Dr. Simon C. Robson is a physician scientist and researcher within the Liver, Transplantation and Vascular Biology Centers at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston. He also has ties with Transplant Biology Research Center at Massachus etts General Hospital, Boston. He was appointed as Associate Professor in Medicine at the Harvard Medical School in 2000 and as full Professor in 2006. Dr. Robson graduated MB, ChB (M.D. equivalent) with honors and distinction from the University of Cape Town in 1978. Accredited training in Medicine and Hepatology was undertaken at Groote Schuur Hospital, Cape Town, at Kings College Hospital, London and Addenbrookes Hospital, Cambridge, United Kingdom. He was awarded a Ph.D. in Medicine and Immunology in 1988 at the University of Cape Town and received the Biennial Gold Medal from South African Immunology Society for this work. He has Fellowship of the College of Medicine of South Africa (FCP), holds a Diploma in Child Health (DCH), Membership of the Royal College of Physicians (MRCP) and is a recent Diplomate of the American Board of Internal Medicine. Dr. Robson was elected as a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of London (FRCP) in 1996 - See more at: http://www.bidmc.org/Research/Departments/Medicine/Divisions/Gastroenterology/Laboratories/Robson-Lab/Research-Team/Dr,-d-,-Simon-Robson.aspx#sthash.sNzeRu0b.dpuf

Purinergic signaling in hepatic inflammation and fibrogenesis

Dr. Michael G. Hughes is an abdominal transplant surgeon with clinical focus on pancreatic transplantation, chronic pancreatitis and gastroparesis, and living kidney donation. He has an active research laboratory investigating hepatitis C viral recurrence after liver transplantation.

Investigating hepatitis C viral recurrence after liver transplantation

Professor Geoffrey Burnstock completed his PhD at King's College and University College London. He was head of the Department of Zoology, Melbourne University (1964-1975) before moving to London to head the Department of Anatomy and Developmental Biology, UCL until 1997. He is currently President of the Autonomic Neuroscience Centre, University College Medical School, UK. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Sciences (1971), Royal Society (1986) and Academy of Medical Sciences (1998). He was awarded the Royal Society Gold Medal (2000) and has over 1520 publications and an h-index of 134.

Purinergic signalling including the biology of the pancreas in health and in diabetes

Dr. Mary Feng, Associate Director of Clinical Research, received her undergraduate degree from Stanford University and her medical degree from Washington University in St. Louis. She arrived at the University of Michigan in 2001, first for an Internal Medicine internship, then for her Radiation Oncology residency. She is board certified in Radiation Oncology and an Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan. Her clinical specialties are the treatment of gastrointestinal cancers (including liver, pancreas, rectal, anal, and bile duct) and sarcomas, either with radiation alone or in combination with chemotherapy. Her research interests include technical and biological methods to individualize and adapt radiotherapy for each patient with liver cancer to maximize both the effectiveness and safety of treatment. She also is heavily involved in the integration of the latest cutting-edge technologies into the treatment of all cancer patients.

Gastrointestinal cancer including liver, pancreas, rectal, anal, and bile duct and sarcoma

Christine Mehner has completed her MD at the University of Witten/Herdecke, Germany and became a postdoctoral fellow at the Mayo Clinic Cancer Center, Jacksonville, FL. She has published multiple first author papers in the field of cancer research, in reputed journals that have been recognized by the Faculty of 1000 and have been featured in news and media. She has been serving as an editorial board member and constant reviewer for various journals.

Dr. Mandal is a native of India and a naturalized citizen of the United States of America. He is board certified in Internal Medicine and Nephrology (Kidney disease and hypertension). Sugar diabetes is the most common cause of kidney failure in the USA and world wide. This strong association between diabetes and kidney failure has inspired Dr Mandal to develop the frame work of Mandal Diabetes Research foundation to assist diabetic patients to live a good life with medical treatment, and not go to dialysis. He is an author of many books and published articles on research on diabetes and kidney disease. His convictions are (a) in the office patients come first and (b) at home children come first.

Diabetes, High Blood Pressure and Kidney Diseases

Abdelaziz M. Hussein has completed his PhD at the age of 34 years from Faulty of Medicine, Mansoura University, Egypt and postdoctoral studies from Mayo Clinic University School of Medicine, Rochester, USA. He is assistant professor of medical physiology at Mansoura faculty of medicine, Egypt. He has published more than 35 papers in reputed journals and has been serving as an editorial assistant of the Bulletin of Egyptian Society for Physiological Sciences Board and member of Journal of Liver and Pancreatic Diseases.

Liver and Pancreatic Diseases

Dr. Nicholas Zavazava's work primarily focusses on stem cells. His lab is interested in studying stem cell derived hematopoietic cell and insulin producing cells. Type 1 diabetes is one of the most devastating chronic diseases which costs billions of dollars every year. By establishing a stem cell based source of insulin producing cells, they belive they might be able to treat many patients who would otherwise remain untreatable. Embryonic stem (ES) cells and induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells possess an unparalleled characteristic of being pluripotent and therefore able to differentiate into progenitor cells of any cell type. Their laboratory seeks to exploit this property and derive hematopoietic cells and insulin producing cells from human ES and iPS cells. More importantly, they are interested in determining whether these cells are rejected in both the syngeneic and allogenic setting. Using proteomics, they have discovered a “stem cell factor” that is only produced in vivo by the progenitor cells leading to recruitment of NK cells and rejection of the progenitor cells. A second aspect that they are interested in is to coax human iPS cells to differentiate into insulin producing cells for the treatment of diabetes. They are working on how they can convert near 100 % of the iPS cells into Pdx1-expressing cells that further differentiate into insulin producing cells. Pdx1 is a pancreatic transcription factor that regulates pancreatic development. Our goal is to establish iPS cells as a novel source to treat diabetes reducing the management costs of diabetic patients.

Opportunities establishing new therapies using embryonic stem (ES) cells and induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells

I am the Deputy Editor for Diabetes at the Community Forum of healthcare professionals in British Medical Journal. I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine at Universidade Federal Fluminense, and a Senior Staff Physician in the Intensive Care Unit-Adults at Hospital Federal da Lagoa, all in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. I have a special interest in type 2 Diabetes, Preventive Cardiology, Hypertension, the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system and Cardiovascular Diseases associated with Chronic Kidney Diseases. I also have been a principal investigator, and have published clinical studies&Letters to Editors about the mechanisms of cardiovascular diseases associated with type 2 diabetes mellitus in peer reviewed journals like British Medical Journal, Hypertension, New England Journal of Medcine, and American Journal of Hypertension. I was also a post-doctoral Clinical&Research Fellow in the Endocrinology-Diabetes and Hypertension Division of the Brigham&Women´s Hospital at Harvard Medical School where I did many angiotensin II infusions in humans, normotensive, hypertensive, and diabetic individuals. When at Harvard Medical School, I also became certified in the Principles of Epidemiology by the Harvard School of Public Health. I expect for the newer future better prevention and treatment strategies for macrovascular and microvascular diabetic complications, based on more rational and effective strategies. In the University, I am proud of running a busy Hypertension and type 2 diabetes clinic. At British Medical Journal, I enjoy the freedom and internationality of opinions. And also expect a brighter debate about all the clinical future research patways and controversies surrounding diabetes mellitus.

Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus

Dr. Sripathi M Sureban, at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, initially as a postdoctoral fellow and now as assistant professor of research, expanded his research to identify, isolate and characterize stem cells of intestine, pancreas, colon and stomach. In collaboration with Dr. Houchen, demonstrated that DCLK1 (formerly known as DCAMKL-1) is upregulated in various cancers including colorectal, pancreas, breast liver and prostate. DCLK1 regulates various tumor suppressor miRNAs, which in turn regulates key oncogenes and transcription factors regulating epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT), pluripotency, angiogenesis and metastasis. Currently he is working towards elucidating the mechanism by which RNA binding protein Musashi-1 (Msi-1) regulates tumor growth. It has been demonstrated by his group that Msi-1 is upregulated in colorectal cancer and siRNA mediated knockdown leads to colorectal tumor xenograft growth arrest in immunocompromised mice by inhibiting cancer cell proliferation and inducing mitotic catastrophe. Furthermore, they have recently found that Msi-1 regulates key tumor suppressor miRNAs like Let-7a, miR-144 and miR-200a. These tumor suppressor miRNAs are known to regulate oncogene c-Myc, KRAS, Notch-1 and EMT transcription factors. Our research is also focused on developing nanoparticle formulations for effective delivery of siRNA against Msi-1.

miRNAs in Pancreatic Cancer