Lin Chang, MD
Professor of Medicine
Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Division of Digestive Diseases
Department of Medicine
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
Los Angeles, CA

Lin Chang, MD, is a professor of medicine in the Division of Digestive Diseases, Department of Medicine, at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, and the co-director of the G. Oppenheimer Center for Neurobiology of Stress and Resilience at the David Geffen School of Medicine. The Oppenheimer Center is an interdisciplinary research and education organization dedicated to the study of brain-body interactions in health and disease. Dr. Chang is also the program director of the UCLA Gastroenterology Fellowship Program. Her clinical expertise encompasses functional gastrointestinal disorders, including irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), chronic constipation, and functional dyspepsia. She is a funded NIH investigator studying the brain-gut interactions underlying IBS. Specifically, her research is focused on the pathophysiology of IBS related to stress, early life adversity, sex differences, genetic and epigenetic factors, the gut microbiome, and the treatment of IBS.

Dr. Chang is the recipient of the Janssen Award in Gastroenterology for Basic or Clinical Research, as well as the AGA Distinguished Clinician Award. She is a member of the Rome Foundation Board of Directors, and was a member of the Rome IV Editorial Board and Functional Bowel Disorders Committee, as well as the liaison for three Rome IV committees: 1) Childhood Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders: Neonate/Toddler; 2) Age, Gender and Women’s Health and the Patient; and 3) Multi-Cultural Aspects of Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders. Dr. Chang previously served as president of the American Neurogastroenterology and Motility Society (ANMS). She is a fellow of the American Gastroenterological Association and the American College of Gastroenterology, and a member of the Society for Neuroscience. Dr. Chang is also a member of the FDA Gastrointestinal Drugs Advisory Committee and the NIH Clinical, Integrative, Molecular Gastroenterology (CIMG) Study Section. She has authored more than 100 original research articles, 50 review articles, and 20 book chapters on her specialty interests.

SPEAKER DISCLOSURES

Consultant:  Biomerica, Inc., IM HealthScience, Ironwood Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Synergy Pharmaceuticals Inc., Synthetic Biologics, Inc.

Other (Speaker at CME):  Allergan, Inc., Takeda Pharmaceuticals U.S.A., Inc.

William D. Chey, MD, FACG, AGAF, FACP, RFF
Timothy T. Nostrant Collegiate Professor of Gastroenterology and Nutrition Sciences
Director, GI Physiology Laboratory
Director, Digestive Disorders Nutrition and Lifestyle Program
Medical Director, Michigan Bowel Control Program
University of Michigan Health System
Ann Arbor, Michigan

William D. Chey, MD, FACG, AGAF, FACP, RFF, received his BA from the University of Pennsylvania and his medical degree and training in internal medicine at Emory University School of Medicine. He completed his fellowship in gastroenterology at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Following his fellowship, Dr. Chey remained at the University of Michigan, where he is currently Timothy T. Nostrant Collegiate Professor of Gastroenterology, director of the GI Physiology Laboratory, co-director of the Michigan Bowel Control Program, and director of the GI Nutrition & Behavioral Wellness Program. In 2011, Dr. Chey was named an H. Marvin Pollard Institute Scholar at the University of Michigan, and was awarded a joint appointment in the Department of Nutritional Sciences in 2015.

Dr. Chey's research interests focus on the diagnosis and treatment of functional bowel disorders, acid-related disorders, and H. pylori  infections. Funded by both federal and private sources, he is a medical innovator and holds four patents. Dr. Chey also co-founded My Total Health, a company that develops novel health information technology solutions for people with GI problems.

Dr. Chey has authored more than 350 manuscripts, including reviews, chapters, and books. He has served as co-editor-in-chief of the American Journal of Gastroenterology (2010-2015) and Clinical & Translational Gastroenterology (2011-2014). He is currently leading the update of the American College of Gastroenterology’s H. pylori   practice guideline and participating in the creation of an AGA technical review on the diagnosis of IBS-D.

Dr. Chey is a member of the Board of Trustees of the American College of Gastroenterology (ACG), and joined the board of directors of the ACG Institute in 2014. He is also a member of the board of directors of the Rome Foundation and is on the editorial board for the Rome IV criteria.

Elected to "Best Doctors" since 2001 and "America's Top Doctors" since 2009, Dr. Chey was named as one of the "191 Gastroenterologists to Know" by Becker's ASC Review in 2015. In 2014, he was inducted into the Clinical Excellence Society of the Department of Medicine, received the Dean’s Outstanding Clinician Award, and was inducted into the League of Research Excellence at the University of Michigan. In 2015, he was inducted into the League of Clinical Excellence at the University of Michigan and received the Distinguished Clinician Award from the American Gastroenterological Association.

SPEAKER DISCLOSURES

Consultant/Speakers' Bureau:  Allergan, Inc., Astra-Zeneca, Biomerica, Inc., Ironwood Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Nestlé Institute of Health Sciences, Prometheus Laboratories Inc., QOL Medical, Ritter Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Salix Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

Grants/Research Support:  Ironwood Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Nestlé Institute of Health Sciences, Prometheus Laboratories Inc., QOL Medical, Synthetic Biologics, Inc., Vibrant Ltd., Zespri International Limited

Other Financial Material Support:  My Total Health

Mark Pimentel, MD, FRCP(C)
Professor of Medicine, UCLA
Director, GI Motility Program
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center
Los Angeles, California

Mark Pimentel, MD, FRCP(C), is an associate professor of medicine at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California. He completed three years of his undergraduate degree with honors in microbiology and biochemistry at the University of Manitoba, Canada. Dr. Pimentel received his medical degree and his BSc (Med) from the University of Manitoba Health Sciences Center in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, where he also completed a residency in internal medicine.

Dr. Pimentel's medical training includes a fellowship in gastroenterology at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Affiliated Training Program. Active in research, Dr. Pimentel has served as a principal investigator or co-investigator for numerous basic science, translational, and clinical studies on irritable bowel syndrome and the relationship between gut flora composition and human disease.

Dr. Pimentel is a diplomate of the American Board of Internal Medicine (Gastroenterology) and a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada. He is also a member of several medical associations, including the American Gastroenterological Association, the American College of Gastroenterology, and the American Neurogastroenterology and Motility Society.

His work has been published in the New England Journal of Medicine, Annals of Internal Medicine, the American Journal of Physiology, The American Journal of Medicine, the American Journal of Gastroenterology, and Digestive Diseases and Sciences, among others. Dr. Pimentel has been invited to present his work at meetings, grand rounds, and advisory boards in the United States and internationally.

In 2015 he received the Vilceck Prize in Creative Promise for the Life Sciences. He is the author of "Follow Your Gut: The Enormous Impact of Tiny Microbes" (Simon & Schuster, 2015) and spoke at TED in 2014. His lab has produced many of the software tools and laboratory techniques that enabled high-throughput microbiome science, including the QIIME pipeline (cited over 5000 times as of this writing) and UniFrac (cited over 3000 times including its web interface). He is co-founder of the Earth Microbiome Project, the American Gut Project, and the company Biota, Inc., which uses DNA from microbes in the subsurface to guide oilfield decisions. His work has linked microbes to a range of health conditions including obesity and inflammatory bowel disease, has enhanced our understanding of microbes in environments ranging from the oceans to the tundra, and and made high-throughput sequencing techniques accessible to thousands of researchers around the world.

SPEAKER DISCLOSURES

Grants/Research Support:  Commonwealth Laboratories, LLC, Salix Pharmaceuticals Inc., Synthetic Biologics, Inc.

Consultant/Speakers’ Bureau:  Commonwealth Laboratories, LLC, Naia Pharmaceuticals, Salix Pharmaceuticals Inc., Synthetic Biologics, Inc.

Advisory Board Membership:  Commonwealth Laboratories, LLC, Naia Pharmaceuticals, Salix Pharmaceuticals Inc., Synthetic Biologics, Inc.

Stockholder:  Naia Pharmaceuticals, Synthetic Biologics, Inc.

Philip S. Schoenfeld, MD, MSEd, MSc (Epi)
Chief, Gastroenterology Section
John D. Dingell VA Medical Center
Detroit, Michigan

Philip S. Schoenfeld, MD, MSEd, MSc (Epi), is chief of the Gastroenterology Section at the John D. Dingell VA Medical Center and adjunct professor of medicine at the University of Michigan School of Medicine. He is an expert in the management of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), chronic constipation, gastroparesis, and pelvic floor disorders.

Dr. Schoenfeld completed his medical degree and his master’s degree in medical education at the University of Pennsylvania and his master’s degree in clinical epidemiology at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.

His research, which is funded by the National Institutes of Health and the US Department of Veterans Affairs, focuses on the treatment of IBS and chronic constipation, the application of evidence-based medicine to the management of gastrointestinal disorders, and the optimization of colon cancer screening with colonoscopy.

Dr. Schoenfeld is the former editor of the Selected Summaries section of the journal Gastroenterology and the former associate editor (Colon section) of the American Journal of Gastroenterology, and has served on the editorial boards of the Journal of Clinical Gastroenterology, Alimentary Pharmacology and Therapeutics, and Gastroenterology & Hepatology. He is a co-author of the American Journal of Gastroenterology supplement “An Evidence-Based Position Statement on the Management of Irritable Bowel Syndrome” (2002) and its second edition (2009), the American Journal of Gastroenterology supplement “An Evidence-Based Position Statement on the Management of Chronic Constipation in North America” (2005), the American College of Gastroenterology Guidelines for Colorectal Cancer Screening (2008), and the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy/American College of Gastroenterology’s "Position Statement on Quality Indicators in the Performance of Colonoscopy" (in press).

SPEAKER DISCLOSURES

Advisory Board:  Allergan, Inc., Ironwood Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Synergy Pharmaceuticals Inc., Valeant Pharmaceuticals North America LLC

Speakers' Bureau:  Allergan, Inc., Ironwood Pharmaceuticals, Inc.