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Vinod K. Rustgi, MD, MBA, AGAF, Co-Editor-in-Chief 
Vinod completed college at Yale, medical school at Johns Hopkins followed by a medical residency at Georgetown and a Gastroenterology Fellowship at Stanford. He subsequently did a Liver Diseases Fellowship at the NIH. He had a private practice in Fairfax, Virginia while serving as Clinical Faculty at Georgetown and was the first Medical Director of Liver Transplantation there. During this time, he obtained an MBA at the Johns Hopkins Carey School of Business. In 2014, he was appointed the Medical Director of Liver Transplantation at the Starzl Transplant Institute of the Univ of Pittsburgh before moving to his current position of Distinguished Professor of Medicine and Professor of Epidemiology at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. He is also the Program Director for the GI Fellowship there. Vinod has served on the Editorial Boards of Gastroenterology, Liver Transplantation, and Clinical Transplantation. His research interests have been in viral hepatitis and most recently, liver disease outcomes, cost-effectiveness and applications of machine learning and artificial intelligence to issues of healthcare. |
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Shanthi Srinivasan, MD, AGAF, Co-Editor-in-Chief 
Shanthi Srinivasan completed her medical school at Wayne State University followed by a medicine residency at the University of Michigan and a gastroenterology fellowship at the University of Michigan and Washington University, St. Louis. In 2003, she joined the faculty in the Division of Digestive Diseases at Emory University in Atlanta. At Emory she established her research program focusing on gastrointestinal motility disorders and underlying pathophysiological mechanisms. She is currently the Division Director for Digestive at Emory University in Atlanta. She performs her clinical work at the Atlanta Veterans Affairs Medical Center. She has served on the editorial boards of the journals Gastroenterology and Hepatology. Shanthi’s research interests focuses on mechanisms of enteric neuronal degeneration and resulting motility disorders in conditions such as diabetes, inflammatory bowel disease and obesity. Using in-vivo mouse models, in-vitro studies and human samples, she has characterized key signaling pathways in enteric neuronal degeneration with a recent focus on the role of microbial products and saturated fatty acids. She has trained several students, residents and fellows and encouraged them to pursue research in Neurogastroenterology. She is a member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation and is was recently elected as the Section Vice Chair for the Neurogastroenterology and Motility (NGM) section of the AGA Institute council. |
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Deborah C. Rubin, MD, AGAF, Associate Editor 
Deborah C. Rubin, MD, AGAF is the William B. Kountz Professor of Medicine in the Division of Gastroenterology and Professor of Developmental Biology at Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine. Her laboratory focuses on elucidating the role of epithelial-mesenchymal interactions in regulating intestinal adaptive responses in human short bowel syndrome and understanding mechanisms of early colon carcinogenesis, including inflammation associated cancer. She is Director of the Advanced Imaging and Tissue Analysis Core of the Digestive Diseases Research Core Center and co-Director of the Doris Duke Fund to Retain Clinician Scientists Program at Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine. She is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She is also a practicing gastroenterologist and head of the adult Short Bowel Syndrome Intestinal Rehabilitation Clinic at Washington University School of Medicine. Her service to the AGA has included Chair of the Section on Nutrition and Obesity (2007-9), Chair of the Committee on Women in Gastroenterology (1998-2000) and Member of the Ethics Committee (2009-12). She is also proud to have mentored many trainees in gastroenterology, and received a Distinguished Faculty Award for Clinical Fellow Mentoring and a Mentor Award from the Academic Women’s Network, both at Washington University School of Medicine. Educational efforts include service as Chair of the MA/MD Medical Student Research Program, Coursemaster for the second-year medical student Gastrointestinal and Liver Pathophysiology and Nutrition course for 20 years and recipient of the Samuel R. Goldstein Leadership Award in Medical Student Education. |
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Ravinder K. Mittal, MD, Associate Editor 
Dr Mittal received his medical degree from University of Delhi, India and completed residency training in internal medicine from New York Medical College. He then completed a clinical and research fellowship in Gastroenterology from the Yale University, following which he was recruited to the faculty at the University of Virginia for number of years. At present, he is a professor of medicine at the University of California San Diego, and director of the GI motility research laboratory at the UCSD. His work is focused on the motility of the esophagus, anorectum and pelvic floor muscles. His laboratory has been NIH and VA MERIT funded by for over 30 years. He has made seminal observations on the physiology and pathophysiology of esophageal peristalsis, lower esophageal sphincter, and pelvic floor muscles. He is author of 200 papers, book chapters and several review articles, including a recent review article in New England Journal of Medicine. |
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Maximilian Reichert, MD, Associate Editor 
Max Reichert went to Medical School at the University of Heidelberg and the Technical University of Munich (TUM). He graduated from TUM with summa cum laude. During his postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania in the laboratory of Dr. Anil K. Rustgi, he discovered important mechanisms of transcriptional regulation of pancreatic cancer cell plasticity using three-dimensional (3D) culture models. Back in Germany, Dr. Reichert received the prestigious Max-Eder Fellowship of the German Cancer Aid in addition to numerous other awards and completed his clinical training in the Department of Gastroenterology directed by Dr. Roland M. Schmid at TUM. In parallel, he transferred his knowledge of advanced 3D culture systems successfully to cancer patients generating a patient-derived organoid repository at his institution. He made important contribution to the field of pancreatic cancer by determining the role of plasticity in metastatic organotropism and fibroblast heterogeneity. In the following, he received the Professorship for Translational Pancreatic Cancer Research and continuous to shape the Collaborative Research Center "Modeling and Targeting Pancreatic Cancer". As Gastroenterologist and GI Oncologist he heads the Interdisciplinary Outpatient Clinic for GI Cancer of the TUM Comprehensive Cancer Centre. Dr. Reichert runs a translational laboratory at University Hospital Campus and a technology development laboratory at Natural Sciences Campus at TUM. Both laboratories focus on modelling cellular plasticity of tumor cells as well as cancer-associated fibroblasts and defining the contribution of plasticity towards tumor heterogeneity and treatment-resistance using patient-derived model systems. |
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Fredric D. Gordon, MD, Associate Editor 
Fredric D. Gordon was born in Highland Park, NJ. He received his undergraduate degree from Boston University and his medical degree from the Boston University School of Medicine. He completed his postgraduate training in Medicine at the New England Deaconess Hospital in Boston, where he was later chosen Chief Resident. He performed his Gastroenterology fellowship at Deaconess Hospital in Boston and his fellowship in Transplant Hepatology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. His research in portal hypertension at the Deaconess Hospital and Mayo Clinic ultimately led to the creation of the MELD scoring system. After training Dr. Gordon returned to the Deaconess Hospital to work alongside his mentor, Dr. Roger Jenkins. Several years later his entire transplant team moved to the Lahey Hospital & Medical Center in Burlington, Massachusetts where Dr. Gordon now serves as Vice Chair of Transplantation and Hepatobiliary Diseases, and Director of Hepatology. In addition, he is a Professor of Medicine at Tufts Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts. Dr. Gordon is proud of his 3 children, all living in New York City, and his energetic, philanthropic, and inspirational wife, Lynda. |
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Alyson McGhan Johnson, MD, Associate Editor 
Alyson M Johnson earned her Doctor of Medicine from the University of Pennsylvania. She completed her residency, chief residency, as well as gastroenterology and advanced endoscopy fellowships at Duke University. She is currently faculty in the Division of Gastroenterology at Duke University. Her clinical focus is in the evaluation and management of patients with benign and malignant pancreas and biliary disorders, therapeutic endoscopy (ERCP, endoscopic ultrasound, luminal stenting), and endoscopic mucosal resection of large colon polyps. Her research interests include health care delivery, health disparity, and quality improvement within advanced endoscopy. |
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Mohamed I. Elsaid, Ph.D., MPH, ALM, Biostatistical Editor 
Mohamed I. Elsaid, Ph.D., MPH, ALM, assistant professor in the Department of Biomedical Informatics and a member of the Cancer Control Program at the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – The James. Dr. Elsaid's research focuses on developing strategies to prevent and detect gastrointestinal diseases, including liver, colorectal and pancreatic cancers. His work leverages novel multi-omics biomarkers with phenotypic and environmental exposure data, including social determinants of health, to bring forward pragmatic personalized prevention interventions and an improved understanding of obesity's pathophysiological links with gastrointestinal diseases. Dr. Elsaid also works on causal inference methods and methods to assess bias in clinical trials and observational studies. Dr. Elsaid has extensive experience designing and analyzing clinical trials, observational studies, precision medicine, comparative effectiveness research, secondary data analysis, and causal inference methods. His research employs large databases, population-based cohorts, nationally representative surveys, and electronic medical records to develop predictive and inference-based statistical models |
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David Katzka, MD, Special Section Editor for Pearls from the Pros 
Dr. Katzka has had a career-long interest in esophageal diseases including eosinophilic esophagitis, Barrett’s esophagus and esophageal adenocarcinoma, gastroesophageal reflux disease, esophageal motility disorders, esophageal lichen planus, and unusual esophageal disorders. His journey has taken him from the University of Pennsylvania as well as the Mayo Clinic. Presently, he is Professor of Medicine, Department of Medicine, Division of Digestive and Liver Diseases at Columbia University Medical Center in New York City, NY, where he also serves as Director of the Esophageal Center. He is fortunate to have worked with many skilled and bright collaborators and contributed over 350 papers to the literature. His passion, however, is in clinical medicine and teaching. |
