 80+ publications to his credit of which many are in reputed international journals, such as Hepatology, JHep, AJG, APT, Liver international, NEJM and lancet. He is also an active reviewer for many journals around the world.

Prof. Bettina Elisabeth Hansen
PhD MSc, Professor of Clinical Biostatistics

Prof. Bettina Hansen is an internationally recognized biostatistician who leads large-scale clinical research projects related to chronic hepatitis, auto-immune liver diseases and rare liver diseases in children. Her work initiating international multi-center studies, and novel application of sophisticated statistical tools have transformed the understanding, clinical management, and treatment of liver conditions around the world.
The goals of her research program are to identify patients with complex diseases whose conditions will either devolve or improve with treatment, and to create pathways to drug discovery for rare, slowly progressing conditions which would otherwise be impossible to study.
Bettina Hansen holds a duo position at the dept of Epidemiology, Erasmus MC in Rotterdam, the Netherlands and at IHPME, University of Toronto, Canada. She has published over 400 peer-reviewed papers. More than 50 international PhDs have graduated under her supervision. She initiated the global real-world data collaborations: Global PBC Study Group, CaNAL, NAPPED and GALA and is leading the prospective PSC WIND project from PSC partners.

Dr. Atsushi Tanaka

Areas of Interest

Autoimmune Liver Diseases
Viral hepatitis
Liver Immunology and Genetics

Prof. Atsushi Tanaka was graduated with M.D. degree in 1988 from the University of Tokyo, Japan. After spending three years as residency at St. Luke’s International Hospital in Tokyo, he started his career as a researcher in liver diseases with a main focus on autoimmune liver diseases and viral hepatitis. He obtained his Ph.D. degree from the University of Tokyo in 1996, and thereafter he stayed at the University of California, Davis since 1996 to 1999 as a visiting scholar with M. Eric Gershwin, M.D., where he elucidated T cell mechanisms involved in the pathogenesis and progression of primary biliary cholangitis (PBC).
Coming back to Japan in 2000, he rose through the academic ranks to become a Professor of Medicine at the Teikyo University School of Medicine in 2011. His area of expertise is autoimmune liver diseases, especially PBC, PSC and AIH. He has authored 100 peer-reviewed manuscripts devoted to these topics. He has provided exceptional leadership to Japanese hepatology, including ongoing service as Secretary-General of the Drafting Committee for Hepatitis Management Guidelines of the Japan Society of Hepatology (JSH) and play a central role in publishing as well as revising the JSH Guidelines for the Management of HBV/HCV infection. Currently he also serves as a Secretary-General of the Intractable Hepatobiliary Disease Study Group supported by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare of Japan, and is one of the leaders for research of autoimmune liver diseases in Japan.

Prof. Tatsuya Kanto

Prof. Tatsuya Kanto, Director General of The Research Center for Hepatitis and Immunology at the National Center for Global Health and Medicine,

Dr. Kosh Agarwal

Dr. Kosh Agarwal is a Consultant Hepatologist and Transplant Physician at the Institute of Liver Studies, King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. He is also lead for the Viral Hepatitis service which is the largest treatment centre for the disease in the UK. He has accreditation in general internal medicine, gastroenterology and hepatology.
His specialist areas of interest and expertise are in the assessment and management of liver disease, specifically viral hepatitis (both Hepatitis B and C), hepatocellular cancer (HCC); the optimisation of end-stage liver disease symptoms in the context of assessment for liver transplantation and in pre-and post-transplant management of patients with liver disease.

Dr. Ruveena Bhavani Rajaram

Dr. Ruveena Bhavani Rajaram is a Consultant Gastroenterologist and Hepatologist & Internal Physician at University of Malaya Medical Centre. She graduated from University of Malaya in 2006, obtained Membership of Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow in 2012 and is a board-certified Gastroenterologist and Hepatologist since 2018. GI endoscopy (including therapeutic EUS and ERCP), pre and post liver transplantation care, advanced liver cirrhosis and its complications.

Prof. Lai Wei

Prof. Lai Wei is a Professor of Hepatology & Medicine, and is the Director of the Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Center at Beijing Tsinghua Changgung Hospital. His current research interests involve antiviral treatment of hepatitis B and C. Prof. Wei is the President of the Chinese Society of Hepatology. He served to develop the Chinese Guideline for Management of Hepatitis B, and Management, Diagnosis and Prevention of Hepatitis C virus Infection. In addition, Prof Wei is involved in Kidney Disease Improving Global Outcome to develop a Guideline for HCV Infection, Diagnosis, Prevention and Management in Kidney Disease and contributes to APASL for hepatitis C guideline.

Prof. Heiner Wedemeyer

Professor Heiner Wedemeyer is a full professor and Head and Chair of the Department of Gastroenterology, Hepatology, Infectious Diseases and Endocrinology at Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany. Professor Wedemeyer’s main interests are the immunopathogenesis of HBV, HCV, HDV, and HEV infections, as well as the development of novel immunomodulatory therapies, the hepatological treatment of acute and chronic liver diseases and the treatment of liver cancer that can lead to liver transplantation. He has been Principal Investigator on several Phase 1–4 clinical trials on antivirals and immunotherapies in viral hepatitis. Professor Wedemeyer has been involved in the scientific coordination of the German Network of Competence on Viral Hepatitis (Hep-Net) since 2002, and the German Liver Foundation since 2006.

Professor Wedemeyer has authored more than 530 original articles in international peer-reviewed journals, including several national and international guidelines on the management of HBV, HCV, HDV and hepatocellular carcinoma.

Prof. Harry Janssen

Prof. Harry Janssen is a Professor of the Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology at Erasmus MC, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.

Prof. Janssen has led numerous international multicenter clinical and translational studies on the natural history and treatment for chronic viral hepatitis and other liver diseases. His clinical and translational research aiming for immunological control and cure of hepatitis B and C has led to several globally used novel treatment concepts. He is currently the most cited global expert in chronic hepatitis B (Expertscape nr 1 among 28.932 scientists). His research contributions include sustained federal funding (greater than 20 years), over 600 peer reviewed publications, an H-index of 115, and over 60,000 citations (Google Scholar). He has acquired over $50 million USD in research funding from many different organizations among which NIH, European Commission, CIHR, NWO and ZonMW.

Dr. Calvin Koh

Dr Koh Jianyi, Calvin obtained his medical degree (MBBS) from the National University of Singapore and underwent further medical training at the National University Hospital, Singapore, in the division of gastroenterology and hepatology, completing his Advanced Specialist Training in gastroenterology.

Following completion of specialist training, he was awarded an Academic Medicine Development Award and undertook an advanced endoscopy fellowship under the auspices of the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy with the Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition at the University of Florida, USA to further his interest in interventional endoscopy.

Dr Koh is currently a Consultant at the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, as well as an Assistant Professor at NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine. He currently serves as the director of the Endoscopy Centre, at National University Hospital, Singapore, as well as a core faculty member for the gastroenterology training program. He is a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (London), as well as the American Society of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy.

His clinical and research interests are pancreatobiliary disease, gastric cancer, colon cancer and general gastroenterology/hepatology. Besides gastroscopy and colonoscopy, he also performs endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography, endoscopic ultrasound, endoscopic mucosal resection of polyps, small bowel enteroscopy.

Prof. Arun Sanyal

Prof. Arun Sanyal, M.D., is the interim Chair of the Department of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition and Professor of Medicine, Physiology and Molecular Pathology in the Division of Gastroenterology at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) Medical Center in Richmond, Virginia. Prof. Sanyal has recently been named Director of the Stravitz-Sanyal Institute for Liver Disease and Metabolic Health. Prof. Sanyal also serves as Chairman of the NIH NASH Clinical Research Network, the NIMBLE consortium and the Liver Forum for NASH and fibrosis. His research interests include all aspects of NAFLD and NASH as well as complications of cirrhosis and end stage liver disease. He has been continuously funded by the NIH since 1995 and has over 350 peer reviewed publications with a H-index of 116. He was also recently ranked in top 0.01% of medical scientists based on their impact on the field (PlosBio 2019). He has served in several leadership roles nationally and globally including Chair of the Hepatobiliary Pathophysiology Study Section of the NIH, Secretary and then President of the American Association for Study of Liver Disease, founding member of the American Board of Internal Medicine Transplant Hepatology board examination and member of WHO advisory council on viral hepatitis. He is the co-founder and academic chair of the Liver Forum which is a platform to bring regulatory agencies (FDA and EMA) with industry and academics to accelerate drug development for NASH and advanced liver disease. He is currently engaged in numerous clinical trials and leads several phase 2B and 3 trials for NASH as well as complications of end stage liver disease. His contributions have been recognized by receiving the Distinguished Mentorship Award from the American Gastroenterological Association and the Distinguished Scientific Achievement Award from the American Liver Foundation in 2017 and the Distinguished Achievement Award from the AASLD in 2018.

Prof. Ed Gane

Prof. Ed Gane, MBCHB, MD, FRACP, FRSNZ, FAASLD, MNZM
New Zealand Liver Transplant Unit
Auckland City Hospital, New Zealand

Prof. Gane is Professor of Medicine at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, Hepatologist and Deputy Director of the New Zealand Liver Unit at Auckland City Hospital.
Prof. Gane trained in hepatology at the Institute of Liver Studies, King’s College School of Medicine, London, where he completed his MD on the pathogenesis of hepatitis C-related liver injury. Prof. Gane chairs the Ministry of Health committee responsible for HCV elimination and co-wrote the first New Zealand National HepC Action Plan.
Prof. Gane is an investigator for many international clinical trials with particular interest in early phase development of new direct acting antiviral therapies against chronic hepatitis C, hepatitis B, NASH and HCC. He has published over 600 papers in peer-reviewed journals including The Lancet and The New England Journal of Medicine. Prof. Gane is a member of APASL, EASL, ILTS, ILCA and AASLD and is an Associate Editor for the Journal of Hepatology
In 2011, Prof. Gane received the New Zealand Health Research Council (NZHRC) annual Beaven Medal and in 2014, the NZHRC annual Liley Medal.
In 2011, Prof. Gane was awarded Member of the Order of New Zealand for Services to Medicine.
In 2017, Prof. Gane was named as New Zealand Innovator of the Year for his work towards HCV elimination in New Zealand.
In 2018, he was elected to the Royal Society of Medicine.

Prof. Pierce Chow

Pierce Chow is Professor and Program Director at the Duke-NUS Medical School and Senior Consultant Surgeon at the National Cancer Centre Singapore (NCCS) and the Singapore General Hospital. He is concurrently a National Medical Research Council (NMRC) funded Senior Clinician-Scientist and was the founding President of the College of Clinician Scientists, Academy of Medicine Singapore. Prof Chow was conferred the Chapter of Surgeon’s Gold Medal in the conjoint FRCSE/MMed examination in 1995, and after completing his surgical residency and PhD, he trained in liver transplantation with Professor Russell Strong in Australia. Pierce leads the multi-disciplinary NMRC TCR National Flagship Program in Liver Cancer. In 2020, he was awarded an A*STAR IAF-ICP grant to conduct a nation-wide 2000-patient cohort study to develop diagnostics for early detection of hepatocellular carcinoma in high-risk patients. Pierce is also a faculty member at the Genome Institute of Singapore, the SingHealth Duke-NUS Global Health Institute and Research Director at the Institute of Cell and Molecular Biology Singapore. Prof Chow was conferred the NMRC National Outstanding Clinician Scientist Award in 2012 for improving clinical outcomes with his research on Liver Cancer.

Prof. Yock Young Dan

Chief Executive Officer, NTFGH & JCH

Associate Professor Dan Yock Young is the Chief Executive Officer of Ng Teng Fong General Hospital (NTFGH) and Jurong Community Hospital (JCH). He was the Deputy Director-General of Health (DDGH) at the Ministry of Health (MOH) since 2020, and oversaw the healthcare services organisation and provision in public hospitals and primary care, as well as the integration with community partners.

A/Prof Dan co-led efforts in healthcare transformation, specifically at the re-organisation of primary care and the establishment of longitudinal care models to be future-ready for Singapore’s healthcare needs.

A gastroenterologist by training, A/Prof Dan was previously a Deputy Chairman, Medical Board, and the University Medicine Cluster Chair and Head of Department of Medicine, at the National University Hospital (NUH), where he led the largest clinical and academic department in the hospital to deliver high standards of clinical services.

Committed to grooming the next generation of clinicians, A/Prof Dan is also a well-respected educator who has held concurrent appointments on the Residency Advisory Committees for Internal Medicine and Gastroenterology, and chairs the Master of Medicine/MRCP (Internal Medicine) Committee, under the Division of Graduate Medical Studies at the National University of Singapore.

With a special interest in Liver Stem Cell and non-alcoholic liver disease, A/Prof Dan was awarded the A*STAR International Fellowship to research on liver stem cells and liver regeneration. He is a clinician scientist with interests in the cost-effectiveness of clinical treatments, liver progenitor cells and their therapeutic applications as well as pathogenesis and treatment targets in liver failure. He has won numerous awards at both local and international conferences and has authored over 150 publications and review articles in Gastroenterology and Hepatology journals.

Prof. Thomas Tu

Prof. Thomas Tu is a molecular biologist with a particular focus on integrated Hepatitis B virus DNA and its role in disease progression. He currently leads a research group at the Westmead Institute for Medical Research in the Storr Liver Centre (Sydney, Australia), where his team focuses on persistent forms of the Hepatitis B virus (covalently closed circular DNA and integrated HBV DNA). He is particularly passionate about developing a HBV cure and mitigating the associated liver cancer, as he himself lives with chronic Hepatitis B.
Prof. Tu is currently President of the Australian Centre for Hepatitis Virology (ACHV), the premier Australian society for hepatitis virus researchers. He is also board member of Hepatitis Australia, guiding the strategic direction of the peak national advocacy body for people with liver disease. Finally, Prof. Tu is founder and Executive Director of HepBCommunity.org (a global support network for people affected with HBV), guiding people through their HBV diagnosis and linking them with trustworthy scientific and medical information.

Prof. Vincent Wong

MBChB (Hons), MD (CUHK), FRCP (Edin), FHKCP, FHKAM (Medicine)
Professor, Dept. of Medicine & Therapeutics Head, Div. of Gastroenterology and Hepatology
Director, Cheng Suen Man Shook Centre for Hepatitis Research Deputy Director, Center for Liver Health
Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong Honorary Consultant, Prince of Wales Hospital, Hospital Authority
Vincent Wong, MD, is a Professor in the Department of Medicine and Therapeutics at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, where he undertakes research on aspects of viral hepatitis and
non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). Along with authoring over 350 articles in international medical journals, Prof. Wong is a pioneer in the development of hepatocellular carcinoma prediction scores and has performed important validation studies on the non-invasive assessment of NAFLD by transient elastography.

Dr Dean Tai

Co-founder & Chief Scientific Officer (CSO)
As the CSO of HistoIndex, Dean is responsible for the strategic product development and worldwide research collaboration. Together with his HistoIndex co-founder, Dr. Gideon Ho, Dean has successfully launched the company’s platform technology in multiple global clinical studies. He has established multi-centre clinical trials with key opinion leaders, and successfully coordinated clinical validation worldwide using HistoIndex’s proprietary imaging and analysis technology .

George Goh

Dr. George Goh is a Senior Consultant Gastroenterologist and Hepatologist at the Singapore General Hospital. After Gastroenterology specialist training at Singapore General Hospital, he underwent further advanced subspecialty training in Hepatology at the Cleveland Clinic (USA), with a research focus on non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). He returned to establish a dedicated Metabolic Liver Clinic with multi-disciplinary involvement that helps to identify, prognosticate and manage patients with severe NAFLD. In addition, he remains actively involved in research and is the local Principal Investigator of several ongoing international NAFLD trials. He has published in the fields of NAFLD, liver cirrhosis, hepatocellular carcinoma and organ transplantation, and has been an invited faculty at both local and international conferences.
Dr Goh is an appointed Clinical Associate Professor at Duke-NUS Medical School and Clinical Lecturer at Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore. He is the current Chairman of the National Foundation of Digestive Disease (NFDD), which aims to increase awareness of such diseases among the general public.

Prof. Lim Seng Gee

Prof. Lim Seng Gee currently serves as a Senior Consultant and Director of Hepatology at the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, and a Senior Consultant at the Adult Liver Transplantation Programme, National University Centre for Organ Transplantation in National University Hospital, Singapore. He is an expert panel member, Centre for Drug Administration (CPA) and Centre for Drug Evaluation (CDE) at the Ministry of Health, Singapore and the Chairman of Singapore Hepatitis Conference since 2014. He is also a Professor in the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore.

Prof Lim attained his basic medical degree with honours (MBBS Hons) from the University of Monash, Melbourne, Australia. He later pursued a doctorate degree (MD) in Monash and was awarded the FRACP (Australia), FRCP (London), FAMS (Gasteroenterology, Singapore).

He is considered a master clinician having trained over 40 gastroenterologists and hepatologists, and is regularly referred difficult to treat liver cases. His main clinical work focuses on the treatment of viral hepatitis (esp. B and C), liver disease and liver cancer.

Prof Lim’s research activities include leadership in Hepatology research, which focuses on improving treatment for chronic hepatitis B and C, pathophysiology of hepatitis B disease, HBV virology, immunological mechanisms of HBeAg seroconversion, and loss of immune tolerance to hepatitis B virus. He also has an interest in pathophysiology and treatment of liver cancer, primary hepatocyte culture, hepatocyte function, drug related liver disease and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.

Prof Lim has over 253 publications in peer-reviewed journals with a H-index of 51, and sits on the editorial board of Liver International Hepatology, International, J Viral Hepatitis, Alimentary Pharmacology and Therapeutics, and Lancet Gastroenterology and Hepatology. He has received over S$48 million in research grants.

Prof Lim also sits on the Advisory Board of Novartis Pharmaceuticals, Idenix Pharmaceuticals, Bristol Myers Squibb Pharmaceuticals and is on the Speaker’s Bureau for GlaxoSmithKline and Schering Plough Pharmaceuticals. Prof Lim has been an invited speaker at AASLD, EASL and APASL in 2013, 2014 and is a regular speaker at numerous International and Regional meetings on liver disease and viral hepatitis.

Prof Lim is also an Evidence Based Medicine (EBM) Champion, having founded the annual Asia Pacific EBM workshop in 2004 together with Prof Tony Dans from the Philippines which still runs yearly, and actively teaches and contributes to the development of EBM in Singapore.

Prof Lim is Council member, International Coalition for Eradication of Hepatitis B Virus (ICE-HBV), AASLD Asia Pacific Regional Council member, Co-chair ICE-HBV treatment subcommittee, and Co-chair combination therapy subcommittee HBV Forum.

Dr. Jian-Gao Fan

Qualifications:
MD, PhD

Dr. Jian-Gao Fan received his B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in 1994 at the Shandong Medical University, and his Ph.D. in 1997 at the Shanghai Second Medical University, respectively, both in China. He was a Gastroenterologist and then also Associate Professor at Shanghai 1 st People’s Hospital from 1997 to 2007. He was a Visiting Scholar of Australian National University Medical School (Canberra, Australia) from 2007 to 2008. Then and up to now, he is Professor and Director of Center for Fatty Liver & Department of Gastroenterology at Xinhua Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, and Principle Investigator of Shanghai Key Lab of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition. Currently, he is president of Chronic Disease Management Branch of China Pharmaceutical Biotechnology Association, and president of Committee on Fatty Liver Diseases, Chinese Physicians' Association. He is an editor-in-chief of Chinese Journal of Practical Hepatology, and a member of the editorial board of more than 20 journals, including associate editor-in-chief of World J Gastroenterol, Clin Mol Hepatol., J Clin Trans Hepatol. His main research interests are in the fields of metabolic syndrome and chronic liver diseases. He has published over 800 peer-reviewed academic papers (including over 150 articles in SCI journals as the first and/or correspondent author, i.e, Nat Rev Gastroenterol Hepatol, Gastroenterology, Hepatology, J Hepatol, and 10 book chapters in English) with H-index 85, and 20 books as editor-in-chief, i.e, 1 st & 2 nd Edition, Fatty Liver Disease in China People’s Medical Publishing House. He was co-chairman of the Biennial Shanghai International Forum on Digestive Diseases between 2010-2022, and invited speaker in 17 countries and regions.

Dr. Guan Huei Lee

Designations:

Senior Consultant, Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Department of Medicine, National University Hospital
Senior Consultant, Liver Transplantation, National University Centre for Organ Transplantation, National University Hospital
Medical Director, Adult Liver Transplantation Programme, National University Centre for Organ Transplantation, NUH
Research Director, Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Department of Medicine, National University Hospital

Qualifications:
MBBS (S’pore), MRCP (UK), FRCP Ed (UK), Ph.D. (S’pore)

Specialties:
Medicine, Organ Transplantation

Sub-specialties:
Gastroenterology ＆ Hepatology, Liver Transplantation

Special Interests:
Viral hepatitis, Liver failure, Liver transplantation, Liver cirrhosis, Fatty liver disease.

Biosketch
Dr. Guan-Huei Lee graduated from the National University of Singapore (NUS), and completed his advance specialist training in Gastroenterology in 2009. He received further training a clinical fellow at the Institute of Liver Studies, King’s College Hospital, London, focusing on liver intensive care. He received his PhD from NUS in 2014. He was awarded Fellowship of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh in 2015.

Dr. Lee has helped to strengthen the clinical and research capabilities of the Division of Gastroenterology & Hepatology, National University Hospital (NUH), particularly in the management of liver failure and liver transplantation. He is serving dual role as Deputy Head, Division of Gastroenterology & Hepatology, and Medical Director, Adult Liver Transplantation Programme, National University Centre for Organ Transplantation (NUCOT).

Dr. Lee’s research work centers on the application of innovations in technology and biomedical science to the field of Hepatology. His current work focuses on developing novel targets to achieve functional cure of chronic hepatitis B. His other research interest includes liver failure, liver cancer, fatty liver and chronic hepatitis E. He has published multiple peer-reviewed research articles in such top-tier journals as the Gastroenterology, Gut, and Molecular & Cellular Biology. His research work has been presented at the major meetings of such organisations as the APASL, EASL, ILTS, and AASLD. He is an investigator of several competitive research grants including the Translational & Clinical Research Flagship (TCR) Programme grant, Clinician Scientist-Individual Research Grant (CS-IRG) and was awarded the NMRC Clinician Scientist Award (CSA).

Personal hobbies and interests: Reading, Tennis, Photography, Hiking and Mountain Climbing.

Dr. Daniel Huang

Dr. Daniel Q. Huang graduated from NUS Medicine and completed specialty training in Gastroenterology and Hepatology. Presently, Dr. Huang is an Assistant Professor at the National University of Singapore and a transplant hepatologist at the National University Hospital. He leads hepatocellular carcinoma research in the Division of Gastroenterology.
Dr. Huang’s research interest is in the early detection and prevention of hepatocellular carcinoma in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and viral hepatitis. Dr. Huang is working on non-invasive strategies to detect and risk stratify chronic liver disease and hepatocellular carcinoma by leveraging advanced imaging-, genomic-, RNA-, meta-analytic-, and microbiome-based approaches. He has published more than 160 peer-reviewed articles, with first or corresponding author publications in journals such as Cell Metabolism, Gut, Gastroenterology, Hepatology, Nature Reviews Gastroenterology and Hepatology, the Lancet Gastroenterology and Hepatology, and the Lancet Oncology. He has received awards for his research from the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD), and the European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL). Dr. Huang has been an invited speaker at the annual scientific meetings of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD), the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), and the Asia Pacific Association for the Study of the Liver (APASL). He currently serves on the editorial board of Alimentary Pharmacology and Therapeutics. Dr Huang is serving as the Hepatology co-chair of the Asia Pacific Association of Gastroenterology Emerging Leaders Committee, and on a guidelines writing committee for the American Gastroenterology Association.

Dr. Mark Muthiah

Qualifications:
MBBS (S’pore), MRCP (UK), M.Med (Int Med, S’pore).

Biosketch
Dr Mark Muthiah is a Consultant specialising in Gastroenterology and Hepatology at the National University Hospital, Singapore. He graduated from the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, and did his postgraduate residency training in NUH. He completed his fellowship in Gastroenterology and Hepatology, and was certified by the Specialist Accreditation Board of Singapore in 2016.

Dr Muthiah has a keen interest in liver transplants, and is a member of the liver transplant team at the National University Hospital, Singapore. He is also skilled in diagnostic and therapeutic endoscopy, and is involved in colon cancer screening and endoscopic mucosal resection (EMR) of colon polyps.

Dr Muthiah’s research interest is in cellular therapies to reverse liver fibrosis and promote liver regeneration, and is actively involved in basic and translational research on this subject. He is also the principal investigator for ongoing studies in the field of liver cirrhosis and liver transplantation. He has received awards for his research at both regional and international conferences.

Dr Muthiah is actively involved in medical education for undergraduates, postgraduates, dentistry students, and pharmacy students. He has received numerous teaching awards from NUH, as well as the Outstanding Tutor Award from the Medical Student Society at the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine.

Dr. Mark Muthiah

Adj Prof Muthiah graduated from the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore. He subsequently undertook specialist training in Internal Medicine, Gastroenterology, and Hepatology, graduating as the valedictorian of his cohort. He undertook further research training in Hepatology in Virginia Commonwealth University, USA.

Prof Muthiah has a keen interest in Hepatology and liver transplantation and is currently the Medical Director of the Liver Transplantation Programme in the National University Hospital (NUH), Singapore. His research interest is in the interplay of cardiometabolic diseases and the liver, and he has published extensively on the topic, with more than 200 publications including lead author publications in top tier journals. He leads the Metabolic Liver Laboratory focused on translational research in metabolic dysfunction associated steatohepatitis (MASH). He is also actively involved in medical education, having served as the co-director of the final year undergraduate medical school programme in NUH, and has received numerous teaching awards from the university.

Dr. Prem H Thurairajah

Qualifications:
MBBS (India), MRCP (UK), PhD (UK)

Biosketch
Dr. Thurairajah graduated from Kasturba Medical College in India in 1997. He subsequently pursued training in Internal Medicine in the United Kingdom which culminated with membership to the Royal College of Physicians (MRCP) in 2002. He trained in Gastroenterology and Hepatology at the West Midlands Deanery, Birmingham, UK and completed two fellowship stints, his first in Transplant Hepatology at the Liver Unit at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham and his second in Hepatobiliary endoscopy (ERCP and EUS) at the University College of London (UCL) before obtained his Completion of Certificate in Specialist Training (CCST) in 2011. He completed a period of research leading to a Doctorate in Philosophy (PhD) in the field of Hepatitis C in 2010. He is well published in peer reviewed journals and continues to engage in clinical research.

He worked as a Consultant Transplant Hepatologist at St. James University Hospital, Leeds, UK in 2012 before moving to the Liver Transplant Unit at the University of Kentucky, USA as an Assistant Professor in Medicine where he served for 2 years. He moved to Singapore in 2014 and worked at Changi General Hospital , where he set up a treatment programme for Chronic Hepatitis C and served as the Director of Hepatology.

Adj. A/Prof. Chee Cheng Ean

Adj. A/Prof. Chee Cheng Ean graduated from the University College London (UCL) Medical School, London, UK with a Bachelor of Science (Hons) in Tumour Biology in 2001 and MBBS (Lond) in 2004. She then pursued her post-graduate training in the US by completing her residency in Internal Medicine (2008) and fellowship in Haematology and Oncology (2011) at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. She was also appointed as Chief Fellow of the Mayo Clinic Haematology/Oncology Fellowship Program and promoted to Assistant Professor of Medicine and Oncology during her time at Mayo Clinic. Prof. Chee subsequently joined the Division of Haematology/Oncology at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, USA as an attending physician and Assistant Professor of Medicine.

Her clinical research portfolio includes a novel biomarker study in colorectal cancer which was awarded institutional and national grant funding. She also developed and was Principal Investigator and national study chair of a Phase I/II US cooperative group clinical trial of a Wee1 inhibitor in pancreas cancer which received full support and endorsement by the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG)-American College of Radiology Imaging Network (ACRIN) and Cancer Therapy Evaluation Program (CTEP) of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) in the US. Her work in pancreas cancer lead to her appointment as the ECOG representative to the Pancreatic Cancer Task Force of the NCI Gastrointestinal Steering Committee. She has many publications in peer-reviewed journals and has been invited as a journal reviewer in her field.

Prof. Chee is a specialist in medical oncology and currently practices as a senior consultant medical oncologist and clinician scientist, and also holds the Deputy Director (Clinical) position at the National University Cancer Institute, Singapore. She is board certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) in Internal Medicine, Medical Oncology and Haematology.

Prof. Chee’s interests are in cancers of the gastrointestinal (GI) tract which includes colorectal cancer, liver and pancreas cancers, cancers of the biliary tract, stomach and oesophageal cancers. She is also interested in drug development of novel agents and phase I trials.

Prof. Rohit Loomba

Dr. 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 translational research and innovative clinical trial design in nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), and non-invasive assessment of NAFLD using advanced imaging modalities.

Dr. Loomba is the founding director of the UCSD NAFLD Research Center where his team is conducting cutting edge research in all aspects of NAFLD including non-invasive biomarkers, genetics, epidemiology, clinical trial design, imaging end-points, and integrated OMICs using microbiome, metabolome and lipidome. This integrated approach has led to 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 a patent on non-invasive biomarkers of NASH and fibrosis.

His research is funded by the National Institutes of Health including three R01s, three U01 (two NIDDK and one from NIAAA), core director of P30 (NIDDK) and project director P01 (NHLBI) 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 recently completed a 5-year term as the Deputy Editor of HEPATOLOGY, the official journal of the AASLD. Currently, he serves as the co-Editor of Alimentary Pharmacology and Therapeutics, an international journal in the field of gastroenterology and Hepatology.

Dr. Loomba has published more than 350 manuscripts and has an H-index of 99. He is among the top 1% of the globally highly cited scientists across all fields in 2019, 2020 and 2021 by Web of Science. He is an elected member of American Society of Clinical Investigation.

Prof. Man Fung Yuen

MD, PhD, DSc

Professor Yuen is now the Chair and Chief of the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology in the University of Hong Kong. He obtained his first bachelor degree of medicine in 1992. He further pursued his academic excellence through the achievement of obtaining 3 doctoral degrees including Doctor of Medicine with Sir Patrick Manson Gold Medal in 2001, Doctor of Philosophy in 2005 and Doctor of Science in 2017.

Professor Yuen’s research interests include prevention, natural history, serology, virology and treatment of chronic hepatitis B and C, and hepatocellular carcinoma. He is one of the top internationally renowned researchers in the field of hepatitis B disease. He has now published more than 490 papers in world renowned medical journals including New England Journal of Medicine, Lancet, Nature Medicine, Lancet Infectious Diseases, Lancet Oncology.

As a world-class clinician scientist, Professor Yuen is now leading most of the international trials examining new drugs including antiviral and immunomodulatory agents for the treatment of chronic hepatitis B. He is also actively performing cutting edge research on novel markers for hepatitis B infection and occult hepatitis B infection.

With all these international academic and professional achievements, Professor Yuen is an invited member serving as key opinion leader for several international coalition committees on hepatitis B disease.

Prof. Glenn Bonney

A/Prof Glenn Kunnath Bonney is the Director of Research, Department of Surgery at National University Hospital and the Director of SurgiCAL ProtEomics Laboratory, National University of Singapore. He attained his undergraduate medical degree in 2002 (MB ChB) from the University of Leeds, United Kingdom. Having completed Basic Surgical Training he was awarded Membership of the Royal College of Surgeons of England (MRCS) in 2006, he undertook a postgraduate research degree at Cancer Research UK to identify markers in bile for malignancy of the liver, while continuing clinical work at the Hepatobiliary and Transplantation Unit at St James’ University Hospital, Leeds. His proteomic based research culminated in a Doctorate of Medicine (MD) in 2008.

Having obtained a National Training Number, he subsequently undertook Higher Surgical Training in Birmingham, doing his specialist training at the University Hospitals of Birmingham, one of the largest liver transplant, liver and pancreas resection units in Europe. He became a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 2014.

He has numerous publications, presentations and invited lectures in liver transplantation, hepatocellular carcinoma, colorectal liver metastasis and pancreas cancer. With this experience, he was awarded a grant by the Royal College of Surgeons of England to pursue a 1 year fellowship for the investigation of the molecular biology of Hepatocellular Carcinoma at the National University Hospital Singapore (2013/14). On returning to the UK, he completed his surgical training and following a period as a Hepatobiliary and Transplant Surgeon, he returned to the National University Hospital Singapore.

A/Prof Bonney’s primary interest is in surgery for primary and secondary malignancies of the liver, pancreas and gallbladder, donor/recipient matching for liver transplantation and extending donor criteria. His clinical research has resulted in him receiving the Presidential Award of the International Hepatopancreaticobiliary Association (Seoul 2014).

Prof. Pei-Jer Chen

Graduate Institute of Clinical Medicine, National Taiwan University and Hospital.
No 7 Chung-Shan South Road,
Taipei, Taiwan

Professor Chen was appointed Director of the Hepatitis Research Center at the National Taiwan University Hospital in Taipei in 2001-2003, and now the faculty for Graduate Institute of Clinical Medicine, National Taiwan University. He was the President of Taiwan Association for Study of the Liver (TASL) from 2012 to 2013. He served as the President of Taiwan Society of Virology from 2016-2018.

His research interests focus on the molecular virology and immunology of hepatitis viruses, and the genetic and genomic study of hepatocellular carcinoma. Professor Chen’s clinical research covers the natural history of chronic viral hepatitis and hepatocellular carcinoma, and also explores and conducts new therapies and trials for both diseases. He has published over 630 articles in the areas of hepatitis and hepatocellular carcinoma.

He serves in the Editorial Board of Gastroenterology between 2017-2019. From 2001 to 2006 and then 2010-2011, was a member of the editorial board of the journal Hepatology and is reappointed from 2019-2021. In 2000, Professor Chen was awarded the International Research Scholar in Infectious Diseases by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute for a period of five years. He has been elected into Academia Sinica in year 2006, and become the TAWS member in year 2011.

Prof. Ann-Lii Cheng

Professor Ann-Lii Cheng is a Distinguish Professor at the National Taiwan University and Emeritus Superintendent of the National Taiwan University Cancer Centre. He remains an attending physician in the Department of Onctology and Internal Medicine, National Taiwan University Hospital.

He has contributed significantly to the basic knowledge and clinical application of molecular targeted therapy and immunotherapy in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Living in the part of the world plagued by HCC, Prof. Cheng has devoted his career to substantiating a solution. Since 2004, he has been involved in the development of sorafenib and lenvatinib, two pivotal drugs in the first-line treatment of HCC, and recently the discovery of a new regimen, atezolizumab plus bevacizumab, which is considered an epoch-making breakthrough in this field. His research team at National Taiwan University has been recognized as one of the most prominent translational research groups in exploring the frontier of HCC treatment.

Prof. Toh Han Chong

Dr Toh is Senior Consultant and former Head at the Department of Medical Oncology and now Deputy Medical Director (Strategic Partnerships), National Cancer Centre, Singapore. He graduated from the University of London, UK with an intercalated Bachelor of Science in ‘Infection and Immunity’ from St Mary’s Hospital Medical School and qualified as a medical doctor from University of Cambridge, UK. Dr Toh obtained his Fellowship of the Royal College of Physicians in 2003. He received his medical oncology fellowship training at the Singapore General Hospital, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA and at the Center for Cell and Gene Therapy, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas, USA. Dr Toh is also alumni at the Harvard Business School. He is currently the vice-chairman of the Oncology Academic Clinical Program (ACP) for Education.

He is a recipient of the National Clinician Scientist Award for his pioneering work in cell therapy for cancer. He conducted the first cancer vaccine and T cell therapy clinical trials in Singapore, and continues to work actively in the field of cancer immunotherapy, immunology and inflammation. He also had a strong interest in drug development for gastrointestinal cancers including colon and liver cancer. Dr Toh is an Associate Professor and College Master at the Duke-NUS Medical School. He is also an adjunct Principal Investigator at the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, A*STAR. He was a council member in the Singapore Medical Association and the Singapore College of Physicians.

Prof. Hashem el-Serag

Hashem B. El-Serag, M.D., M.P.H.
Margaret M. and Albert B. Alkek Professor and Chair Department of Medicine
Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas

Dr. El-Serag obtained his medical degree from Al-Arab Medical University in Libya, completed his internship and residency in internal medicine (1995) at Greenwich Hospital, Yale University, Connecticut, and completed a fellowship in gastroenterology (1997) at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he also earned a master’s degree in public health (1998). In 1999, Dr. El-Serag joined the Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center and Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) in Houston, where he later became Chief of the Section of Gastroenterology & Hepatology (2007-2016). In 2017, he was appointed as Chair of the Department of Medicine at BCM.

Dr. El-Serag’s research focuses on the clinical epidemiology and outcomes of several digestive disorders, including Barrett’s esophagus, esophageal adenocarcinoma, hepatocellular carcinoma and hepatitis C. He has obtained >60 funded research grants including those from NIH, VA and Cancer Prevention Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT). He has >540 published papers to his credit including those published in New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, Annals of Internal Medicine and Gastroenterology. His national leadership roles included Editor-in-Chief for Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology (2012-2017) and President of American Gastroenterological Association (2019). Dr. El-Serag’s has been selected into the American Society for Clinical Investigators (ASCI) and American Association of Physicians (AAP).

Dr. Asim Shabbir

Asst Prof. Asim Shabbir is a Senior Consultant with the Division of General Surgery (Upper Gastrointestinal Surgery) at the National University Hospital, Singapore. He is also Head of General Surgery at Alexandra Hospital.

He completed his basic and advance surgical training at NUH, Singapore. He was awarded fellowships from Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and was accredited a surgical specialist by the Specialist accreditation board in 2007. In 2009, he did a clinical fellowship on Gastric cancer management with special interest in laparoscopic surgery for gastric cancer at the Seoul National University Hospital, South Korean. In 2010, he trained at Eda Hospital, I Shou University Kaohsiung, Taiwan in Bariatric and Metabolic surgery and was awarded as Fellowship.

Asst Prof. Asim’s specialty is general surgery and his special interests are upper gastrointestinal surgery, bariatric & metabolic surgery, advance endoscopy and laparoscopic surgery. He has been active in international as well as local meeting of his interest. His research interest includes obesity, surgery for type 2 diabetes and gastric cancer. He won the Best free paper award for his presentation “Laparoscopic Roux-en-Y Gastric Bypass for the Treatment of Type II Diabetes Mellitus in Chinese Patients with Body 25-35kg/m2at Asia Pacific metabolic bariatric surgical society meeting 2010. He has published in reputed journals in his field of interest.

Prof. Jia Jidong

Jidong Jia is currently Professor of Medicine, Director of Liver Research Center, Beijing Friendship Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China. Professor Jia is the immediate past President of the International Association for the Study of the Liver(IASL), past President of Asian Pacific Association for the Study of the Liver (APASL 2009-2010) and Chinese Society of Hepatology (CSH 2006-2012). Professor Jia also serves as Associate Editor for Hepatology International and served as Associate Editor for Journal of Gastroenterology & Hepatology and Liver International. As a hepatologist, his clinical interests include viral, cholestatic/autoimmune and genetic liver diseases. His research work focuses mainly on cellular and molecular biology of the extracellular matrix of the liver and the pathogenesis and therapeutic study of experimental liver fibrosis. In addition, Dr. Jia has been PI or sub-PI for many clinical trials and also heavily engaged in the teaching of clinical research methodology for residents and fellows in clinical medicine. He has authored or co-authored more than one hundred papers published in national and international journals including Gastroenterology, Gut, Hepatology, and Journal of Hepatology.

Dr. Jonathan Lee

Consultant, Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Department of Medicine, National University Hospital

Dr. Alfred Kow

Dr. Alfred Kow is a practicing surgeon at the Division of Hepatobiliary & Pancreatic Surgery, NUH.

Dr. Kow obtained his Master of Medicine (Surgery), Master of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and Ireland diplomas in 2005 and subsequently, completed his advanced surgical training in Tan Tock Seng Hospital. In 2009, he obtained his Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (General Surgery) in Hong Kong. He was also accorded Specialist accreditation in General Surgery by Ministry of Health, Singapore in the same year.

He received the funding from National University Health System in 2010 to undergo fellowship training in living donor liver transplantation (LDLT) and hepatobiliary & pancreatic surgical oncology in Samsung Medical Center & Samsung Cancer Center, Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine in Seoul, South Korea. During his one-year stay in Korea, he authored or co-authored 6 peer-reviewed journals.

He has also published numerous articles on pancreatic surgery, liver surgery and biliary surgery at peer reviewed journals and written a book chapter. Dr. Kow is strongly interested in liver transplantation (both deceased donor and living donor) as well as minimally invasive (laparoscopic) surgery for hepatobiliary and pancreatic conditions.

In addition, Dr. Kow has keen interest in research activities involving development of surgical techniques in HPB surgery and outcome of surgical treatment for HPB malignancies. The other areas that he is keen to research on are liver transplantation, peri-transplant management and outcome studies.

Furthermore, he is also actively developing research to help improve surgical education and training for both undergraduate and postgraduate setting. Most of his research work on education aim to understand the art and science behind training junior doctors to be excellent surgeons for the future. He has previously won grants to study the use of mobile applications in teaching patient safety in surgery.

Dr. Raghav Sundar

Dr. Raghav Sundar is a clinician-scientist specialising in gastrointestinal oncology. He is a consultant medical oncologist at the National University Cancer Institute, Singapore, treating patients with gastrointestinal malignancies including colorectal, gastric and hepatobiliary malignancies. He also specialises in experimental therapeutics and early phase clinical trials, and is a part of the Phase 1 clinical trials team. He underwent fellowship training at the Drug Development Unit, Royal Marsden Hospital, UK. His research interest is in genomics of gastric cancer.

He studies the interaction between the tumor epigenome and the immune microenvironment. His work has identified predictive biomarkers of systemic therapy in gastric cancer as well as potential therapeutic targets. His studies incorporate contemporary technology such as spatial transcriptomics and machine-learning. Another area of research interest is in chemotherapy induced peripheral neuropathy. As a translational clinician-scientist his works arches across several domains, collaborating with engineers, bioinformaticians, laboratory scientists, pharmaceutical and industry partners. He has published over 50 manuscripts, in high impact journals such as Cancer Discovery and Gut and secured over $4 million in grant funding to date.

Prof. Teerha Piratvisuth

Professor of Medicine, Prince Songkla University, Hat Yai, Thailand and Director of NKC Institute of Gastroenterology and Hepatology Songklanagarind Hospital, Hat Yai.

Professor. Teerha Piratvisuth is affiliated to NKC Institute of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Prince of Songkla University, where he is currently working as Professor. He has authored and co-authored several national and international publications and also working as a reviewer for reputed professional journals. He has an active association with different societies and academies around the world. Professor. Teerha Piratvisuth major research interest involves NKC Institute of Gastroenterology and Hepatology.

Dr. James Fung

James Fung is a Consultant at the Department of Medicine, and the Transplant Hepatologist at the Liver Transplant Centre, Queen Mary Hospital, Hong Kong. He graduated from the University of Auckland School of Medicine in 1997. In 2011 he attained his Doctor of Medicine studying non-invasive assessment of liver fibrosis. He has published widely and is a regular reviewer for major gastroenterology journals and a regular speaker. His main research interest includes viral hepatitis, liver fibrosis, advanced liver disease, hepatocellular carcinoma, and liver transplantation.

Prof. Guadalupe Garcia Tsao

Guadalupe Garcia-Tsao, M.D., professor of medicine (digestive diseases), is the new president-elect of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases. Garcia-Tsao is a staff physician at the VA Connecticut Healthcare System, where she is chief of the Section of Digestive Diseases and program director of the Hepatitis C Resource Center. She is also director of the Clinical Core of the NIH-funded Liver Center at Yale. Garcia-Tsao earned her medical degree from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and completed her internal medicine residency and gastroenterology fellowship at the Instituto Nacional de la Nutrición in Mexico City. She completed her training in hepatology at Yale and joined the faculty in 1989.

Prof. Rajender Reddy

Dr. Reddy is the Ruimy Family President’s Distinguished Professor of Medicine and Professor of Medicine in Surgery in the Division of Gastroenterology/Hepatology at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He is the Director of Hepatology, Medical Director of Liver Transplantation, and the Director of the Viral Hepatitis Center.

Dr. Reddy received his medical education from Osmania Medical College in Hyderabad, India. He then completed a residency in internal medicine at NewYork Medical College Hospitals, a fellowship in Gastroenterology at East Tennessee State University College of Medicine, and a fellowship in Hepatology at the University Of Miami School Of Medicine. Subsequently he joined the faculty at the University of Miami and in October 2001, Dr.Reddy moved to the University of Pennsylvania to the current position.

A Fellow of the American College of Physicians, American College of Gastroenterology, and the Royal College of Physicians (UK), Dr. Reddy is also a Fellow and Councilor-at-Large of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases. He has held several Visiting Professorships at Medical Schools throughout the World. He has trained several fellows and mentored numerous research assistants throughout his career.

Dr. Reddy has authored or co-authored over 350 peer-reviewed papers on a spectrum of hepatobiliary topics that include liver transplantation, chronic C viral hepatitis, HIV and the liver, and hepatocellular carcinoma. In addition, he has edited and contributed to several text books, and has participated in numerous scientific presentations at National and International meetings. He serves on the editorial boards of prestigious journals such as Liver Transplantation, Hepatology, Liver International, and is an ad-hoc reviewer for several journals.

Dr. Reddy also has participated in a number of clinical trials that have advanced the understanding of the therapy of chronic viral hepatitis. He has been the recipient of both federal and non-federal funding for clinical research. His current research interests include areas of liver transplantation, viral hepatitis, and hepatocellular carcinoma.

Prof. Pietro Lampertico

Pietro Lampertico, MD, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Gastroenterology, Director of the Gastroenterology and Hepatology Division, and Head of the A.M. e A. Migliavacca Center for the Study of Liver Disease at the University of Milan in Italy. He graduated from the State University of Milan with degrees in medicine and surgery and performed postdoctoral research in the Department of Experimental Pathology at Tulane University in New Orleans, LA. Upon returning to Milan, he completed training in liver diseases and internal medicine. He received his PhD in clinical methodology from the University of Milan. Dr Lampertico’s clinical and research interests include viral hepatitis, metabolic liver disorders, autoimmune liver disorders, hepatocellular carcinoma, hepatic fibrosis, portal hypertension, fatty liver disease, liver transplantation, and alcoholism. He has special expertise in caring for patients with chronic cirrhosis due to untreated hepatitis B virus (HBV) infections, optimizing long-term outcomes for cirrhotic patients undergoing antiviral treatment, and managing antiviral resistance to oral nucleos(t)ide analogues. A well-published scholar, Dr Lampertico serves as a reviewer for numerous top-tier journals in his field, including Lancet, Gastroenterology, Hepatology, Gut, and the Journal of Hepatology. He is a member of the American Association for the Study of Liver Disease (AASLD), the European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL), the Italian Association of Liver Study (AISF), and the Italian Society of Gastroenterology (SIGE), among many other professional societies. He speaks frequently at international conferences about liver diseases, especially on the natural history of HBV and antiviral treatment, and is involved in national and international HBV clinical trials.

Prof. Patrick Marcellin

Patrick Marcellin is Professor of Hepatology at the University of Paris and Head of the Viral Hepatitis Research Unit in Hôpital Beaujon, Clichy. He earned his medical degree from the University of Paris and undertook postgraduate training in both internal medicine and gastroenterology-hepatology at the Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris. Professor Marcellin completed research fellowships in immunology (College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University, New York City, USA) and virology (Institut Pasteur, Paris). He also holds a PhD in virology. Since 1984, he has been actively involved in laboratory and clinical research on viral hepatitis and liver diseases. His major focus has been on viral hepatitis therapy, and as such he has been the principal investigator on initial trials of first interferons and antivirals and on several pivotal studies investigating therapies for chronic hepatitis B and C. He published more than 500 articles in the best journals (NEJM, Lancet, Gastroenterology, Hepatology, J Hepatol…). Professor Marcellin was a member of the Scientific Committee of EASL and organised the EASL Consensus Conference on Hepatitis C in 1999 and the EASL Consensus Conference on Hepatitis B in 2002. He was the Chairman of the panel on the 2009 EASL hepatitis B guidelines. He is the President of APHC that has organised the Annual Paris Hepatitis Conference (PHC) since 2004.

Dr. Kamarjit Singh Mangat

Dr Kamarjit qualified in 1993, UK, then completed Basic Surgical Training in UK and Australia, obtaining Fellowship of Royal College of Surgeons, London. Interest in Interventional Radiology led to Radiology training, Fellowship of the Royal College of Radiologists UK and a fellowship in Interventional Radiology. Specialist interest in Hepatobiliary Radiology led to a sabbatical at University of California, San Diego.

From 2005 to 2014 he was a Consultant Radiologist at Queen Elizabeth University Hospital Birmingham, UK working with the Liver Unit (one of the largest in the world), and also Birmingham Children’s Hospital. From 2010 to 2014 he was the Head of Radiology. In 2014 he was invited to lead liver radiology services at National University Hospital Singapore, and is currently a Senior Consultant Radiologist and Research Director for the Radiology Department.He has expertise in all forms of liver imaging and intervention, in particular TIPS, post-transplant intervention, biliary procedures, Budd-Chiari syndrome and minimally invasive treatment of tumours using ablation techniques, TACE and SIRT.

Dr. William Pirjamali

William received an MSc in Genetic Counseling from McGill University and has been working with Fulgent Genetics since 2017. He collaborates with clinicians and research partners all over the world to provide a broad portfolio of clinical genetic tests. Fulgent’s catalog of genetic tests covers a wide range of clinical subspecialties, and everything from prenatal testing to adult onset disorders, including liver disease. William has a special interest in Fulgent’s HelioLiver test, a novel multi-analyte blood test combining cell-free DNA methylation patterns and protein tumor markers to screen for hepatocellular carcinoma.

Prof. Thomas Yau

MD(HK), MBBS (HK), MRCP (UK), FRCP(London), FHKCP (Med Onc), FHKAM (Medicine)

Clinical Associate Professor in Medical Oncology
University Department of Medicine
Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine
The University of Hong Kong

Dr Yau graduated from the University of Hong Kong and started his medical oncology training initially at Queen Mary Hospital, Hong Kong. He was later employed as Specialist Registrar and Clinical Research Fellow at Royal Marsden Hospital, London. He is currently Associate Professor in Department of Medicine, The University of Hong Kong and Principal Investigator in State Key Laboratory for Liver Disease.

His main research interests are gastrointestinal oncology, early phase clinical trials and translational research. He pioneered Hong Kong Liver Cancer classification and is actively involved in the global drug development in hepatocellular cancer. He had published more than 120 peer-review publications with articles in various leading oncology journals, namely Lancet, Lancet Oncology, Cell Stem Cell, Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Clinical Cancer Research. He had also delivered more than 180 invited regional and international lectures. He currently serves as associate editor and the editorial board members of many international peer-reviewed journals.

He is currently the International Member of US NCI Hepatobiliary Task Force, Vice President of Asia Pacific Neuroendocrine Tumour Society, International Faculty Board Member of International Association of Surgeons Gastroenterologist and Oncologists, General Secretary of Hong Kong Liver Cancer Foundation, and member of many international professional societies.

He is also the council member of Hong Kong Sustainable Council and the advisor of various Hong Kong Government advisory committees.

Prof. Robert Gish

Dr Gish was first in Pharmacy School at the University of Kansas and then obtained his medical degree from the University of Kansas Medical School in Kansas City, Kansas. He completed a 3-year internal medicine residency at the University of California, San Diego, and a 4-year gastroenterology and hepatology fellowship at the University of California, Los Angeles which included transplant medicine.

Dr. Gish is a fellow of the American Association for the Study of Liver Disease, the American Society of Transplantation and the American College of Physicians.

He has served on the editorial boards of American Journal of Gastroenterology, Hepatology, Journal of Hepatology, Digestive Diseases and Sciences, and Gastroenterology, among many others. He has co-authored a public health policy for liver health in Vietnam focusing on HBV and is also assisting with the development of viral hepatitis health care policies in Georgia, Armenia, and the Philippines. He was a major early contributor to decipherment methods for the detection of hepatitis B and C virus and characterizing its epidemiology and clinical presentation in humans. He was involved in studies that led to the genotypic classification strategies and methods now in use worldwide. He has published more than 700 original articles, review articles, abstracts, and book chapters.

Robert G. Gish, MD, is currently an Adjunct Professor of Medicine at the University of Nevada Schools of Medicine in Las Vegas and in Reno. He serves as an Adjunct Professor of Pharmacy at Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at UCSD. In addition, he is also Medical Director of the Hepatitis B Foundation in Doylestown, Pennsylvania.

Dr. Janus Ong

Medical Education:
University of the Philippines College of Medicine.
Internal Medicine Residency at the Yale Primary Care Internal Medicine Residency Program
Gastroenterology Fellowship at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation.
Clinical Hepatology Fellowship at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland
Master of Public Health from Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Current Academic or Administrative Positions:
Clinical Associate Professor at the University of the Philippines College of Medicine.

Area of Research interests:
AFLD, hepatocellular carcinoma, Hepatitis B and C, and complications of cirrhosis.

Publications and Presentations:
Dr. Ong has published more than 50 research articles and over 60 research presentations to international meetings.

Dr. Ong has been active in liver disease research since his fellowship at the Cleveland Clinic. He subsequently worked at Liver Program of the NIDDK, NIH undr the mentorship of Dr. Jay Hoofnagle. After additional training in Liver Transplant at Inova Fairfax Hospital and Masters in Public Health at Johns Hopkins University, he worked as Staff Hepatologist at the Center for Liver Diseases, Inova Fairfax Hospital in Falls Church Virginia. Dr. Ong was highly active in Outcomes Research related to NAFLD, Viral Hepatitis and Hepatic Encephalopathy. Since 2007, Dr. Ong has joined University of the Philippines College of Medicine as a hepatologist and has been involved in a number of projects, including Organizing Committee of 2019 APASL in Manila Philippines.

Prof. Paul M. Yen

Prof. Yen currently is Professor at Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School in Singapore and Head of the Laboratory of Hormonal Regulation in the Cardiovascular and Metabolic Disorders Program. He also is Professor of Medicine at Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, NC and a member of the Duke Molecular Physiology Institute. He received his B.A. in Chemistry from Amherst College and his M.D. from Johns Hopkins. He completed his residency in internal medicine at University of Chicago and fellowship in endocrinology at National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD. He was formerly Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School, Chief of the Neuro-endocrinology and Molecular Regulation Section of the Clinical Endocrinology Branch at NIDDK (at the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD), and Associate Professor of Medicine and Pharmacology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

He has served on the editorial boards of Endocrinology, Molecular Endocrinology, and Thyroid. He also is a U.S. board-certified physician in internal medicine and endocrinology. He is listed as a top 2% scientist worldwide by Stanford University and a leading World Expert on thyroid hormone by Expertscape. He has served as an Asia-Oceanic Thyroid Association (AOTA) Council Member and the AOTA delegate to the World Thyroid Foundation and Singapore Representative to the International Iodine Global Network. He was awarded the 2020 Nagataki-Fujifilm Prize for his contributions to basic and clinical thyroid hormone research in Asia by AOTA. At Duke-NUS, he has served as Master of Sheares Medical College since 2010.

He also has served as the clinical faculty advisor for the Duke Overseas Volunteer Expedition (DOVE) program in which medical students deliver primary care in neighboring underdeveloped countries since its inception in 2010.. His laboratory uses molecular biological and genomic approaches to study hormonal regulation of transcription, autophagy, and metabolism as well as searching for ways to improve the diagnosis and treatment of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), diabetes, obesity, and other metabolic disorders.

Prof. John E. Tavis, PhD

Professor of Molecular Virology
Saint Louis University (SLU)

My research focuses on the biochemistry and cell biology of the reverse transcriptase from the Hepatitis B Virus and on the effect of Hepatitis C Virus’ very high genetic diversity on its response to antiviral therapy and on disease induced by HCV infection. I am active in the international virology community, having organized the 2003 International Meeting on the Molecular Biology of HBV, served on the American Society for Virology program committee, chaired an American Cancer Society study section, served as a reviewer for many journals, and have recently been appointed to 3 national service positions: An academic editor for PLoS One, a permanent member of the VirB NIH study section, and a member of the American Cancer Society Council for Extramural Research. This experience has given me a broad perspective on virology in both the clinical and basic settings.

Dr. Carolina Boni

MD, Laboratory of Viral Immunopathology, Unit of Infectious Diseases and Hepatology, Azienda Ospedaliero-Universitaria di Parma, Parma, Italy

Dr. Boni is physician at the Azienda Ospedaliero-Universitaria of Parma and Contract Professor of Infectious Diseases at the University of Parma.

Dr. Boni’s research is mostly focused on the characterization of the immune mechanisms responsible for viral persistence and liver damage in chronic HBV infection with the final objective of developing new immune therapeutic strategies for chronically infected patients.

She has published 40 original articles (4556 citations; H index =26) and presented the results of her research in the field of hepatitis virus infections at several national and international meetings.

She provided original contributions to the HBV immune pathogenesis field, in particular for the characterization of the immunological correlates of protection in acute and chronic HBV infection and for the definition of new biomarkers to assess and predict the effect of a novel immune therapies.

Prof. Massimo Levrero

Professor of Medicine, Sapienza University, Centre de Recherche en Cancerologie de Lyon (CRCL) Lyon, France

Massimo Levrero is Professor of Medicine at the University Claude Bernard Lyon 1 (UCLB1), Lyon, France, and Praticien Hospitalier in the Service d’Hepatologie et Gastroenterologie – Hopital de la Croix Rousse – Hospices Civils de Lyon. He leads a Research Unit on” Epigenetics and Epigenomics of Hepatocellular Carcinoma”, at the Centre de Recherche en Cancérologie de Lyon (CRCL) – INSERM U1052 in Lyon, France. He also serves as Associate Member at the IIT – Sapienza Center for Life NanoScience (CLNS) in Rome and he is on leave of absence from the Department of Internal Medicine (DMISM) at the Sapienza University of Rome, where he had his research activity and academic practice in hepatology until 2014.

Professor Levrero trained and completed his residency at Sapienza before holding posts at the University Paris VI and the Institut Gustave Roussy in Paris. He has acted as Scientific Secretary of EASL (European Association for the Study of the Liver) and he currently presides the CSS12 study session on basic and translational research on viral hepatitis at the French National Agency for Research on AIDS and Viral Hepatitis (ANRS). He is a founding member and seats in the Governing Board of ICE (International Coalition to Eliminate HBV).

He is actively involved in clinical research and treatment of HBV and HCV chronic hepatitis, and he served as Network Coordinator and/or Primary Investigator in a number of research projects and clinical studies. HBV research focuses on the epigenetic regulation of cccDNA function and HBV replication, the identification of new targets for anti-¬‐viral therapy and on liver oncogenesis in HBV-¬‐ related hepatocellular carcinoma. Additional research interests include signal transduction and transcription in the liver; IFN transcriptome; chromatin modifiers in solid tumours development and progression.

Professor Levrero is the author of over 200 publications in peer-reviewed journals, including Nature, Nature Medicine, Nat Cell Biol, Nature Communications, Science, J Clin Invest, J Exp Med, Mol Cell, PNAS USA, Cancer Res, Oncogene, EMBO J, J Biol Chem, Sci Rep, Gastroenterology, J of Hepatology, GUT, Hepatology, J of Virology, Virology, J Gen Virol, J Infect Dis, Blood.

Prof. Fabien Zoulim

Medical Director of the Hepatology

Fabien Zoulim obtained his M.D. in Gastroenterology and Hepatology in Lyon Medical School in 1991. He has also obtained a PhD in Molecular and Cellular Biology and was trained as a post-doctoral researcher at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia. He is Professor of Medicine at Lyon I University since 1997. He is currently Medical Director of the Hepatology Department at the Hospices Civils de Lyon, and Scientific Director of the Department of Immunology and Virology of INSERM Unit 1052 where he is leading the team on ‘Antiviral therapy of viral hepatitis’. Prof. Zoulim has served as an Associate Editor for Journal of Hepatology and is currently Associate Editor for Gut. He also served as an expert in the microbiology study section of the INSERM and is currently head of the clinical viral hepatitis study section at ANRS. He served as a Governing Board member of the European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL). Prof. Zoulim received the William Prusoff award of the International Society for Antiviral Research. Furthermore, he has been the scientific coordinator of a European community-funded Network of Excellence on the management of antiviral drug resistance and is currently head of the ANRS “HBV cure” program in France. Fabien Zoulim is a recognised expert in the field of viral hepatitis and antiviral therapy. He has published more than 350 articles (H index 63, Web of Science).

Prof. Antonio Bertoletti

Antonio Bertoletti, MD is an expert in the field of viral hepatitis, with a specific interest in the immunopathogenesis of HBV infection. He began working in viral hepatitis as a medical student at the University of Parma (Italy). During his MD specialization (1991) in Infectious Diseases he spent two years at The Scripps Research Institute (La Jolla) characterizing for the first time the Hepatitis B virus (HBV) specific cytotoxic T cell response in man. He returned to the University of Parma, where he worked in the Department of Infectious Diseases as a Clinical Scientist continuing his study of human HBV specific T cells. Dr. Bertoletti then joined (1995) the MRC Unit in the Gambia, as Senior Immunologist, to study HIV-2 specific T cell Immunity before accepting a position of Senior Lecturer at “The UCL Institute of Hepatology” at University College of London (UK) (1997). In 2006 he moved to Singapore where he was the Director of Infection and Immunity Program at the Singapore Institute for Clinical Sciences (A*STAR) until 2013 before moving, as Full Professor, at the Emerging Viral Disease Program at Duke-NUS Medical School. He also maintains an Adjunct Position at the Singapore Immunology Network, (A*STAR). He won for two consecutive terms the Singapore Translational Research Awards (2013 and 2018). In 2015 he founded Lion TCR Pte (http://liontcr.com), a biotech company developing immune- based treatments for virus-related cancers (HBV-HCC and EBV related malignancies) and chronic viral infections. This immune therapy utilizes T cell receptors engineered T cells targeting viral antigens express in cancer cells. The company has been the first to initiate and run clinical trials (Phase I and II) for the treatment of HBV-related HCC relapses in liver transplant patients and in primary HCC in Singapore and China. At present he is Chairman of the Board and major shareholder. His current research is focus on the development of new immunological based therapies (TCR- redirected T cells) for the treatment of HBV chronic infection and Hepatocellular carcinoma and on the characterization of antiviral Immunity in chronic HBV patients. In the last 6 months, after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, his laboratory has been actively involved in the characterization of SARS-COV2 specific T cell immune response (Le Bert et al, Nature 2020, 584: 457-62) in COVID-19 and SARS convalescent and healthy individuals.

Prof. Sharon Lewin

AO, FRACP, PhD, FAHMS

Professor, The University of Melbourne; consultant infectious diseases physician, Alfred Hospital and Royal Melbourne Hospital and a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Practitioner Fellow.

She is an infectious diseases physician and basic scientist. She completed her medical degree and PhD in virology at Monash University in 1996 and her post-doctoral fellowship with Dr David Ho at Rockefeller University in 1999. Her research focuses on understanding why HIV persists on treatment and developing clinical trials aimed at ultimately finding a cure for HIV infection. She has also had a long standing interest in the natural history and management of HIV-HBV co-infection. She has published over 300 publications and given over 1200 major invited talks on HIV cure. She has received multiple national and international awards for her HIV-related research and community engagement. In 2014 she was named Melburnian of the Year and Clarivate Web of Science high citation researcher. She is President-Elect of the International AIDS Society and will be President in 2022-2024.

She leads a large national network funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia called The Australian Partnership in Research for Infectious Disease Emergencies (APPRISE) which focuses on pandemic preparedness and started in Australia in 2016. Scientists from the Doherty Institute were the first to isolate and share the SARS COV2 virus outside of China and have a broad program of research focused on testing, treatments and vaccines for COVID19.

Dr Willam Delaney

William Delaney, PhD joined Assembly as Chief Scientific Officer in May 2020. Prior to joining Assembly, he most recently served as Executive Director, Biology at Gilead. During his 20-year career at the company, he headed the Viral Hepatitis & Herpes Discovery Biology Groups and served as the Research Therapeutic Area Head for HBV. He began his career as a Research Scientist, Clinical Virology at Gilead and later transitioned into Drug Discovery where he held positions of increasing responsibility. Over the course of his career, he has contributed to the development of several marketed products, including Hepsera®, Viread®, and Vemlidy® for HBV and Sovaldi®, Harvoni®, Epclusa®, and Vosevi® for HCV. He earned a BS in Biotechnology from the University of Delaware and a PhD in Cell and Molecular Biology from the Penn State College of Medicine. In addition, he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Victorian Infectious Diseases Reference Laboratory (VIDRL), Department of Research & Molecular Development.

Dr. Shihyun You

Senior Director

Shihyun You, Ph.D. is a Senior Director heading HBV research at GlaxoSmithKline. She has more than 20 years of experience in viral infectious diseases and thirteen years of industry experience in the drug discovery and development including HCV and HBV. She earned a MS in genetic engineering from SungKyunKwan University, South Korea and a PhD on dengue virus replication from University of Kansas Medical Center. She obtained postdoctoral training focusing on HCV with Prof. Charlie Rice at the Rockefeller University.

Andrew Valliant

Chief Scientific Officer

Dr. Vaillant is the Chief Scientific Officer at Replicor Inc. He has more than 20 years of experience in the fields of nucleic acid chemistry, virology and drug development and is the discoverer of nucleic acid polymers (NAPs). Dr. Vaillant has authored numerous research publications, reviews, and patents on the use of NAPs in various infectious diseases. His research focuses on the development of NAPs to achieve functional cure of HBV and HDV and the role of HBsAg loss and transaminase flares in achieving functional cure of HBV. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the Montreal Neurological Institute and holds a Ph.D. in Cell Biology from the University of Ottawa.

Dr. Shahzada Khan

Dr. Shahzada Khan, a Senior Scientist at Gilead Sciences, has more than 15 years of biomedical research experience in an array of research fields including innate and adaptive immune responses to infectious agents, oxidative / nitrative stress responses, and viral / bacterial disease pathogenesis. Shahzada obtained his PhD in medical sciences from Kumamoto University Japan and postdoctoral training at Gladstone Institutes in San Francisco, CA. At Gilead Sciences, he is currently involved in discovery research and development of immunotherapeutic agents for treatment of chronic HBV infection.

Dr. Ram DasGupta

Ramanuj DasGupta joined A*STAR’s Genome Institute of Singapore (GIS) in 2014 where he is now a Senior Group Leader. DasGupta obtained his Ph.D. in Developmental and Stem cell Biology at the University of Chicago followed by postdoctoral studies at the Harvard Medical School. The major focus in the DasGupta laboratory is to explore fundamental mechanisms of cancer evolution and implement “Response-driven Precision Oncology” in the clinic by utilizing next-generation, multi-omic single cell and spatial transcriptomic technologies.

Dr. Gaston Picchio

Dr. Picchio joined Arbutus Biopharma in October 2018 and serves as the Company’s Chief Development Officer. Previously, Dr. Picchio was with Janssen R&D, bringing with him over thirty years of basic and clinical experience in the field of human virology, and sixteen years of industry experience dedicated to the development of antiviral drugs including drug approvals for the treatment of HIV (etravirine and rilpivirine) and HCV (telaprevir and simeprevir). In 2015, Dr. Picchio was a recipient of the Johnson Medal for the development of telaprevir and simeprevir and combinations thereof. Prior to joining Arbutus, Dr. Picchio served in various senior management positions at Janssen R&D, including Vice President—Scientific Innovation Infectious Diseases & Vaccines, Vice President—Hepatitis Disease Area Leader and Vice President—Clinical Virology Infectious Diseases & Vaccines. Dr. Picchio also spent time in academia working at the Scripps Institute in La Jolla, CA, on HIV and EBV pathogenesis. Dr. Picchio received a Masters in Molecular Biology from University Centro de Altos Estudios en Ciencias Exactas, Buenos Aires, and a PhD degree from University of Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Dr. Simon Fletcher

Simon Fletcher is an Executive Director at Gilead Sciences. He received his undergraduate and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Cambridge (UK) and performed post-doctoral studies at Roche. He then moved to Anadys Pharmaceuticals where he worked on developing immunomodulatory therapies to treat chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. In 2009, he moved to Roche where he led drug discovery and translational research teams working towards the development of a functional cure for chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection. Since 2012, he has worked at Gilead Sciences, where he leads a group focused on developing novel therapies for HBV and other chronic viral infections.

Dr. Oliver Lenz

Oliver Lenz, PhD is Senior Scientific Director Clinical Microbiology and Immunology at Janssen Infectious Diseases, part of the Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson. He is the global virology lead for the development of Hepatitis B virus (HBV) therapeutics from pre-clinical through clinical development. Prior to his work in HBV he was involved in the discovery of the HCV protease inhibitor simeprevir which he supported subsequently through clinical development until post-approval. He obtained his PhD at the University of Marburg, Germany mainly working on hemorrhagic fever viruses and did a postdoctoral fellowship at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) at Grenoble, France on HIV GP41 structural biology. He is author of more than 70 peer reviewed papers.

Dr. Steve Hood

Steve Hood PHD, FRSB, GSK Senior Fellow.
Senior Scientific Director in Bioimaging at GSK

Steve Hood received a PhD in Molecular Toxicology from the University of Surrey in 1993 and joined Glaxo Group Research as an Industrial Post doc in the Molecular Biology department. 29 years and a couple of mergers later, Steve is now a senior Scientific Director in Bioimaging, responsible for the external imaging collaborations that are members of the Bioimaging Expertise Network (BEN). As part of this network, Steve is also Co-Director of the GSK Centre for Molecular Imaging (COMI) at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, where he works closely with Professor Stephen Boppart and his team.

In addition to his “day job”, Steve has spent most of the last 2 decades working on GSK’s diverse oligo portfolio and has supported projects ranging from inhaled SiRNAs, TLR antagonists, DMD exon skippers (Prosensa) and ASOs for TTR and HBV with Ionis. Steve was also Industrial co-lead of the IMI COMPACT consortium that ran from 2012-17 and evaluated delivery mechanisms for oligos and peptides.

Dr. Filippo Canducci

Dr. Filippo Canducci graduated in Medicine at Catholic University in Rome in 2001, specialized in Clinical Microbiology at San Raffaele in Milano where after his PhD led his independent research team until when he left academia for industry. Before transitioning to pharmaceutical industry, Dr. Canducci has obtained the National Habilitation for Full Professor in Clinical Microbiology, he was invited as lecturer and speaker in many national and international meetings, published peer-reviewed papers in many prestigious journals including The Lancet, NEJM, PNAS, Nature Comm, Science Adv, JID, EID, AIDS, J of Immunology. After an MBA, he founded two startups and was a member of the scientific board of a Small Biotech focused on antibiotic discovery. He is now Project Leader for immunology and virology assets including TLR7 and Senior Medical Director at Roche.

Dr. Collins Oduor Owino

Collins is a final year doctoral student at the National University of Singapore, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, and based at the Genome Institute of Singapore. In addition, he holds a joint Master of Science degree in Infection Biology, Vaccinology, and Drug Discovery from the University of Basel (Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute) and the National University of Singapore, as well as a bachelor’s degree in Biomedical Science and Technology (Medical Biotechnology Option) from Maseno University, Kenya.

Collins has a keen interest in understanding the interaction between viruses and human hosts and how we can harness this information to support the development of alternative antiviral therapies. His Ph.D. thesis was on identifying novel host factors that support Hepatitis B virus infection. He looks forward to continuing studying how different viruses use our resources to make us sick during his post-doctoral training.

Dr. Cameron M. Soulette

Cameron received his PhD from University of California where he developed and applied long-read RNA sequencing methodologies to investigate transcriptome alterations associated in lung adenocarcinomas. He joined Gilead Sciences in 2020 and has contributed to several projects and publications aimed toward utilizing long-read technologies to better characterize Hepatitis B Viral integrations observed in chronically infected patients.

Prof. Simone Strasser

Associate Professor Simone Strasser is a Senior Staff Specialist in the AW Morrow Gastroenterology and Liver Centre, and the Australian National Liver Transplant Unit at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital and the University of Sydney in Sydney Australia.

She is President of the Gastroenterological Society of Australia (GESA), a member of the Executive Council of the Asian Pacific Association for the Study of the Liver (APASL) and a member of the Educational Committee of the International Liver Cancer Association (ILCA). She has a major clinical and research interest in primary liver cancer, viral hepatitis, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, advanced liver disease, and liver transplantation. She is Director of Hepatology Clinical Trials at RPAH leading clinical trials of new therapies for patients with liver disease and liver cancer.

Prof.Ajay Duseja

Prof.Ajay Duseja is presently working as Professor and Head in the department of Hepatology, Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER), Chandigarh, India. He did his MBBS in 1988, MD (Internal Medicine) in 1992 and DM (Gastroenterology) from PGIMER, Chandigarh in 1996. For last more than 28 years, he is working as Faculty with focused research in the field of Hepatology.

He is Fellow of National Academy of Medical Sciences (FAMS), Fellow of American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (FAASLD), Fellow of American College of Gastroenterology (FACG), Fellow of the Society of GI Endoscopy of India (FSGEI), Fellow of Indian Society of Gastroenterology (FISG), Fellow of Indian National Association for the Study of the Liver (FINASL) and Master of Indian Society of Gastroenterology (MISG).

He is currently the Secretary General of the Indian National Association for the Study of the Liver (INASL). He is also the National Convener of the Indian National Association for the Study of Liver (INASL) Task Force on Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD) and the Principal Investigator of the Indian consortium on metabolic dysfunction associated
steatolic liver disease (ICOM-D) –an on-going real-life study on NAFLD in India involving 40 centres. He is the member of the Chronic Liver Disease Foundation (CLDF) NASH Committee (USA), member of Global NASH Council (USA), member of the Asia- Pacific Working Party on NAFLD and member of the Gut and Obesity in Asia (GOASIA) working group. He is also an active member of the INASL Task Force on Hepatitis C virus, Hepatitis B virus, Hepatocellular carcinoma, Alcohol-associated Liver disease and Drug Induced Liver Injury. He is the former Honorary Treasurer of INASL and has been the office bearer and member of various other scientific societies.

He is author of more than 375 papers in reputed international and national journals including 30 chapters in the Gastroenterology and Hepatology text books. His main areas of interest include metabolic dysfunction associated steatolic liver disease (MASLD), acute-on-chronic liver failure (ACLF), viral Hepatitis and hepatocellular carcinoma.

He is the Associate Editor of the Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hepatology (JCEH), an official journal of INASL. He is Principal Investigator of several extra-mural and intramural projects and is recipient of various international and national awards and honors.

Prof.Shridhar Iyer

A/Prof Shridhar Iyer is a Senior Consultant, Division of Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Surgery, Department of Surgery, and Surgical Director and Senior Consultant in the Adult Liver Transplant Programme, National University Centre for Organ Transplantation, at the National University Hospital (NUH). He graduated from Grant Medical College, Bombay University, India in 1994. He then underwent training in Surgical Oncology at the Tata Memorial Hospital; Mumbai. He was admitted as a Fellow to the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, UK in 1999. He completed Advanced Specialty training in General Surgery at the National University Hospital in 2005 and admitted as a Fellow to the College of Surgeons, Academy of Medicine of Singapore.

As a recipient of the Human Manpower Development Programme (HMDP) scholarship in 2006, A/Prof Shridhar Iyer went to pursue a Fellowship in Liver surgery and Liver transplantation at the Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, Taiwan. He trained in different aspects of liver, biliary surgery and living donor liver transplantation. He has published over 60 articles in peer reviewed scientific journals and over 100 presentations at international meetings. His research interests are HPB diseases and different aspects of living donor liver transplantation and has secured several competitive grants.

He has a keen interest in surgical education and served as the programme director for general surgery residency programme from 2010 to 2018. He successfully led the first ACGME-I accreditation for General Surgery residency outside of United states. He Initiated, developed and designed a comprehensive surgical skills training curriculum for general surgery training.

He is the Founding Member of the Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary Association (Singapore).

He has led several quality improvement projects in the hospital including reducing length of stay and efficient discharge processes. He has developed clinical pathways and protocols for patients undergoing liver transplantation. He has contributed actively to the development of Adult Living Donor Liver transplant programme and Donor Surgery for Pediatric Living Donor Liver Transplant at the NUH.

Prof. Geoffrey Dusheiko

Geoffrey Dusheiko, FCP(SA) FRCS, is Emeritus Professor of Medicine at the Royal Free Hospital and University College London School of Medicine and Consultant Hepatologist at Kings College Hospital London, in London, UK.

After earning his MBBS degree from the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, Professor Dusheiko completed his internship at the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital in Johannesburg and his residency at Johannesburg Hospital. His fellowships were conducted at the Johannesburg Hospital Liver Unit and the National Institutes of Health, Maryland, and the University of Minnesota, USA.
Professor Dusheiko’s research interests include the management and treatment of HCV and HBV and small hepatocellular carcinoma; he has a special interest in research on viral hepatitis, especially viral genotyping, applied molecular virology, the natural history of chronic viral hepatitis and antiviral therapies. A member of several organisations, including EASL, AASLD and IASL, Professor Dusheiko is also a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, the Royal College of Physicians of South Africa, and the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

He previously served as Educational Councilor on the Governing Board of EASL for 4 years and was the recipient of the EASL Recognition Award in 2014. An advisor for the UK National Institute of Health and Care Excellence, Professor Dusheiko is an author of the World Health Organization’s HBV guidelines and he was a Director of the Skipton Fund, a UK ex gratia payment scheme for patients infected with HCV through contaminated blood products. He served as interim Deputy Director of the Blood Safety, HIV, viral hepatitis and STI Division of Public Health England in 2019.

He is a co-editor of Alimentary Pharmacology and Therapeutics, and has previously served on editorial boards for the Journal of Viral Hepatitis, Hepatology, Best Practice & Research Clinical Gastroenterology, and Gut among others. Professor Dusheiko has authored or co-authored more than 500 articles in international peer-reviewed journals or books.

Prof. Henry Chan

Professor Henry Lik Yuen Chan a Deputy Chief Hospital Manager, Head of Department of Internal Medicine, and Head of Division of Gastroenterology & Hepatology of Union Hospital in Hong Kong. He is also an Honorary Clinical Professor of Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK).

Professor Chan has been a key investigator in over 30 international trials on antiviral treatment of chronic hepatitis B and C, and has advised 13 pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies in the drug development for viral hepatitis B cure. He is the global lead author in publications on peginterferon-alfa, peginterferon-lambda, telbivudine, tenofovir disoproxil fumarate and tenofovir alafenamide for the treatment of viral hepatitis B. He has received numerous local, national and international research awards, including Okuda Lectureship in Asia Pacific Digestive Week in 2018. He has published over 500 papers in peer-reviewed journals, and is awarded Highly Cited Researcher (Cross Field) by Clarivate Analytics in 2018 to 2020 for producing multiple top 1% cited papers under Web of Science. Professor Chan is an associate editor of Hepatology International and Seminars in Liver Disease, and has served as an associate editor for Journal of Hepatology in 2014-2019. He is the chairman of the Strategic Technical Advisory Committee on Viral Hepatitis for the Western Pacific Regional Office of World Health Organization since 2015.

He is currently a Global Council Member in International Association for the Study of the Liver (IASL). He was awarded Ten Outstanding Young Persons in Hong Kong in 2008 in recognition of his professional excellence and contribution to the community.

Prof.Chan Wah Kheong

MBBS (Malaya), MRCP (UK), PhD (Malaya), AM, FCoPM, FRCP Edin

Dr 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.

Prof.Kudo Masatoshi

Prof. Masatoshi Kudo, MD, PhD, studied Medicine at Kyoto University and graduated in 1978. Following this, he completed a clinical fellowship in Kobe City General Hospital followed by a research fellowship at the University of California Davis Medical Center in the USA and Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine, from where he received his PhD in Medical Science in 1987. Professor Kudo is currently a Professor and Chairman at the Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Kindai University Faculty of Medicine (since 1999) and the Executive Board Member of Kindai University.

Professor Kudo has published 1135 International scientific peer-reviewed papers in well regarded in addition to 990 domestic scientific papers. He has given 472 invited lectures in the area of his expertise on numerous occasions to international audiences. He serves as an Executive Council Board Member of the Liver Cancer Study Group of Japan (LCSGJ), Chairman of the Nationwide Survey Committee of LCSGJ, and a representative of the LCSGJ Head Office. Professor Kudo is also a Past President of the Japan Society of Ultrasonics in Medicine (JSUM) (2014-2020), Past President of the Asia-Pacific Primary Liver Cancer Association (APPLE) (2015-2017), Past President of WFUMB (2011-2013), Past President of AFSUMB (2016-2018), an Executive Board Member of the Japan Society of Hepatology (JSH), an Executive Board member of the International Liver Cancer Association (ILCA). He is currently a Steering Committee Member, as well as Vice Chair, of the Liver Cancer Special Interest Group (SIG), AASLD. He also serves as an Editor-in-Chief of LIVER CANCER (Karger). He was named a “Highly Cited Researcher” in 2019, 2020 and 2021 consecutively by Clarivate Analytics in the field of “Clinical Medicine”.

His research interest is “Diagnosis and treatment of HCC”. Professor Kudo is the first author of “Consensus based Practice Guideline of HCC Proposed by Japan Society of Hepatology” published in 2007, 2010, 2014 and 2021 revised version.

Prof.Mohammad Shadab Siddiqui

Assoc. Professor Mohammad Shadab Siddiqui studies Medicine at the Wake Forest University in North Carolina, USA. He has been with Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond since 2012.

The focus of Prof. Siddiqui’s research is the nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and liver transplantation. More specifically, he is interested in the relationship between cardiovascular disease and NAFLD and how that affects patient outcomes. His research follows the natural history of the disease process as patients go from mild or early phase disease to more moderate disease to chronic liver failure (i.e. cirrhosis) and finally liver transplantation. The emphasis is better understanding what are key drivers of clinical outcomes at each of these disease states and if doctors can develop measures to not only risk stratify patients better at each stage but also develop strategies to mitigate and potentially even reverse this risk. Prof. Siddiqui and his team are therefore, focused on developing better risk stratification strategies (i.e. biomarkers) and therapeutics to help improve outcomes in patients with all stages of chronic liver disease.

Prof.Markus Cornberg

Markus Cornberg is Professor Infectious Diseases with a focus on Hepatology and Deputy Director of the Department of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Endocrinology at Hannover Medical School, Germany. Since 2019, he is Clinical Director Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research and Director of the Centre for Individualized Infection Medicine (CIIM). Prof. Cornberg is Medical Executive Director of the German Liver Foundation. Since 2007, Prof. Cornberg has coordinated the German guideline on the management of hepatitis B virus infection. From 2017 to 2020, he served on the Scientific Committee and Governing Board of the European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL). He has been Associate Editor of the Journal of Hepatology since 2019. His basic science research focus is the investigation of cellular immune responses for disease progression and treatment response in patients with viral hepatitis. Prof. Cornberg has published >250 original scientific papers as well as review articles.

Prof.Tan Seok Siam

Dr Tan Soek Siam is the Senior Consultant and Head of Hepatology Department in Hospital Selayang. She obtained her Bachelor of Medicine (MB BCH BAO BA) from Trinity College, Dublin, Republic of Ireland and subsequently practice at St James Hospital, Monaghan General Hospital and St Collumcilles Hospital in Republic of Ireland from 1991-1995. Upon obtaining her MRCP from Royal College of Physician Ireland in 1995, Dr Tan Soek Siam return to Malaysia and started practicing at Ipoh General Hospital as Clinical Specialist in General Medicine and Gastroenterology. Subsequently, she did her fellowship in Liver Intensive Care and Transplantation at Institute of Liver Studies, King’s College Hospital, London in 2000-2001.
She is the Chairperson for the Working Committee for Medications Gastro and Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary of Ministry of Heath( since 2015), a trainer in Hepatology Subspecialty Training programme (since 2003), and a National Advisor in Hepatology for Ministry of Health since 2005. Dr Tan Soek Siam is also a member of the Expert Panel of Specialist Service “ Ask the Expert” at MyHealth Portal, and a member of Specialty Subcommittee for Gastroenterology and Hepatology of the National Credentialing Committee . She is the President-elect of Malaysian Society of Gastroenterology and Hepatology (2016-2018), a council member of College of Physician, Academy of Medicine, Malaysia and is a founding member of hepatitis Support Group ( 2014). Dr Tan Soek Siam is also active internationally. She is a member of the Asian Pacific Association for the Study of the Liver (APASL) ACLF Research Consortium (AARC), member of the Coalition to Eradicate Viral Hepatitis in Asia Pacific (CEVHAP), and was a member of International Organizing Committee Kyoto Asian Pacific Association of the Study of the Liver Disease Scientific Meeting in 2007.
Dr Tan has been invited as speaker at over 18 international meetings, and had published over 80 papers, 24 full articles in peer review journals and presented more than 50 abstracts locally and internationally. She has been actively involved in both Investigator Initiated Research (IIR) or Industry Sponsored Research ( ISR). She has conducted over 29 ISR , either as Principle Investigator at the Site, National Principle Investigator or as a Co-Investigator.
Dr Tan’s main area of interest is viral hepatitis B and C, decompensated and critically ill chronic liver diseases, acute liver failure , acute-on-chronic liver failure, and liver transplantation.

Dr. David E. Kleiner

Dr. Kleiner received his Ph.D. in 1986 in chemistry and his M.D. in 1988 from the University of Chicago. His graduate work focused on purification of Trichomonal secondary alcohol dehydrogenases, their kinetic characterization, and suicide inactivation. He came to the NIH as a resident in anatomic pathology and after completion of his training, he joined the surgical pathology staff where he has cultivated his interests in the pathology of liver disease, transplantation pathology, and the biochemical mechanisms of tumor cell invasion.

The focus of Dr. Kleiner’s research includes the objective evaluation of pathologic changes following therapy and prediction of disease outcome based on histological parameters. In the absence of an effective therapy or vaccine, it is important to be able to predict not only which patients may expect to benefit from therapy but also which patients are likely to progress more quickly to cirrhosis. Using a multivariate regression model, we have determined clinical and histologic factors that predict short-term progression of fibrosis.

Dr. Kleiner is currently participating in two multicenter clinical networks focused on non-alcoholic fatty liver disease sponsored by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. These two efforts: the NASH Clinical Research Network and the Longitudinal Assessment of Bariatric Surgery will provide both cross-sectional and longitudinal data that will allow evaluation of prognostic factors in fatty liver disease, which may be present 20 to 25% of the U.S. population. Dr. Kleiner is the reference pathologist for the Drug-Induced Liver Injury Network (DILIN). This is an NIDDK-sponsored clinical research network interested in prospective evaluation and investigation of drug-induced liver injury (DILI)is one of the main reasons for removal of drugs from the market. Dr. Kleiner performs blinded reviews for the network and provides information on liver injury classification and detailed histologic descriptive data that is being correlated with individual drugs.

Dr. Loey Mak

Dr Mak received her medical education at The University of Hong Kong. She obtained her qualification of the Membership of the Royal Colleges of Physicians of the United Kingdom in 2013 and the Postgraduate Diploma in Infectious Diseases by The Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine of The University of Hong Kong in 2015. She completed her specialty training in Gastroenterology and Hepatology in year 2018 and Advanced Internal Medicine in year 2019 at Queen Mary Hospital.

Dr Mak’s research interests include clinical and translational research of liver diseases, especially in the field of chronic viral hepatitis, fibrosis assessment and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. She has published more than 100 peer-reviewed articles in reputable journals, with >50 being first-authored/ co-first authored articles. Highlights include 3 first-authored or co-first authored original articles and 1 review article in Journal of Hepatology (impact factor 30.083), and 2 original articles in Hepatology (impact factor 17.298). She is appointed as Honorary Research Fellow of The Centre for Immunology and Infectious Diseases, Blizard Institute, Queen Mary University of London since Jan 2022 to conduct research in the field of HBV immunology.

Dr Mak has received numerous academic awards, including the Dr Kate Cheng Memorial Prize for Postgraduate Diploma in Infectious Diseases, the Best Abstract in Clinical Medicine in the Medical Research Conference organized by The University of Hong Kong in 2017, 2019 and 2020, and 2021, the Young Investigators Award in the Asian Pacific Association of Gastroenterology 3rd Clinical Forum on Inflammatory Bowel Disease in 2018, and the travel award for the 7th Annual Meeting of Asian Organization of Crohn’s & Colitis. She was also awarded the Faculty Knowledge Exchange Award by Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, The University of Hong Kong in 2019. She won the Young Investigator’s Award in the 30th Conference of the Asian Pacific Association for the Study of the Liver, and the Distinguished Research Paper Award by the Hong Kong College of Physicians in year 2020. She is awarded with the Croucher Foundation Fellowship for 2021/2022. Her research paper was awarded with the Faculty Outstanding Research Output Award by The LKS Faculty of Medicine in year 2021 and the Lo Ying Shek Chi Wai Foundation Award for Young Investigator 2020-2021. She was awarded with the Young Investigator Bursary by the European Association for Study of the Liver in year 2021 and 2022.

Dr Mak is the principal investigator and co-investigator for numerous projects funded by externally-competitive grants. She is currently the honorary treasurer for The Hong Kong Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (HKASLD).

Prof. Jonathan Karn

Professor and Chair, Department of Molecular Biology and Microbiology, School of Medicine
Director, Case Center for AIDS Research
Professor, Department of Biochemistry, School of Medicine
Member, Population and Cancer Prevention Program, Case Comprehensive Cancer Center

HIV persists in the face of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) due to constitutive low-level replication in sites that are poorly accessible to drugs and the development of latent infections in a variety of types including the long-lived memory CD4+ T cell population, macrophages, and microglial cells in the brain – cells that play a critical role in neurologic dysfunction and neurotoxicity. Although HAART has greatly extended survival to patients infected with HIV-1, current therapy has failed to decrease the prevalence of HIV-neurological diseases especially in individuals who abuse drugs.

Dr. Sriram Narayanan

Senior Research Fellow

**Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, A*STAR**

Singapore
Research focused on innate immune responses in chronic viral infection, specifically on natural killer (NK) cell response and function in chronic HBV.
Research in immunology focused on the biology of IgE producing B cells in human allergic diseases. Also studying the role of other myeloid cells as helpers in regulating class switching to IgE in human atopic diseases.

Dr. Katie Kitrinos

Senior Vice President Preclinical Research and Development at Assembly Biosciences, Inc.

After an extensive career leading virology research and antiviral clinical development programs, I have impacted pre-clinical development and regulatory communications, marketing, commercialization, and 2nd- and 3rd-generation development. I am adept at preparing and delivering high-impact presentations to global audiences, as well as interfacing with clinicians, advisory boards, and key investigators. I have proven to be highly effective in performing hands-on studies, as well as directing scientists conducting research initiatives.

Dr. Prof Peter Revill

Professor Peter Revill is a Senior Medical Scientist at the Victorian Infectious Diseases Reference Laboratory (VIDRL) and a lead of the Global Health cross-cutting discipline at the Doherty Institute. Peter’s work is focused on the molecular virology of hepatitis B virus (HBV), particularly the contribution of different HBV genotypes and variants to the striking differences in natural history, disease progression and treatment response observed globally. Peter holds honorary appointments as Principal Research Fellow in the Departments of Microbiology and Immunology and Pathology at the University of Melbourne, and is an adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Microbiology at Monash University. Peter is also President of the Australian Centre for Hepatitis Virology (ACHV).

Dr. Mark Anderson

Principal Scientist, Abbott

My work as a microbiologist contributes to our understanding of how diseases impact their hosts, research which brings us closer to treating and preventing deadly infections. I possess expert technical knowledge of life sciences systems and excel at learning new technologies and research topics. As a scientist, I am also skilled at analyzing data, working collaboratively, and communicating my findings to experts and non-experts.

Dr. Gavin Cloherty

Gavin A. Cloherty, Ph.D., is head of Infectious Disease Research and the Pandemic Defense Coalition for Abbott’s diagnostics business. He provides scientific leadership in the area of infectious disease diagnostics by conducting groundbreaking clinical studies on SARS-CoV-2, hepatitis and HIV and developing new diagnostic tests. As one of the top experts in the field, his innovative research is changing the way infectious diseases are being diagnosed to help improve patient outcomes.

Recently, Gavin led efforts to establish the Abbott Pandemic Defense Coalition, a first-of-its-kind, industry-led initiative that has brought together 15 academic and public health organizations located around the world to support early detection and rapid response to pandemic threats. The Coalition is actively hunting, tracking, analyzing and researching numerous pathogens of public health concern in member countries.

Gavin has more than 20 years of experience with Abbott and leads a team of scientists in the study of the viral diversity of HIV and hepatitis. His expertise is sought after globally through his established partnerships with commercial organizations, ministries of health, government agencies and academic institutions, such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and National Institutes of Health’s AIDS Clinical Trial Group (ACTG) and Hepatitis B Research Network (HBRN). He has worked with the Republic of Georgia to help eradicate hepatitis C in the country, and is looking to expand these efforts to other regions of the world severely impacted by this disease.

Dr.Klaus Kuhlbusch

MD, MSc with extensive global and local experience in pharmaceutical industry in medical and commercial roles
★ Key indications include oncology/hematology, rheumatology, respiratory, dermatology, transplantation
★ Key roles include local medical advisor, global communication manager, global brand manager, global medical director and head of global medical affairs for biosimilars

Dr. Carey Hwang

Dr Carey Hwang Senior Vice President, Clinical Research, Head of Chronic Infection Vir Biotechnology, Inc.

Carey Hwang serves as Senior Vice President, Clinical Research, for Vir Biotechnology, where he is responsible for the company’s chronic infection clinical development portfolio. Since joining Vir in January 2021, Carey has overseen the development of the Vir lead hepatitis B candidates, VIR-2218 and VIR-3434, as well as its lead HIV vaccine candidate, VIR-1111.

Carey has focused his career on the study and development of treatments for serious infectious diseases, including HIV, hepatitis B and hepatitis C. His industry career began at Bristol Myers Squibb, conducting exploratory clinical and translational research focused on early-phase clinical development of HIV and hepatitis C treatments. He joined Merck & Co. in 2016, where he served as Executive Director and Product Development Lead in Global Clinical Development – Infectious Diseases and led the worldwide development and approval of two treatments for HIV.

He received his bachelor’s degree in molecular biology from Princeton University and his MD and PhD from West Virginia University with a dissertation focused on retroviral recombination. He completed his internal medicine residency and infectious disease fellowship at Vanderbilt University with research focused on the latent reservoir of HIV.

Dr. Scott Balsitis

Senior Director, Hepatitis B Cure Research at Gilead Sciences

Ph.D. team leader with 20 years experience in immunology and development of vaccines and therapeutic small molecules and monoclonal antibodies. Extensive background in pharmaceutical and vaccine development, with emphasis on immunology, virology, and oncology. Reputation for scientific creativity and ability to bring novel drug candidates from concept to clinic. Leadership experience including leading cross-functional project teams, collaborations with external partners, and direct oversight of PhD and non-PhD research staff.

Dr. Wong

Dr Wong is a Consultant specialising in Gastroenterology and Hepatology at the Changi General Hospital, Singapore. He graduated completed his post-graduate residency training in SingHealth, Singapore, and was certified by the Specialist Accreditation Board of Singapore in 2018.

Dr Wong’s research interest is in portal hypertension, liver cirrhosis, viral hepatitis and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Dr Wong completed his Master of Clinical Investigator in 2021 and was awarded the nurturing Clinician Scientist Scheme from Medicine ACP, SingHealth the same year on his research in personalizing management for liver cirrhosis patients. His has received awards for his research work and was the recipients for the AASLD abstract awards both in 2022 and 2023.

Dr Wong is also a keen educator and has mentored medical students and residents for their research career. He received the senior educator awards in 2020 and 2022, as well as the Outstanding mentor award by the Singapore Medical Association Charity Fund in 2023. Dr Wong currently holds the appointment as a clinical assistant professor in Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore.

Prof. Tan Chee Kiat

Senior Consultant
Specialty: Gastroenterology ＆ Hepatology
Sub-specialties: Hepatology, Liver Cancer, Liver Transplantation, Viral Hepatitis

Conditions Treated by this Doctor:
Abnormal Liver Tests, Autoimmune Hepatitis, Fatty Liver Diseases, Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C, Liver Cancer (Hepatocellular Carcinoma), Liver Cirrhosis, Liver Fibrosis, Liver Transplantation, Metabolic Liver Disease, Non-alcoholic Steatohepatitis (NASH), Viral Hepatitis.

Prof Tan Chee Kiat graduated from the Faculty of Medicine, National University of Singapore in 1984. He became a Member of the Royal College of Physicians, United Kingdom [MRCP (UK)] in 1989 and Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, Edinburgh [(FRCP (Edin)] in 1998. He is also a Fellow of the Academy of Medicine, Singapore in Gastroenterology [FAMS (Gastroenterology)] since 1995. He has trained in Hepatology and Liver Transplantation at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, USA. He is a fully trained gastroenterologist and besides General Hepatology, his areas of interests are Liver Cancer, Viral Hepatitis and Liver Transplantation. He has set up a nationwide web-based database for hepatocellular carcinoma.

Prof. Jidong Jia

Prof. Jidong Jia is currently Professor of Medicine, Director of Liver Research Center, Beijing Friendship Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China. Professor Jia is the immediate past President of the International Association for the Study of the Liver(IASL), past President of Asian Pacific Association for the Study of the Liver (APASL 2009-2010) and Chinese Society of Hepatology (CSH 2006-2012). Professor Jia also serves as Associate Editor for Hepatology International and served as Associate Editor for Journal of Gastroenterology & Hepatology and Liver International. As a hepatologist, his clinical interests include viral, cholestatic/autoimmune and genetic liver diseases. His research work focuses mainly on cellular and molecular biology of the extracellular matrix of the liver and the pathogenesis and therapeutic study of experimental liver fibrosis. In addition, Dr. Jia has been PI or sub-PI for many clinical trials and also heavily engaged in the teaching of clinical research methodology for residents and fellows in clinical medicine. He has authored or co-authored more than one hundred papers published in national and international journals including Gastroenterology, Gut, Hepatology, and Journal of Hepatology.

Prof. Sven Francque

Prof. Sven Francque is currently Chairman of the Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology of the University Hospital Antwerp and Full Professor of Medicine at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences of the University of Antwerp in Belgium. He has a longstanding interest and expertise in nonalcoholic fatty liver disease and conducted basic research focusing on the vascular changes in steatosis and their contribution to disease progression. His research unit continues to study pathophysiological mechanisms of NASH. He also conducts clinical research, and his unit is a partner in several research consortia supported by the European Commission. He and his unit participate in most of the clinical trials in the field, and he is a scientific committee member involved in the design of several phase 2 and one of the current phase 3 trials in NAFLD. He is a senior clinical researcher for the Research Fund of the Flemish government. He is board member of several scientific societies and currently also scientific coordinator of the Belgian week of Gastroenterology. Prof. Francque obtained his MD at the University of Antwerp, Belgium, in 1994 and was subsequently trained in internal medicine and in gastroenterology and hepatology at the Antwerp University Hospital, Belgium and at the Department of Hepatology of the Beaujon hospital, Clichy, France.

Prof. MF Yuen

Chair of Gastroenterology and Hepatology

Professor Yuen is now the Chair Professor of The University of Hong Kong and Li Shu Fan Medical Foundation Professor in Medicine, and the Chief of the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Queen Mary Hospital, Hong Kong. He obtained his first bachelor’s degree of medicine in 1992. He further pursued his academic excellence through the achievement of obtaining three doctoral degrees including Doctor of Medicine with Sir Patrick Manson Gold Medal in 2001, Doctor of Philosophy in 2005 and Doctor of Science in 2017. Professor Yuen’s research interests include prevention, natural history, serology, virology and treatment of chronic hepatitis B and C, and hepatocellular carcinoma.

He is one of the top internationally renowned researchers in the field of hepatitis B disease. He has now published more than 630 papers in world-renowned medical journals including New England Journal of Medicine, Lancet, Nature Medicine, Lancet Infectious Diseases and Lancet Oncology. He has delivered more than 360 lectures all over the world.

Professor Yuen is now leading most of the international trials examining new drugs including antiviral and immunomodulatory agents for the treatment of chronic hepatitis B. He is also actively performing cutting-edge research on novel markers for hepatitis B infection and occult hepatitis B infection. With all these international academic and professional achievements, Professor Yuen is an invited member serving as key opinion leader for several international coalition committees including the International Coalition to Eliminate HBV (ICE-HEP) and Coalition to Eradicate Viral Hepatitis in Asia Pacific (CEVHAP) on hepatitis B disease. He is also serving as a member of Asia Pacific (APAC) Liver Disease Alliance and a member of Advisory Council of The Hepatitis Fund of a Swiss-based foundation.

Prof. Young-Suk Lim

Appointment – Professor, Department of Gastroenterology

Affiliation – Asan Medical Center, University of Ulsan College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea

BIOGRAPHY
Professor Young-Suk Lim currently serves as the Dean of the University of Ulsan College of Medicine and is a Professor in the Department of Gastroenterology, Asan Medical Center, South Korea. Prof. Lim is the President Elect of the Korean Association for the Study of the Liver (KASL) for the term spanning December 2025 to November 2027.
He served as the Director of the Clinical Trial Center at Asan Medical Center from April 2015 to June 2019.
Prof. Lim completed his medical degree at Seoul National University College of Medicine in 1992 and obtained his PhD from the same institution in 2002. He completed the Clinical Research Training Program at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, USA, in 2008.
He received the First Leading Research Achievement Award from the Korean Association for the Study of the Liver (KASL) in 2023. Prof. Lim has been commended by the Ministry of Health and Welfare of the Korean Government on three occasions (2017, 2020, and 2022). In 2018, he was named Professor of the Year at the University of Ulsan and was also the recipient of the Academic Achievement Award from the Alumni Association of Internal Medicine at Seoul National University Hospital.
Prof. Lim’s primary research interests lie in hepatitis B and hepatocellular carcinoma. His work has been published in the world’s esteemed medical journals, including Lancet Gastroenterology & Hepatology, Annals of Internal Medicine, JAMA Oncology, Gastroenterology, Journal of Hepatology, Gut, and Hepatology.

EDUCATION
Seoul National University College of Medicine, 1986-1992
PhD degree of Medicine, Seoul National University, 2002
Residency in Internal Medicine, Seoul National University Hospital, 1993-1997
Clinical Fellow, Division of Gastroenterology, Seoul National University Hospital, 2000-2002
Clinical Research Training Program, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, USA, 2007-2008

WORK EXPERIENCE
Medical Officer in Korean Air Force, 1997 – 2000
Assistant Professor, Department of Internal Medicine, Seoul National University Hospital, 2002 – 2003
Assistant Professor, Department of Gastroenterology, Asan Medical Center, University of Ulsan College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea, 2003 – 2008
Associate Professor, Department of Gastroenterology, Asan Medical Center, University of Ulsan College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea, 2008 – 2014

Prof. Maria Buti Ferret, MD

Maria Buti is Consultor Senior and Professor of Medicine at the Hospital General Universitari Valle Hebron, Barcelona. She was graduated at University of Barcelona in 1979. Dr Butí has worked in viral hepatitis for the last 25 years, particularly in diagnosis and therapy of hepatitis B and C. She has been published more than 500 papers in the field of liver disease in peer review journals such as The New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet, Journal of Hepatology and numerous contributions to books with and Hirsch Index of 95 and the number of citations 51.405
Dr Butí was President of the Spanish Association for the Study of Liver Diseases, and an active member of the EASL, and the AASLD and various professional societies. Currently she was the chair of public Health and Policy at European Association for the study of the liver (EASL) member of EASL governing board and associate editor of Journal of Hepatology, the journal with the highest Impact factor in liver diseases. She is one the experts of the Spanish National Plan on Hepatitis C elimination and also on the WHO guidelines for hepatitis B as well as EASL guidelines for hepatitis B and D.

Prof. Veronica Miller

PHD Director

Veronica Miller, PhD, is an Adjunct Professor at Berkeley Public Health and Director of the Forum for Collaborative Research, a collaboration between industry, regulatory agencies, patients, and public health/clinical researchers to advance regulatory science and accelerate drug development in areas of unmet medical need. The Forum applies innovative translational medicine approaches to specific disease areas, such as viral infections, chronic diseases (steatotic and cholestatic disease of the liver), and ocular diseases requiring multi-modal approaches to generate solutions to high-prevalence complex, as well as rare, diseases. The approach involves multidisciplinary teams of experts in Public Health, Medicine, Biology, Statistics, Computer Science, Data Science, and Regulatory Science to effect the last but crucial step in translational medicine to improve access to therapeutics and diagnostics around the world. The Forum’s Data and Analysis Center is a cross-industry collaborative data-sharing platform to maximize the usefulness of clinical trial-generated data, including tissue/organ imaging, histopathology, radiology, and biomarkers spanning diverse contexts of use.

The Forum DAC is made possible by Berkeley’s commitment to supporting infrastructure for sensitive patient-level data, and a forward-looking Office of Industry Alliance. The Forum offers unique educational opportunities for students and fellows interested in biotechnology. Veronica Miller is committed to the education of the next generation of scientists through hands-on learning complemented by online and on-campus courses. She has over 145 peer-reviewed publications.

Mr. Dee Lee

Dee Lee is the founder of the Inno Community Development Organisation and the president of the World Hepatitis Alliance (WHA). Founded in 2007, Inno has been working with over 80 international brands as a worker’s hotline under the framework of business and human rights. Inno has helped resolved more than 30,000 cases on forced labour, child labour, gender-based violence etc., and has received numerous regional and international awards. After working in hundreds of factories to fight discrimination against people living with hepatitis, Dee was elected to be the president of WHA to lead 400 patient groups to end viral hepatitis affiliated with the World Health Organisation. He personally joined the World Health Assembly in 2015 to push for the adoption of Ending Viral Hepatitis in the current Global Health Sector Strategies before 2030. In the new normal of the global funding cut, Dee is now working closely with the crypto industry to set up a decentralized funding mechanism for the nonprofit frontline practitioners. He is an alumni of the International Leadership Programme (IVLP) and was recognized as one of China’s Top 10 Innovative People in the Charity Sector in 2018. Dee is a human rights defender for the vulnerable in the workplace and a builder in the decentralised space working to create a better nonprofit world.

Prof. Philippa Easterbrook

Professor Philippa Easterbrook is a global public health expert, infectious diseases physician, epidemiologist, & researcher, with 20+yrs experience in the global HIV response & 10yrs in hepatitis B & C elimination.

At WHO HQ, Geneva, she has led the development of key WHO global guidelines & policies, provided technical support to many low and middle-income countries in implementing programme scale-up and access to low cost medicines and diagnostics. Key achievements include the first WHO consolidated antiretroviral HIV guidelines, first country guidance on how to validate viral hepatitis elimination, and 2022 hepatitis C simplified service delivery and diagnostics guidelines. The recent 2024 hepatitis B guidelines have significantly expanded & simplified treatment eligibility, and are considered a gamechanger in promoting global access. She also served as the focal point for WHO Health Emergencies for hepatitis E outbreaks, the 2022 outbreak of severe acute hepatitis in children, and supported the 2015 Ebola response in Sierra Leone.

Recognized for her scientific excellence and ability to build consensus across diverse groups, she has established strong collaborations with a global network of clinicians, researchers, government agencies, civil society, and industry. She holds a first-class honours degree in Biochemistry & Doctor of Medicine with Distinction from University of Cambridge. She trained in general medicine & infectious diseases in the UK, and in public health/epidemiology on a Harkness Fellowship at Johns Hopkins University.

She was Senior Lecturer in Infectious Diseases & Epidemiology at Imperial College London; Head of Department, Professor of HIV Medicine, consultant physician at King’s College London for 11 yrs; and also Head of Research at the Infectious Diseases Institute, Uganda. In South Africa, she was a key partner in a PEPFAR technical assistance programme for rapid expansion of antiretroviral treatment across KwaZulu Natal.

Her research encompasses epidemiology, clinical trials, systematic reviews, implementation science, and immunology focusing on HIV and viral hepatitis. She has published 350+ peer-reviewed articles & authored three books. She has served on various grant review panels and expert advisory groups, including as vice-chair of the WHO Guidelines Review Committee and as International Associate Director for Global Health at UK Royal College of Physicians. Her awards include the BUPA Award for best young medical researcher, UK NIHR Senior Investigator Award, and WHO Director General excellence team award in 2023.

Prof. Lim Seng Gee

Prof Lim Seng Gee currently serves as a Senior Consultant and Director of Hepatology at the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, and a Senior Consultant at the Adult Liver Transplantation Programme, National University Centre for Organ Transplantation in National University Hospital, Singapore. He is an expert panel member, Centre for Drug Administration (CPA) and Centre for Drug Evaluation (CDE) at the Ministry of Health, Singapore and the Chairman of Singapore Hepatitis Conference since 2014. He is also a Professor in the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore.

Prof Lim attained his basic medical degree with honours (MBBS Hons) from the University of Monash, Melbourne, Australia. He later pursued a doctorate degree (MD) in Monash and was awarded the FRACP (Australia), FRCP (London), FAMS (Gasteroenterology, Singapore).

He is considered a master clinician having trained over 40 gastroenterologists and hepatologists, and is regularly referred difficult to treat liver cases. His main clinical work focuses on the treatment of viral hepatitis (esp. B and C), liver disease and liver cancer.

Prof Lim’s research activities include leadership in Hepatology research, which focuses on improving treatment for chronic hepatitis B and C, pathophysiology of hepatitis B disease, HBV virology, immunological mechanisms of HBeAg seroconversion, and loss of immune tolerance to hepatitis B virus. He also has an interest in pathophysiology and treatment of liver cancer, primary hepatocyte culture, hepatocyte function, drug related liver disease and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.

Prof Lim has over 253 publications in peer-reviewed journals with a H-index of 51, and sits on the editorial board of Liver International Hepatology, International, J Viral Hepatitis, Alimentary Pharmacology and Therapeutics, and Lancet Gastroenterology and Hepatology. He has received over S$48 million in research grants.

Prof Lim also sits on the Advisory Board of Novartis Pharmaceuticals, Idenix Pharmaceuticals, Bristol Myers Squibb Pharmaceuticals and is on the Speaker’s Bureau for GlaxoSmithKline and Schering Plough Pharmaceuticals. Prof Lim has been an invited speaker at AASLD, EASL and APASL in 2013, 2014 and is a regular speaker at numerous International and Regional meetings on liver disease and viral hepatitis.

Prof Lim is also an Evidence Based Medicine (EBM) Champion, having founded the annual Asia Pacific EBM workshop in 2004 together with Prof Tony Dans from the Philippines which still runs yearly, and actively teaches and contributes to the development of EBM in Singapore.

Prof Lim is Council member, International Coalition for Eradication of Hepatitis B Virus (ICE-HBV), AASLD Asia Pacific Regional Council member, Co-chair ICE-HBV treatment subcommittee, and Co-chair combination therapy subcommittee HBV Forum.

Prof. Norah Terrault

MD, MPH

Dr. Norah Terrault is a transplant hepatologist, the Neil Kaplowitz Professor of Medicine and Chief of Gastrointestinal and Liver Diseases Division at the Keck School of Medicine of University of Southern California in Los Angeles, California.

Dr. Terrault has focused her clinical and research activities on viral hepatitis and fatty liver disease, with specific focus on patients with cirrhosis and liver transplant recipients. In addition to multiple clinical trials related to preventing and treating chronic hepatitis viral hepatitis and fatty liver, Dr. Terrault has been PI on multiple NIH-funded studies, including the current NIH-supported HBV clinical research network (HBRN), nonalcoholic steatohepatitis clinical research network (NASH CRN) and Liver Cirrhosis Network (LCN). She has authored over 400 peer-reviewed manuscripts, editorials, invited reviews as well as US national guidelines for treatment of chronic hepatitis B and C and reproductive health. Dr. Terrault served as the 2023 AASLD President.

Dr. Wong Chen Seong

Director
National HIV Programme
Senior Consultant

Credentials
MBBS, MRCP (UK), FAMS

Clinical interests
HIV Medicine

Adjunct Assistant Professor Wong Chen Seong is a Senior Consultant Infectious Diseases Physician at the National Centre for Infectious Diseases (NCID) and Tan Tock Seng Hospital. He received his medical training at the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore and gained Membership to the Royal College of Physicians of the United Kingdom in 2010. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Medicine of Singapore (Chapter of Infectious Diseases Physicians).

Adj Asst Prof Wong is Director of the National HIV Programme, and Director of the NCID HIV Clinical Programme. He is actively involved in HIV clinical care and research, with interests in the socio-behavioural determinants of HIV/STI, HIV/STI prevention, HIV Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP), innovations in HIV service delivery such as telemedicine, as well as HIV and ageing and co-morbidity.

Adj Asst Prof Wong is also actively involved in both undergraduate and post-graduate medical education and training, and is a Clinical Lecturer at Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine and Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine, as well as an Associate Programme Director of the National Healthcare Group Internal Medicine Residency Programme.

Assoc.Prof.Dr. Sakkarin Chirapongsathorn

Medical School
– M.D., Faculty of Medicine, Khon Kaen University, Thailand, 2005

Board Certifications
– Diploma of the Thai Board of Internal Medicine, 2010
– Diploma of the Thai Subboard of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, 2012

Fellowships
– Clinical posdoctoral fellowship (Hepatology), Mayo Clinic, College of Medicine, Rochester, Minnesota, USA, 2014 – 2016
Academic Rank: Associate Professor, Phramongkutklao College of Medicine Royal Thai Army, 2019

Special Clinical Interests
– Gastrointestinal and liver diseases
– Cirrhosis and its complications
– Viral hepatitis

Dr. John W Ward, MD

Dr Ward directs the Coalition for Global Hepatitis Elimination of the Task Force for Global Health providing a community of practice for partners in over 90 countries to share lessons learned, participate in operational research and advocate for the prevention, care and treatment needed to eliminate hepatitis. Globally, Dr Ward advises hepatitis elimination plans, policies, programs of national governments, Africa CDC, and WHO Geneva, Western Pacific and other regional offices. Dr Ward convened the first United Nations Group of Friends to Eliminate Hepatitis. In Asia, Dr Ward works with WHO to promote and verify achievement of goals for the elimination of mother to child transmission of hepatitis B and APASL Hepatitis Elimination Task Force to improve hepatitis B and hepatitis C screening and care. Over a 13 year tenure, Dr Ward directed the CDC Division of Viral Hepatitis, a WHO collaborating center setting national policies for hepatitis surveillance, vaccination, testing and care. Dr Ward has authored over 200 scientific publications of viral hepatitis and HIV and served as Editor of the CDC MMWR. Dr Ward is a Professor (adjunct) in the Hubert Department of Global Health, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University, Atlanta.

DR. LOEY LUNG-YI MAK

MD, FRCP

Dr Mak Lung-Yi, Loey is a Clinical Assistant Professor at the University of Hong Kong. She is a specialist in gastroenterology and hepatology. Dr Mak’s research interests include chronic viral hepatitis and steatotic liver disease. She has published more than 160 peer-reviewed articles in reputable journals, with >80 being first-authored/ co-first/ corresponding authored articles (H-index by Scopus: 35). Dr. Mak has received numerous academic awards, highlight being The Emerging Leader Award by The European Association for the Study of Liver, of which Dr. Mak is the first Chinese woman to receive this award. She was awarded the runner-up of The Rising Star Award for Global Women in Healthcare Awards by EMMS International in association with the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh in 2025. To recognise her major contribution to advancing human health and community service, Loey is selected to receive the Ten Outstanding Young Persons of Hong Kong in 2024. Dr. Mak is Associate Editor of Clinical Molecular Hepatology, and Editorial Board member for Journal of Hepatology and Hepatology Communications.

Prof. Junqi Niu

Niu Junqi, M.D., is a Professor of Internal Medicine and Vice Dean of the Institute of Translational Medicine at the First Hospital of Jilin University. He holds multiple prestigious positions including Director of the Center for Infectious Diseases and Pathogenic Biology, Director of Jilin Provincial Institute of Hepatology, and Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Clinical Hepatobiliary Diseases. Recognized as a Tang Aoqing Distinguished Professor at Jilin University.

With extensive experience in clinical research, Prof. Niu has led or participated in 145 new drug clinical trials, including:

• 34 international multicenter clinical studies
• 37 domestic multicenter phase III clinical studies (as principal investigator)
• 33 early-phase clinical studies (as lead researcher)
• 77 domestic multicenter clinical studies (as participating researcher)

His scholarly achievements include publishing over 200 peer on reviewed journal and SCI-indexed research papers and receiving numerous prestigious awards such as the Chinese Medical Science and Technology Award and the Ministry of Education’s Excellent Scientific Research Achievement Award.

Prof. Henry Lik Yuen Chan, MD

Deputy Chief Hospital Manager, Union Hospital
Head, Department of Internal Medicine and Division of GI & Hepatology, Union Hospital
Clinical Professor (Honorary), Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Board of Directors, Microbiota I-Center

Scientific Chair and Global council member, International Association for the Study of the Liver

Council member and past president, Hong Kong Association for the Study of Liver Diseases

Member of the Steering Committee, Control and Prevention of Viral Hepatitis

Associate editor for Hepatology International

Research interests: viral hepatitis, liver fibrosis, liver cancer, antiviral therapy, and fatty liver disease

Prof. George Goh

Senior Consultant
Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology
Singapore General Hospital

Associate Professor
Duke-NUS Medical School

Dr. George Goh is a Senior Consultant at Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Singapore General Hospital, with appointments as fellow of Academy of Medicine, Singapore (FAMS) and fellow of the American Association for the Study of Liver Disease (FAASLD), Clinical Associate Professor, Duke-NUS Medical School and Clinical assistant professor, National University of Singapore. He is currently director of the Clinical Trials Research Centre in Singapore General Hospital.
He has a subspeciality interest in hepatology, particularly Fatty Liver Disease and is actively involved in several international Fatty liver disease interest groups and consensus networks. He currently leads a dedicated Metabolic Liver Clinic and service at SGH.
As a researcher, besides being supported for several grant funded investigator-initiated studies, he is also local Principal Investigator of several ongoing international pharmaceutical interventional MASLD trials. He has published in the fields of Fatty Liver, liver cirrhosis, hepatocellular carcinoma and organ transplantation, and has been an invited faculty at local, regional and international conferences.
He is also subspecialty editor for Singapore Medical Journal and on editorial boards of international journals like Clinical Gastroenterology & Hepatology, Alimentary Pharmacology & Therapeutics and Journal of Clinical and Translational Hepatology.

Dr. Yang Wei Lyn

Designation
Senior Consultant

Credentials
MBBS, MRCP (UK), FRCP (Edin)

Clinical Interests
General Gastroenterology and Clinical Hepatology

Dr. Mark Cheah

Consultant
Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology
Singapore General Hospital
Singapore

Dr Mark Cheah is a Consultant at the Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Singapore General Hospital.

Dr Cheah received his medical degrees from the Barts & The London (University of London, UK) in 2009 and completed his postgraduate degrees in internal medicine (MRCP (UK), MMed Singapore) in 2012. He has received specialist training in the Department of Gastroenterology & Hepatology at Singapore General Hospital and Changi General Hospital.

He has an interest in Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, Clinical Nutrition and Medical Education.

Prof. Rastilav Kunda

Prof. Rastislav Kunda, MD, FASGE, FJGES is a HPB and GI surgeon, with main focus in digestive and HPB endoscopy. He is focused on invention and innovation, particularly in biliopancreatic endoscopy, including the development of new devices and procedures in interventional endoscopy. He pioneered implementation of interventional EUS and developing of entirely novel procedures in interventional EUS and HPB endoscopy and focusing their firm incorporation into therapeutic algorithms of HPB disorders. He was head and elevated both surgical and endoscopic programs at Aarhus Univeristy Hospital, Aarhus, Denmark and University Hospital of Brussels, Brussels, Belgium, to position them as global leaders, with an early and firm implementation of these recent developments into clinical practice as well as in providing advanced training in these novel techniques worldwide. The main focus is on multidisciplinary approach to hepatopancreatobiliary diseases, including minimally invasive interventions by means of flexible endoscopy, laparoscopy and robotic surgery. Prof. Kunda is currently affiliated with the National University of Singapore and the National University Hospital as the Philip Yeo Professor in Medicine by NUS and Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine. Prof. Kunda holds numerous visiting professorships on all continents, he has been honoured by 26 international awards of distinction. And is a member of 25 professional organizations and societies.

Prof. Saeed Hamid

Professor,
Department of Medicine and Director of the Clinical Trials Unit
The Aga Khan University Pakistan

Saeed Sadiq Hamid, MD, FRCP is Professor, Department of Medicine and Director of the Clinical Trials Unit at The Aga Khan University, Karachi, Pakistan. He formerly served as Chair, Department of Medicine from 2008-2018. He trained in Medicine and Gastroenterology in the UK, and in Hepatology at University of Texas Southwestern Medical School, Dallas, USA. He has been Vice President, Pakistan Society of Gastroenterology and President of the Pakistan Society for the Study of Liver Diseases (PSSLD). He has also been a member of the Guidelines and Publications Committee of World Gastroenterology Organization, member of the Executive Council of the Asian Pacific Association for the Study of the Liver (APASL) from 2006-2010 and has chaired the WHO Guidelines Development Group for Hepatitis C in 2015 and again in 2017. He is currently Member Governing Council, World Gastroenterology Organization (WGO), Co-Chair of Coalition to Eradicate Viral Hepatitis FROM Asia-Pacific (CEVHAP) and Member of Oversight Committee, EndHep2030. His main research interests are viral hepatitis and Liver Failure. He has been an author on over 150 peer reviewed publications and three book chapters. His current work involves HCV micro-elimination projects in the province of Sindh, Pakistan. He has mentored a number of postgraduate GI trainees, PhD and other graduate students.

Tung-Hung Su

MD, PhD

Attending Physician, Division of Gastroenterology, Department of Internal Medicine, National Taiwan University Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan
Clinical Professor, Department of Internal Medicine, College of Medicine, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan

E-Mail: tunghungsu@ntu.edu.tw / tunghungsu@gmail.com
Website: https://scholars.lib.ntu.edu.tw/entities/person/tunghungsu

Biography
Dr. Tung-Hung Su earned his M.D. degree from the National Taiwan University College of Medicine in 2001 and his Ph.D. from the Graduate Institute of Clinical Medicine at the same university in 2015. He has been an attending physician specializing in Hepatology and a Clinical Professor in the Department of Internal Medicine at National Taiwan University Hospital since 2024. From 2017 to 2019, he was a visiting scholar at Stanford University. Dr. Su’s research focuses on translational studies on liver fibrosis treatment, viral hepatitis B management, cirrhosis, and hepatocellular carcinoma, including disease prediction and outcome research using large-scale electrical medical records. Additionally, he applies artificial intelligence models to the study of liver diseases. He has published several research papers in these fields.

Awards
1. Wu Ta-You Memorial Award 2016
2. Outstanding Research Award for Junior Faculty at the National Taiwan University Hospital, 2016
3. Best Attending Physician Award, Department of Internal Medicine, National Taiwan University Hospital, 2021, 2023.

Selected publications
1. Su TH, Wu CH, Kao JH. Artificial intelligence in precision medicine in hepatology. J Gastroenterol Hepatol. 2021 Mar;36(3):569-580
2. Huang SC, Su TH, Tseng TC, Chen CL, Hsu SJ, Liao SH, Hong CM, Liu CH, Lan TY, Yang HC, Liu CJ, Chen PJ, Kao JH. Distinct effects of hepatic steatosis and metabolic dysfunction on the risk of hepatocellular carcinoma in chronic hepatitis B. Hepatol Int. 2023 Oct;17(5):1139-1149.
3. Huang SC, Su TH, Tseng TC, Hsu SJ, Hong CM, Lan TY, Liu CH, Yang HC, Liu CJ, Kao JH. All-cause and cause-specific mortality in patients with chronic hepatitis B and concurrent steatotic liver disease. J Hepatol. 2024 Dec 14:S0168-8278(24)02763-6
4. Chang KC, Su TH, Wu CK, Huang SC, Tseng TC, Hong CM, Hsu SJ, Liu CH, Yang HC, Liu CJ, Kao JH. Metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease is associated with increased risks of heart failure. Eur J Heart Fail. 2025 Jan 8. doi: 10.1002/ejhf.3567
5. Su TH, Yang SS, Lee MH, Kao WY, Huang SC, Chen FF, Poon FS, Tsai LW, Chen YT, Lin C, Wang W, Kim WR, Kao JH. High SAFE scores predict hepatocellular carcinoma in viral and non-viral hepatitis and metabolic dysfunction associated steatotic liver disease. Clin Mol Hepatol. 2025 Jan 6. doi: 10.3350/cmh.2024.0822

Prof. Amit Singal

Dr. Singal is a Professor of Medicine at UT Southwestern Medical Center and serves as Chief of Hepatology and Director of the Liver Tumor Program. His research focuses on prevention, screening and treatment of HCC, including evaluation of interventions to improve early cancer detection and reduce HCC-related mortality. He has over 400 peer-reviewed original publications and has been awarded the Willis Maddrey Distinguished Chair in Liver Disease and Blue Faery Award for Excellence in Liver Cancer Research.

Prof. Quentin Antsee

BSc(Hons), MB BS, PhD, MRCP(UK), FRCP

Pro-Vice-Chancellor – Faculty of Medical Sciences
Ruth & Lionel Jacobson Chair of Personalised Medicine and Honorary Consultant Hepatologist

https://www.ncl.ac.uk/medical-sciences/people/profile/quentinanstee.html

Prof Quentin M. Anstee is the Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the Faculty of Medical Sciences, Newcastle University, UK. A practicing clinician, he is also an Honorary Consultant Hepatologist in the Liver Transplant Unit at Newcastle’s Freeman Hospital, where he established one of the largest Metabolic-dysfunction Associated Steatotic Liver Disease (MASLD), formerly called Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD), clinical services in the U.K. He trained in medicine at University College London where he was awarded a First Class Honours degree and won First Prize in Medicine in the final MB BS examination.

Prof Anstee’s translational research has made major contributions across the pathophysiology, natural history, diagnosis and treatment of MASLD. His work has provided key insights into temporal changes in steatohepatitis during disease evolution, identified genetic and epigenetic modifiers of liver disease progression and hepatocellular carcinoma risk, and has substantially advanced the field of biomarker development in liver disease. He has coordinated several major international research consortia studying pathogenesis and developing/validating accurate biomarkers to assist the diagnosis, risk-stratification and monitoring of patients with MASLD including: ‘EPoS’ Elucidating Pathways of Steatohepatitis (EU H2020 funded €6 million, 2015-2019) and ‘LITMUS’ Liver Investigation: Testing Marker Utility in Steatohepatitis (EU IMI2 funded €47.3 million, 2017-2024). He leads the European MASLD Registry and is the chief investigator of multiple ongoing clinical trials assessing new medical therapies for MASLD. He is an NIHR Senior Investigator and has been named as one of the world’s most influential researchers in the Web of Science list of Highly Cited Researchers, amongst the top 1% of scientists by citation metrics. He is an Associate Editor of the Journal of Hepatology.

Dr. Nicholas Chew

Dr Nicholas Chew is an Associate Consultant Cardiologist at the National University Heart Centre,
Singapore (NUHCS), specialising in Interventional Cardiology.
His clinical and research interests focus on coronary artery disease and its link with metabolic conditions like fatty liver disease.
He has secured research funding through MOE Tier 1, NUHS CS-IRG grants, and the NMRC Transition Award.
Dr Chew has published over 200 peer-reviewed articles, and as first and senior author in high-impact journals including JACC, Circulation, Nature Reviews Cardiology, Lancet
Public Health, and Cell Metabolism. He has been awarded the World’s Top 2% Scientist List for his contributions in the cardiometabolic field of research. He is the recipient of several regional and international Young Investigator Awards.

Dr. Rahul Kumar

Dr Rahul is the Director of Hepatology Service at Changi General Hospital (CGH). His speciality interest is in liver diseases including viral hepatitis, liver cancer and liver failure.

He completed his MBBS and MD in India. Dr Rahul completed his basic speciality training in general medicine, and was awarded MRCP (UK) in 2012. He completed advanced speciality training in gastroenterology and hepatology in 2016.

Dr. Cynthia Hartsfield

Dr. Hartsfield is the Senior Director of Medical Affairs at 89bio, Inc. She received her PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the University of Kentucky and
completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Johns Hopkins University in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine. Dr. Hartsfield has more than 15 years of medical affairs experience working across all stages of product development in a wide range of disease states. She is passionate about bringing new therapeutic options to patients with unmet medical needs.

Dr. Karin Wisskirchen

Karin Wisskirchen is the Managing Director and CEO of SCG Cell Therapy in Germany and Head of Cell Therapy Research at SCG globally. Prior to joining SCG in 2021, she worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of Virology (Technical University of Munich) where she led the preclinical development and translational research for adoptive T cell therapy of chronic hepatitis B and HBV-induced hepatocellular carcinoma. Before that, Karin received her PhD from the same institution, where she discovered the HBV-specific T cell receptor that is now clinically applied by SCG. She holds a degree in biology from the Philipps University of Marburg, where she majored in virology and completed her diploma thesis on HBV disinfection at the Justus-Liebig-University in Gießen. Her scientific work has been honored with multiple awards from both the field of hepatology as well as cell therapy, including the “GASL price of the YAEL foundation” in 2020 for excellent published liver research for her publication in the JCI, and the “Young Investigator Award” of the
International Society for Cellular Therapy (ISCT, 2014 and 2016).

Dr. Yogesh Chawla

Dr Yogesh Chawla is a Chairman Academics, Kalinga Institute of Medical Sciences, KIIT University, Bhubneshwar, 40 Years in Gastroenterology and Hepatology, out of which 22 Years as Head of Department of Hepatology in PGI, Chandigarh an Institute of National Importance. Director of PGI Chandigarh from 2011 to 2016. He graduated in medicine from the Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose Medical College, Jabalpur, secured a MD (Internal Medicine) from Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose Medical College, Jabalpur in 1979, DM (Gastroenterology) from All India Institute of Medical Science (AIIMS), New Delhi in 1983.

Prof. Atsushi Nakajima

MD, PhD

Atsushi Nakajima, MD, PhD is a Professor and Chairman in the Department of Gastroenterology & Hepatology at the Yokohama City University School of Medicine. Dr. Nakajima graduated from the Osaka University School of Medicine in 1989, and became an Assistant Professor of the 3rd Department of Internal Medicine, Faculty of Medicine at University of Tokyo in 1997. He engaged in research as a Visiting Associate Professor at the GI division of Brigham and women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School from 2000 to 2006, after that, he became a Professor in the Department of Gastroenterology at the Yokohama City University School of medicine in 2008, and then a Professor & Chairman in the Department of Gastroenterology & Hepatology at the Yokohama City University School of medicine in 2014. He has carried out several clinical trials aiming at the new drug application for NASH and investigator initiated studies to reveal the disease entity of NASH/NAFLD.

Prof. Ming Hua Zheng

MD, PhD

Position:
· Professor, MAFLD Research Center, Department of Hepatology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University

Institution:
· The First Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University

Prof. Elizabeth Powell

Professor Powell is a Hepatologist and Senior Staff Specialist in the Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Princess Alexandra Hospital. She is Clinical Director at QIMR Berghofer, Director of the Network Centre for Liver Disease Research and Professor, School of Medicine, The University of QLD.

She leads a productive research program, bridging clinical research and basic science, and mentoring the training and career development of emerging researchers and clinicians. Professor Powell has 199 career publications (Scopus Apr 2025) with over 19,000 cites (citation rates almost 4.15 times more than field average, Scival Apr 2025). She has held three 5-year NHMRC Practitioner Fellowships, and two Queensland Health Clinical Research Fellowships.

Over the last 5 years she has led research of emerging paradigms in hepatology research, examining the role of injury-stratifying biomarkers and pathways of care for metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) and chronic liver disease.

Prof. Asahiro Morishita

Current Position
Clinical Professor

Department of Gastroenterology

Areas of interest
Hepatocellular Carcinoma Therapy
Non-alcoholic Steatohepatitis
Translational Research of Liver Diseases

Educational and Career Experiences
1991-1997 Kagawa University Faculty of Medicine
1997-2001 Post graduate school, Kagawa University
2001-2006 Postdoctoral fellow
2006-2013 Associate Research Scientist, Columbia University
2013-2018 Assistant Professor, Kagawa University
2019-2025 Associate Professor, Kagawa University
2025- Clinical Professor, Kagawa University

Honors and Awards
・Research Award, 11th Hamanako Symposium
・Oral Free Paper Prize, 23rd United European Gastroenterology Week 2015
・Research Award, Kagawa University Alumni

Dr. Nina LeBert

Dr. Nina Le Bert earned her undergraduate degree in Biology from the Freie Universität Berlin (Germany), with studies abroad at the University of Swansea (UK) and the Université Pierre et Marie Curie (Paris, France). She was awarded a prestigious Marie Curie Early-Stage Research Fellowship, which facilitated her pursuit of a Ph.D. from the Division of Infection & Immunity at University College London (UK) from 2006 to 2011.

In 2012, Dr. Le Bert relocated to Singapore, where she joined A/Prof Stephan Gasser’s lab at the National University of Singapore as a Research Fellow. In 2014, she transitioned into Prof Antonio Bertoletti’s lab, initially as a Research Fellow at the Singapore Institute for Clinical Sciences, A*STAR, and later as a Senior Research Fellow at Duke-NUS Medical School from 2017 onward.

Since 2023, Dr. Le Bert is an Assistant Professor at Duke-NUS Medical School within the Emerging Infectious Diseases Program.

Dr Le Bert’s research is focused on the role of antigen-specific T and B cells in the control and pathogenesis of viral infections.

Her primary research interest is focused on antigen-specific T and B cells in the context of chronic Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection.

Dr. Cynthia Hartsfield

Dr. Hartsfield is the Senior Director of Medical Affairs at 89bio, Inc. She received her PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the University of Kentucky and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Johns Hopkins University in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine. Dr. Hartsfield has more than 15 years of medical affairs experience working across all stages of product development in a wide range of disease states. She is passionate about bringing new therapeutic options to patients with unmet medical needs.

Professor. Man-Fung YUEN, J.P.

Professor Yuen currently serves as Chair Professor at The University of Hong Kong and holds the Li Shu Fan Medical Foundation Professorship in Medicine. He is also Chief of the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology at Queen Mary Hospital, Hong Kong. After earning his MBBS in 1992, Professor Yuen pursued further academic distinction, obtaining three doctoral degrees: Doctor of Medicine (awarded the Sir Patrick Manson Gold Medal, 2001), Doctor of Philosophy (2005), and Doctor of Science (2017).

Professor Yuen is internationally recognised for his work on chronic hepatitis B and hepatocellular carcinoma. His research spans disease prevention, natural history, virology, serology, and therapeutic development. Professor Yuen has published over 650 research articles in many medical journals, including the most prestigious ones e.g., New England Journal of Medicine, Lancet and its specialty journals, Nature Medicine, Nature Review Disease Primers, Nature Review Gastroenterology and Hepatology and top Gastroenterology and Hepatology Journals. Of all these publications, he has served as the lead author on 10 seminal and original articles published in New England Journal of Medicine, Lancet Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Lancet Infectious Diseases and Nature Medicine. He has been invited to deliver more than 370 lectures worldwide.

Currently, Professor Yuen leads numerous international clinical trials investigating new antiviral and immunomodulatory therapies for chronic hepatitis B. He is also serving as a consultant and scientific advisor for many international pharmaceutical and biotech companies for developing novel agents for hepatitis B disease. In addition, he is at the forefront of research into novel biomarkers for overt and occult hepatitis B infection. His expertise is sought by several international coalitions, including the International Coalition to Eliminate HBV (ICE-HEP) and the Coalition to Eradicate Viral Hepatitis in Asia Pacific (CEVHAP). He is a member of the Asia Pacific Liver Disease Alliance and serves on the Advisory Council of The Hepatitis Fund, a Swiss-based foundation.

In recognition of his outstanding contributions, Professor Yuen was awarded the “Bruce Witte Distinguished Scholar” in November 2025 from the Hepatitis B Foundation – Baruch S. Blumberg Institute, a world-renowned institute dedicated to Dr. Blumberg, the Nobel laureate for the discovery of hepatitis B virus.

Prof. Arndt Vogel

Arndt Vogel, MD, is managing senior consultant and professor in the Department of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Endocrinology at Hannover Medical School. He is head of the GI-Cancer Center and of the Center for Personalized Medicine at Medical School Hannover.

Prof Vogel’s scientific focus is the translational and clinical research in gastrointestinal cancer. Since 2004, he is leading a basic research group interested in the pathogenesis of GI-cancers with a special focus on hepatobiliary cancers and precision medicine. Arndt Vogel has been a clinical investigator in oncology since 2006 and has served as principal investigator on numerous clinical trials. He is author or co-author of more than 250 articles published in peer-reviewed journals including Lancet Oncology, Cancer Cell,Gastroenterology, and Hepatology.

Prof Vogel is member of societies including ESMO, ASCO, and EASL. He is member and chairman of Hepatobiliary Cancer Study Group of the AIO, a collaborative group in clinical oncology in Germany. Within ESMO, he is member of the ESMO Guidelines Steering Committee. Prof Vogel has responsibilities in the establishment of the national guideline and is the coordinator of the ESMO clinical practice guideline on the management of hepatocellular carcinoma and biliary tract cancer.

Dr. Jacob George

Dr. Jacob George, Robert W Storr Chair of Hepatic Medicine, Sydney Medical School Director, Storr Liver Centre, The Westmead Institute for Medical Research and Head, Department of Gastroenterology & Hepatology, Westmead Hospital and Sydney West Local Health District Australia
Jacob George is the Robert W. Storr Professor of Hepatic Medicine at the Storr Liver Centre, Westmead Institute for Medical Research, University of Sydney, and Head of the Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology at Westmead Hospital rict. He undertakes basic and clinical research on hepatitis C, MAFLD, liver cancer, and hepatic fibrosis. He was an Associate Editor for the Journal of Hepatology (to September 2023) and is a current senior Editor for Seminars in Liver Disease (since 2022) and Journal of Hepatology Reports (from Oct 2023). He is on the Editorial Board of Hepatology, Hepatology Communications, Liver International, and the World Journal of Gastroenterology. He is on the executive of the International Association for the Study of Liver (IASL), was a past Executive Council member and Chair of Research for the Asian Pacific Association for the Study of the Liver, a board member of the Gastroenterological Society of Australia and previous Chair of the Liver Faculty of the Gastroenterological Society of Australia. He has published extensively with an h index of 114.

Dr. Adam Gehring

Adam Gehring received his Ph.D. at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. His training included a Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Institute of Hepatology at University College London and a position of Senior Research Fellow, and subsequently Assistant Principal Investigator, at the Singapore Institute for Clinical Sciences. Dr. Gehring moved to Saint Louis University as an Assistant Professor in the Molecular Microbiology and Immunology department in March 2013 before joining the Toronto Centre for Liver Disease as Biology Lead in February 2016.

His lab works closely with clinical collaborators to obtain minimally invasive, fine-needle aspiration biopsies to investigate mechanisms of pathogenesis using state-of-the-art single cell technologies. His lab also performs immunological monitoring for new HBV drugs during Phase II clinical trials. Combined, these two research arms integrate translational and clinical research studies to drive investigations into human liver pathogenesis.

Dr. Jordan felds

Dr. Feld graduated from medical school at the University of Toronto in 1997 and then completed residency programs in Internal Medicine and Gastroenterology. Following his clinical training, Dr. Feld focused on developing skills in clinical and laboratory research in liver disease, with a particular interest in viral hepatitis. He completed a clinical research fellowship in hepatology and then spent 4 years doing clinical and laboratory research in the Liver Diseases Branch of the National Institutes of Health. He received a Masters of Public Health with a focus on Infectious Diseases as a Sommer Scholar from Johns Hopkins University and has worked extensively abroad, maintaining a strong interest in International Health. Curently, Dr. Feld is clinician-scientist based at the Toronto Western Hospital Liver Clinic and the McLaughlin-Rotman Centre for Global Health.

Dr. Felds research focuses on understanding treatment non-response in hepatitis C and more broadly on understanding the antiviral immune response and developing new strategies for the treatment of viral hepatitis.

Prof. Mala Maini

She is a Professor of Viral Immunology based in the Institute of Immunity and Transplantation in the Pears Building, within the Division of Infection and Immunity at University College London, and Honorary Consultant Physician in the viral hepatitis clinic within CNWL NHS Foundation Trust. Her research has always been closely informed by the patients she sees in her clinics and the samples they generously donate through the network of clinical collaborators. They investigate the regulation and harnessing of tissue-compartmentalised adaptive immunity in hepatitis B, liver cancer and SARS-COV-2. Research in the Maini lab is funded by the Wellcome Trust, Cancer Research UK, ERC Horizon 2020 and UKRI.

Dr. Maura Dandri

UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER HAMBURG-EPPENDORF, GERMANY
Maura Dandri is full professor at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE), where she leads the virtual hepatitis research group. She received her BS in Natural Science and PhD in Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Trieste, Italy; was Post-doctoral Fellow at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York, and at Heinrich-Pette-Institute, Hamburg, Germany (EMBO Fellowship). The German Research Foundation awarded her with a Heisenberg Professorship in viral hepatitis.
Dr. Dandri is member of the executive board of the German Center for Infection Research and the ICE-HBV governing board. The overall aim of her research focuses on understanding the molecular mechanisms responsible for the persistence of human hepatitis viruses, in particular HBV and HDV, and on accelerating the development of therapeutic approaches aiming at curing chronic hepatitis B and D infections. These studies are mostly performed using humanized mice and through the analyses of human liver biopsy samples.

Prof. Sumeet K. Asrani

Sumeet Asrani, MD, MSc is the Chief of Hepatology and Liver Transplantation at the Baylor Simmons Transplant Institute in Dallas. He has served as the Medical Director of the Center for Advanced Liver Disease since 2016. He provides clinical care at Baylor University Medical Center (BUMC) and Baylor Scott and White Medical Center – Waxahachie. Recently, Dr. Asrani has restructured the research enterprise of the Simmons Transplant Institute and has been instrumental in elevating the name of the Institute and Baylor Scott & White as a recognized presence in the national and international academic world.

Dr. Asrani received his medical degree from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. He did his internship and residency at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, MO. He went on to complete fellowships in gastroenterology, hepatology and transplant hepatology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota before joining the transplant hepatology team at Baylor University Medical Center in 2013.

Dr. Asrani has published 140 peer review publications, 300 abstracts and given over 125 national and international presentations. In addition, he has mentored more than 30 trainees to help advance their medical careers. Dr. Asrani previously served as an associate editor for the American Journal of Transplantation (AJT) and as an associate editor for Liver Transplantation (LT). He is actively involved in national and international collaborations to improve care for patients with liver disease.

Dr. Asrani specializes in the management of patients with end-stage liver disease, liver transplantation candidates and recipients. His other clinical interests include liver cancer, viral hepatitis, autoimmune hepatitis, primary sclerosing cholangitis and alcohol associated liver disease. His research interests focus on early identification of patients with cirrhosis, improving quality of patients with liver disease especially in the rural setting, improving kidney function in patients with liver disease and organ allocation.

Prof. Leon Adams

Leon Adams (MBBS, FRACP, Ph.D.) is an Associate Professor (Medical School, University of Western Australia) and Consultant Hepatologist in the Liver Transplant Unit at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital. His research interests focus on translational, clinical and epidemiological aspects of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease in which he has published over 150 articles and regularly obtained NHMRC funding. He is a member of the editorial boards of Hepatology, Journal of Hepatology, Hepatology Communications and is Associate Editor of the Journal of Gastroenterology and Hepatology Open. He has served on numerous committees and faculties of the Australian Liver Association, the Gastroenterology Society of Australia, and the American Association for the Study of Liver Disease.

Prof. Qingfeng Chen

Qingfeng Chen is a Senior Principal Investigator at the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology (IMCB), Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) . He is also an Adjunct Associate Professor at the Department of Microbiology, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, NUS.

Qingfeng joined IMCB in 2012 to develop humanised mouse models for the study of human infectious diseases, cancers, autoimmune diseases and stem cells. In 2018, while at IMCB, he co-founded Invivocue, a bioscience company in Singapore, that aims to support medical and pharmaceutical research, from target discovery, validation to pre-clinical development, and eventually advancing to clinical trials, through its humanised rodent models.

Prior to his role at IMCB, Qingfeng joined the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART) to pursue his postdoctoral research on developing humanised mouse models. In 2011, he was promoted as research scientist at SMART.

Prof. Yasuhito Tanaka

Prof. Dr. Yasuhito Tanaka has been working as a Gastroenterologist (Hepatologist) since 1991 and has treated many patients with chronic viral hepatitis. He obtained his Ph.D. degree from Nagoya City University, Nagoya, Japan. In 1999, he joined the U.S. National Institutes of Health as a Visiting Fellowship. After serving as Assistant Professor (2001–2002), Lecturer (2002–2006), and Associate Professor (2006–2009) at the Department of Clinical Molecular Informative Medicine, Nagoya City University Graduate School of Medical Sciences, he became a Professor and the Director of the Department of Virology & Liver Unit, Nagoya City University Graduate School of Medical Sciences (2006–2020). Since 2020, he has been serving as a Professor of the Department of Gastroenterology and the Hepatology Vice Dean Faculty of Life Science at Kumamoto University, the Deputy Hospital Director and Director of the Liver Center, and the Director of the Endoscopy Center at Kumamoto University Hospital. He has been working on molecular evolutionary analyses of HBV and HCV using human samples, and also leading National Projects about GWAS and drug screening for developing HBV therapeutics. His clinical studies contributed to making Japanese guidelines to prevent HBV reactivation by HBV-DNA monitoring.

Dr. Benjamin Nah

An active clinician-investigator, Dr Nah’s research work focuses on large-scale cohort analyses to refine risk stratification, characterise prognostic markers, and rigorously evaluate therapeutic strategies and clinical outcomes within the realm of Hepatology. He has authored multiple peer-reviewed articles in high-impact journals—including Gastroenterology, Gut, and the Journal of Hepatology. In addition, he regularly presents his research findings at premier international and regional conferences, among them Digestive Disease Week (DDW), the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD), Asian Pacific Digestive Week (APDW), and the Asian Pacific Association for the Study of the Liver (APASL).

Prof. Maja Thiele

Dr. Thiele is a Professor of Hepatology at the Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Odense University Hospital and University of Southern Denmark.
Her work focuses on reducing morbidity and mortality from alcohol-related liver disease, for the benefit of an otherwise stigmatized patient group. Her research centers involves the development and validation of diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers, with a particular focus on early disease detection, cost-effective referral pathways, and omics technologies.
Dr. Thiele is an elastography expert contributor to EASL Clinical Practice Guidance, the BAVENO VII consensus statement, AASLD clinical guidance, the WFUMB guideline, and The Lancet Commission on Liver Disease in Primary Care. She is a partner in the European research consortia GALAXY, LiverScreen, MicrobPredict, and SALVE.

Prof. M Shadab Siddiqui

Prof. Shadab Siddiqui joined the Hepatology Section of the University of Virginia, Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology in July 2025 from the Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) where he has been a key clinician and researcher since 2012. Dr. Siddiqui is a transplant hepatologist with a research focus on metabolic liver disease, biomarker development, and liver transplantation.

Prof. Neeraj Bhala

Professor Neeraj Bhala is a prominent Professor of Gastroenterology and the Head of Gastroenterology and Hepatology at the Royal Melbourne Hospital and Melbourne Medical School. He specializes in liver disease, clinical nutrition, and preventive gastroenterology. He was also recently awarded the prestigious Bisset Hawkins Medal by the Royal College of Physicians.

Dr. Charles Mak Chia Meng

Dr. Charles Mak is a Senior Consultant Psychiatrist at the National Addictions Management Service (NAMS) and Department of Forensic Psychiatry at the Institute of Mental Health (IMH).

He presently holds the role of Deputy Chief of NAMS. He pioneered Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) for Alcohol Use Disorder in Singapore and was co-chair for the MOH-funded Alcohol-Related Frequent Attender (ARFA) program. He is the current course lead for the Addictions module for the Graduate Diploma in Mental Health programme.

He has almost two decades of experience in Addiction Medicine. He was awarded a Health Manpower Development Plan (HMDP) scholarship and obtained a Masters in Addiction Studies (Distinction) from King’s College London in 2017.

Prof. Ramon Bataller

He is a liver physician-scientist. His clinical interests include the management of patients with alcoholic and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and critically-ill cirrhotic patients. He has worked the last ten years in a multidisciplinary team to treat patients with alcoholic liver disease. His main research interests include liver fibrosis and the mechanisms and determinants of mortality of alcoholic liver disease. He has mostly performed translational studies including human samples and experimental models of liver disease. Also, he recently started a line of research on global public health aspects of alcoholic liver disease. He is currently the overall PI of a NIH-funded consortium (InTeam) for translational research of alcoholic hepatitis. The main goals of the InTeam consortium are the identification of molecular subtypes and the identification of novel targets for therapy. Ongoing Research Studies: Metabolic and transcription factor reprogramming in alcoholic hepatitis. By combining RNAseq and metabolic studies from human samples, they have found profound changes in glucose metabolism and also decreased activity of transcription factors that regulate hepatocyte metabolic function.

Prof. Luca Valenti

Luca Valenti graduated in Medicine in 2000 and Specialized in Internal Medicine in 2005 at the University of Milan. He was then fellow at the Diabetes Research Center at Columbia University, NY and the Department of Internal Medicine, University of Milan, where is now Associate Professor of Internal Medicine at the Department of Pathophysiology and Transplantation, University of Milan.
He manages a hepatology and internal medicine outpatient service and coordinates clinical and translational research at the Translational Medicine Unit, Department of Transfusion Medicine and Hematology at the Fondazione IRCCS Ca’ Granda Policlinico Hospital in Milan.
His main research interests are metabolic and genetic liver diseases, with a special focus on non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and iron metabolism disorders. He is a member of the EASL Scientific committee and Editor-in-chief of Liver International.

Prof. Grace Lai-Hung Wong

MBChB (Hons), MD (CUHK), FRCP(Lond, Edin), FHKCP, FHKAM(Medicine)
Assistant Dean (Learning Experience), Faculty of Medicine
Director, Medical Data Analytics Centre (MDAC)
Professor, Department of Medicine and Therapeutics
The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Grace Wong is a 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. After graduation, she received training at the division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology at the Prince of Wales Hospital. In 2010, she received the Doctoral 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 300 articles in peer-reviewed journals and 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, and the Distinguished Young Fellow of Hong Kong Academy of Medicine in 2017.

Dr. Anastasia Volovets

Dr Anastasia Volovets is a transplant hepatologist at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney, Australia. For the past decade she has worked in addiction in addition to hepatology and is the clinical lead for the Australian National Liver Transplant’s Unit high risk alcohol and transplantation program. Dr Volovets’ specific interest is in managing alcohol use disorder pre and post transplantation, relapse prevention post transplant and integrating evidence based addiction care into the liver transplant unit.

Dr. Tan Poh Seng

Dr Tan Poh Seng is a gastroenterologist at Mount Elizabeth Hospital, Singapore.

His clinical expertise includes advanced liver diseases, fatty liver, liver cirrhosis, liver cancer and liver transplantation.

He is also experienced in common digestive diseases and endoscopic procedures like gastroscopy, sigmoidoscopy, colonoscopy, polypectomy, endoscopic variceal ligation and capsule endoscopy.

Prior to entering private practice, Dr Tan started and headed the hepatocellular carcinoma clinic in National University Health System. He was the former director of clinical services and a senior consultant of the division of gastroenterology and hepatology at the National University Hospital (NUH).

He was a senior consultant and core transplant hepatologist of the liver transplant programme at NUH’s National University Centre for Organ Transplantation, and the clinical lead for the hepatobiliary tumour group at the National University Cancer Institute. He was also a transplant hepatologist for Mount Elizabeth Hospital’s living donor transplantation programme.

Dr Tan was an assistant professor at the National University of Singapore Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine and a core faculty member for the gastroenterology and hepatology senior residency programme at NUH. Dr Tan has also served as the deputy patient safety officer for the university medicine cluster at NUH. He is currently a visiting consultant at NUH where he continues to be involved in postgraduate education and training of future specialists.

Since 2008, he has performed more than 3,000 endoscopies.

He has authored numerous research publications and conducted various clinical studies as a principal investigator in the fields of liver transplantation, immunosuppression and hepatocellular carcinoma (liver cancer). Since 2018, he has been the honorary secretary of the Gastroenterological Society of Singapore

Dr. Wei Leong Chew

Dr Chew Wei Leong is Senior Principal Scientist at the Genome Institute of Singapore of A*STAR. His team develops technologies to write DNA and RNA, specifically in the areas of gene editing, CRISPR-Cas, recombinases, gene therapy, and synthetic genomes. He holds an Adjunct Assistant Professor appointment at the National University of Singapore. More information can be found on the lab website: http://chewlab.github.io

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