Division of Gastroenterology
University Health Network (UHN)/Mount Sinai Hospital (MSH)

Biosketch

Dr. Johane P. Allard

Dr. Allard is a Professor of Medicine, University of Toronto. She is also crossed-appointed at the Department of Nutritional Sciences. She trained in Gastroenterology at McGill University before completing a research fellowship in nutrition at the University of Toronto, funded by the National Institute of Nutrition.

Dr. Allard is a clinical investigator and her research interest is in nutrition and gastrointestinal disorders. She is currently conducting several studies funded by peer-reviewed agencies in the elderly, people with HIV infection, non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), and transplant recipients. Her interests and publications are mainly in the area of micronutrients and oxidative stress. She has 2 laboratories (Medical Sciences Building /UHN) and supervises several post-graduate students (currently: 3 MSc and 1 PhD) and hires summer students every year to work in her lab.

Dr. Allard is also the Director of the Nutritional Support Program at the UHN and is conducting clinical research in this area. She works with a multidisciplinary nutritional support team and is the Chair of the Nutrition Review Committee.

Dr. Allard is the founding president of the Canadian Society for Clinical Nutrition and is now the Society's past-president. She continues to organise several national meetings in the area of nutrition including the postgraduate course in nutrition for the World Congress of Gastroenterology 2005. Dr. Allard is also invited as a speaker at national and international meetings and has participated in various educational projects such as editor of Clinical Nutrition Rounds, editor of a CD-ROM Lecture Series on Clinical Nutrition and a video on Nutrition in Inflammatory Bowel Disease for the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of Canada.

Dr. Allard's other activities include serving as the Chair of the Women's Issues Committee at the UHN and Mount Sinai Hospital and the organiser of faculty development events for women physicians.

Biosketch

Dr. Maria Cino

Dr. Maria Cino is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Toronto and is a clinical Gastroenterologist at the Toronto Western Hospital (TWH). Dr. Cino holds an Honours BSc in Biochemistry from McMaster University, and a Master of Science degree in Biochemistry from the University of Western Ontario. Dr. Cino is a graduate of McMaster Medical School. Training in Internal Medicine and Gastroenterology was undertaken at the University of Toronto. Dr. Cino underwent additional postgraduate clinical training as a clinical fellow / associate staff in inflammatory bowel disease at the Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto prior to joining TWH/UHN in 2001. Major clinical interests include inflammatory bowel disease and celiac disease with a focus on metabolic consequences of these illnesses. Dr. Cino has a major commitment to teaching at the University of Toronto at the undergraduate level and postgraduate levels. As of July 1, 2007, Dr. Cino is the Program Director for the Division of Gastroenterology Residency Training Program. In addition, Dr. Cino sits on the CAG education committee, and is the co-chair of the CAG Basic Science Rounds.

Biosketch

Dr. Kenneth Croitoru

Dr. Kenneth Croitoru joined the Division of Gastroenterology at Mount Sinai Hospital in January 2008 as a Clinician Scientist and is a full Professor of Medicine at the University of Toronto.. He completed medical school at McGill University in 1981 and then trained in internal medicine and gastroenterology from 1982-1986. He went on to do post-doctoral training as an MRC Research Fellow in Mucosal Immunology with Dr. John Bienenstock at McMaster University. On completion of this research training he joined the Division of Gastroenterology at McMaster in 1992 where he went on to serve as Training Program Director and Associate Director of the Division. During this time he developed his research program with funding from the Canadian Institute of Health Research, Canadian Association of Gastroenterology and the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of Canada. He held an Ontario Ministry of Health Career Scientist award for 10 years and more recently was one of the first recipients of a 5 year CCFC IBD Research Scientist Award. He served as the Chair of the CCFC Medical Advsiory Board and helped develop the CCFC IBD Research Institute where he served as Chair of the Executive Committee until 2008.

His research is focused on investigating the fundamental mechanisms of intestinal inflammation, in particular the role of T cell effector and regulatory function in the intestinal mucosal in Inflammatory Bowel Disease. These studies will be carried out at the Clinical Sciences Division in the Medical Sciences Building at the University of Toronto, where he is a member of the Institute of Medical Sciences. He is collaborating with other members of the CSD as well as with members of the departments of Immunology and Lab Medicine and Pathobiology. The goal of his work is to understand how T cells function serves to maintain intestinal homeostasis in health and what defects in regulatory T cells allow for the breakdown of these mechanisms. Dr. Croitoru is also Project Leader of, the GEM Project (www.GEMPROJECT.ca) a major clinical study that will be coordinated out of the IBD Research Group at Mount Sinai Hospital. The study is a prospective cohort study of healthy subjects at risk of developing Crohn’s disease. These subjects will be identified by virtue of the fact that they are a sibling of a patient with Crohn’s disease and will examine the Genetic, Environmental and Microbial factors that lead to Cohn’s disease. This is a 5 years study linking every major IBD center from across Canada and has received over $5 million in funding from the CCFC. As a result of these research activities, Dr. Croitoru has achieved both national and international recognition for his IBD research.

Biosketch

Dr. S. Victor Feinman

Dr. Feinman received his MD from the University of Vienna (1948) and then trained in Internal Medicine and Gastroenterology at the Vienna General Hospital (1948-51) and Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto (1951-53). Since 1953, Dr. Feinman has been a staff physician at the Mount Sinai Hospital where he also serves as Director, Liver Study Unit. Dr. Feinman's clinical and research interest is in viral hepatitis. In 2003, Dr. Feinman was the recipient of the Commemorative Medal of the Queen's Golden Jubilee, the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Canadian Liver Foundation and the Ontario Association of Gastroenterology Award for his contributions to Gastroenterology.

Biosketch

Dr. Jordan Feld

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.

Dr. Feld recently joined the faculty as an Assistant Professor of Medicine and clinician-scientist based at the Toronto Western Hospital Liver Clinic and the McLaughlin-Rotman Centre for Global Health. Dr. Feld’s 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. He recently received the Sheila Sherlock Clinical and Translational Research Award in Liver Diseases from the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD).

Biosketch

Dr. Herbert Y. Gaisano

Dr. Herbert Gaisano received his MD (1981) from the University of Phillipines, and his Gastroenterology training at the Mayo Graduate School of Medicine, Rochester, Minnesota. He is currently a Professor of Medicine at the University of Toronto. Dr. Gaisano oversees a vigorous research program. His laboratory is focused on the molecular mechanisms that regulate exocytosis, using two models- the neuroendocrine insulin-secreting pancreatic islet beta cell and the epithelial pancreatic acinar cell - which secrete digestive enzymes. His lab is mainly interested in SNARE proteins, originally described to regulate neurotransmitter release, but subsequently found to be highly conserved in neuroendocrine and non-excitable secretory cells to regulate secretion. Dr. Gaisano and colleagues were the first to identify the combinations of SNARE proteins which mediate the distinct exocytic events in the acinar cell (apical and basolateral exocytosis, homotypic granule fusion) and the pancreatic islet beta cell. Insights from Dr. Gaisano's research are of direct impact on normal secretory biology and pathobiology, particularly in understanding the dysregulated insulin secretion in diabetes and pathologic membrane fusion in pancreatitis and also membrane ion channel biology of cardiac and gastrointestinal muscles in health and in disease.

Biosketch

Dr. Gordon Greenberg

Dr. Greenberg received his MD from the University of Alberta in 1971. He completed his training in Gastroenterology at the University of Toronto and then became an MRC research fellow in gastrointestinal endocrinology at the Royal Postgraduate School of Medicine, London, England.

Dr. Greenberg is Professor of Medicine and former Head of the Division of Gastroenterology at Mount Sinai Hospital. He has extensive clinical experience in the management of patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and has spear-headed important clinical trials in IBD therapeutics and nutrition. Dr. Greenberg has served on the Research Committees of the Canadian Association of Gastroenterology, the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of Canada, the Canadian Digestive Diseases Foundation and the Medical Research Council of Canada, on the editorial boards of the Canadian Journal of Gastroenterology and Pancreas and chaired the Clinical Research Section of the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of Canada IBD Strategic Initiatives Committee. Dr. Greenberg's awards include the Canadian Association of Gastroenterology Award for Research Excellence. His research interests have focused on the area of gastrointestinal endocrinology. Dr. Greenberg has authored more than 115 articles in peer-reviewed journals and over 40 book chapters and reviews.

Biosketch

Dr. Flavio Habal

Dr. Habal received his MD and his PhD in Pathology from the University of Toronto (1975). He subsequently trained in Internal Medicine and in Gastroenterology at the University of Toronto, following which he joined the full-time faculty. Dr. Habal is currently an Associate Professor of Medicine and staff physician at the Toronto General Hospital. Dr. Habal's clinical interests are in the areas of acid related disorders and inflammatory bowel disease in pregnancy. He also has interest in hepatitis C and liver disease.

Since 1990 Dr. Habal has served as a member of the drug review board of the United state Pharmacopere (USP). Since 1999, Dr. Habal has served as Chair of the Pharmacy and Therapeutics Committee at the University Hospital Network. Dr Habal is presently the Education Chair of the Canadian Digestive Health Foundation.

Biosketch

Dr. Jenny Heathcote

Jenny Heathcote graduated from the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine, London, UK in 1968.  After completing her internship and her residency in internal medicine, she was awarded a MRC research fellowship with the late Dame Professor Sheila Sherlock.  Her thesis on the transmission of Hepatitis B was awarded an MD in 1976. 

Dr. Heathcote moved to Stanford, USA for further research training and joined the Toronto Western Hospital 30 years ago, where she has built up an internationally recognized clinical liver research unit with a major interest in viral hepatitis and autoimmune liver disease.  She is a Senior Scientist in the Toronto Western Research Institute where she is Division Head of "Patient Based Clinical Research".

She has been a Professor at the University of Toronto since 1995, winning the Department of Medicine Clinician Teacher Award in the same year.  She was given the May Cohen Award by the Canadian Medical Association for her mentoring of trainees in 2003. 

She is a recipient of the Queen’s Jubilee Medal for her service to hepatology and received the Canadian Liver Foundation Gold Medal at the Canadian Digestive Diseases Week in 2004.  In that year, she also received the Canadian Liver Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award. 

In 2005, she was the recipient of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases Distinguished Achievement Award for her sustained scientific contributions to the field of liver disease and the scientific foundations of hepatology.  In 2006, she received the International Sheila Sherlock Award from the Falk Foundation.  In 2008, she was awarded the Department of Medicine, University of Toronto Mentoring Award.

She has been funded from 2003 – 2009 by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research for the last 20 years.  She was the Director of the CIHR funded National Canadian Research Training Program in Hepatitis C.  She now heads up the NIH funded Toronto site for the North American Clinical network for chronic hepatitis B.

Over her career, she has published over 200 papers in the area of autoimmune liver disease and chronic viral hepatitis.

Biosketch

Dr. Gary Levy

Dr. Gary Levy graduated from medical school at the University of Toronto in 1973. He completed his training in Hepatology at the University of Toronto in 1978 and undertook postdoctoral training in immunology at the Scripps Clinic and Research Foundation from 1978-81. Dr. Levy founded and became the Medical Director of the Liver Transplant Unit at the Toronto General Hospital and University of Toronto in 1987. In 1991, he organized and co-founded their Multi Organ Transplant Unit.

He is currently a Professor in the Departments of Medicine and Surgery at the University of Toronto and Director of the Multi Organ Transplant Program at the University Health Network and University of Toronto.

Dr. Levy has organized and now heads a research group of 11 principal investigators that is focused on studying cellular and molecular mechanisms of inflammation. His research, funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the National Institutes of Health has focused on immune-mediated mechanisms of organ injury due to viruses, alloantigens, and xenoantigens. He has published over 250 original articles, books and book chapters. He currently holds the Novartis Chair in Transplantation at the University of Toronto.

He has received a number of honors including election to the American Society for Clinical Investigation, the Goldie Prize in Medicine, the Canadian Association of Gastroenterology Visiting Research Professorship and the University of Toronto Department of Medicine Research Award for outstanding contributions to research. He is a member of the following editorial boards: Transplantation Science, Transplantation, Liver Transplantation and Surgery and Current Opinion in Organ Transplantation and is a member of an advisory board for Health Canada in transplantation and xenotransplantation. He served as the Chief Scientific Officer of Transplantation Technologies Inc. from 1997 to 2002 and is part of a consortium of scientists to examine the feasibility of clinical xenotransplantation. He was recently awarded the Canadian Liver Foundation Commemorative Medal for the Queen's Jubilee for his contribution to liver disease in Canada.

Biosketch

Dr. Leslie B. Lilly

Dr. Lilly received his MD from McMaster University (1986) and completed his Internal Medicine and Gastroenterology training at the University of Toronto (1991). He undertook post-graduate training at Brigham & Women's Hospital in Boston (1991-1995). In 1995, Dr. Lilly joined the staff at the University Health Network (UHN), where he is Medical Director, Gastrointestinal Transplantation. Dr. Lilly's research interests include hepatitis B and C in solid organ transplantation.

Biosketch

Dr. Alvin Newman

Dr. Alvin Newman was born in Providence, R.I, USA and received his BSc at the University of Chicago and MD at the University of Pittsburgh. He completed his Gastroenterology training at the Johns Hopkins Hospital and then spent two years as a researcher at the MRC Gastroenterology Unit at the Central Middlesex Hospital in London England. He has been at Mount Sinai Hospital since 1973.

In addition to his practice of gastroenterology, Dr. Newman has been a speaker at hundreds of continuing medical education events all over Canada and has spoken to lay audiences on inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and other topics. For many years he organized and chaired an annual update on digestive diseases for members of the gastroenterological community. He served for three years as the treasurer of the Canadian Association of Gastroenterology. At the University of Toronto where he is an Associate Professor of Medicine, he redesigned the undergraduate medical curriculum and is now the director of the first two years of medical education. He is a member of the Canadian Association of Gastroenterology (CAG), American Gastroenterological Association (AGA), American Society of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ASGE) and British Society of Gastroenterology (BSG). He has written 34 scientific articles.

Biosketch

Dr. Geoffrey Nguyen

Dr. Nguyen is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Toronto and also holds an adjunct appointment as Assistant Professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. After graduating from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in 2000, he completed residency in Internal Medicine at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in 2003. He then pursued a combined clinical and research fellowship in gastroenterology at Johns Hopkins. He concurrently completed a PhD degree in Clinical Investigation at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in 2007 under the auspices of an NIH-sponsored National Research Services Award

Dr. Nguyen is currently appointed as a Clinician Scientist at the Mount Sinai Hospital. With the support of an AGA Research Scholar Award, he is pursuing health services and outcomes research and clinical epidemiological studies that complement his clinical interests in inflammatory bowel diseases. He continues to coordinate studies at Johns Hopkins in IBD health disparities, currently funded by the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of America.

Biosketch

Dr. Renner

Dr. Renner graduated from Medical School at the University of Basel, Switzerland, in 1979 and completed a research thesis in the Department of Clinical Immunology at the University of Bern, Switzerland, in 1981. After post-graduate training in Internal Medicine and Gastroenterology/Hepatology at the Universities of Bern and Basel, Switzerland, and during a fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco, he came on faculty at the University of Berne, Switzerland, in 1994. From 1997 to 2003, Dr. Renner served as Head of Hepatology, Medical Director of the Liver Transplant Program and Vice-Chairman of the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology at the University Hospital, Zurich, Switzerland. He moved to Canada in 2004 and served until August 2007 as a Professor of Medicine and Pharmacology and Director of the Liver Transplant Program at the University of Manitoba. In September 2007, he was recruited to his current position at U of T/TGH.

Biosketch

Dr. Peter G. Rossos

As a CMIO and staff gastroenterologist, Dr. Rossos’ priorities include alignment of clinical systems with clinicians' workflow and productivity, as well as the impact of systems on patient safety, quality improvement, education, and clinical research.  In addition to working closely with local academic leadership and researchers, he contributes to provincial and national efforts to advance the use of information and communication technologies.

Peter received his M.D. from the University of Toronto in 1986, where he subsequently completed his Internal Medicine, Gastroenterology training, and therapeutic endoscopy fellowship.  He studied Leadership Development for Physicians in Academic Health Centers at the Harvard School of Public Health in 2004, and graduated from the Executive MBA Program at the Joseph L. Rotman School of Management as a Bregman Scholar in June, 2008. He has achieved international recognition for his innovation and leadership in informatics and telehealth, chairs and serves on a number of local and national committees while holding executive positions within the Centers for Global eHealth and Innovation in Complex Care (CICC) at UHN.  His educational contributions have been formally recognized with the W.H. Anderson Teaching Award from The Toronto Hospital in 1995-6, the University of Toronto Louis J. Cole Faculty Teaching Award for excellence in the field of gastroenterology in June, 2007, and the University Health Network/Mount Sinai Teacher of the Year Award for 2007-2008.

Biosketch

Dr. Morris Sherman

Dr. Sherman graduated in Medicine from the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesurg South Africa in 1972, and completed his initial training in Internal Medicine at Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto. Dr. Sherman obtained his Internal Medicine qualifications in 1976 and completed his Internal Medicine training at Groote Schuur Hospital, Cape Town South Africa. He undertook training in Gastroenterology and liver disease at Groote Schuur Hospital and then completed a PhD in 1982 in the Liver Research laboratory of the University of Cape Town. In 1982, Dr. Sherman undertook a 2 year post doctoral fellowship at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. Dr. Sherman joined the Toronto General Hospital as a staff gastroenterologist in 1984.

Dr. Sherman is currently Chairman of the Canadian Viral Hepatitis Network and President of the Canadian Association for Study of the Liver. His major interests are chronic viral hepatitis and hepatocellular carcinoma.

Biosketch

Dr. Mark Silverberg

Dr. Silverberg graduated from the University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine in 1992 and completed his Internal Medicine and Gastroenterology training there in 1997. He then completed a PhD studying the genetics of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) in 2002 at the Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute of Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto. Since that time he has held a faculty appointment at the rank of Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine and is also cross-appointed as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Surgery.

Dr. Silverberg is currently a clinician scientist based at Mount Sinai Hospital investigating genetic aspects of IBD. His research program and laboratory are currently funded by grants from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK/NIH) and the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of Canada with the goal of identifying novel susceptibility genes for IBD and explaining the contribution of genes to its clinical course. In addition to publishing numerous articles in this area, Dr. Silverberg has taken leadership positions on several international collaborative efforts with the goal of expediting scientific progress in the field of genetics and IBD. These include the International IBD Genetic Consortium and the NIDDK IBD Genetic Consortium. Dr. Silverberg has been an invited speaker at numerous international meetings and institutions and has organized important national and international meetings such as the Annual Meeting of the International IBD Genetics Consortium and the annual Canadian Gastroenterology Fellows Program in IBD.

Dr. Silverberg also maintains a clinical practice at Mount Sinai Hospital with a focus on patients with IBD and those requiring endoscopic colon cancer screening. With his interest in genetics, he also holds an appointment with the Familial Gastrointestinal Cancer Registry at Mount Sinai Hospital and provides clinical and endoscopic care for patients with familial polyposis, Hereditary Nonpolyposis Colon Cancer (HNPCC) other familial gastrointestinal disorders. He also participates in clinical trials for both IBD and familial gastrointestinal cancer syndromes.

Biosketch

Dr. Hillary Steinhart

Dr. Hillary Steinhart is Head of the Division of Gastroenterology of Mount Sinai Hospital and the University Health Network. Dr. Steinhart graduated from the University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine in 1984 and following clinical training in Internal Medicine and Gastroenterology he received a M.Sc. in Clinical Epidemiology from the University of Toronto. He was appointed full time Staff in the Division of Gastroenterology at Mount Sinai Hospital in 1991 and is an Associate Professor in the Departments of Medicine and Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto. He was appointed as Head of the Combined Division of Gastroenterology of Mount Sinai Hospital and the University Health Network in December, 2000.

His research interests include the evaluation of new therapeutic strategies for the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), meta-analysis and clinical trials methodology, bone complications of inflammatory bowel disease and the genetics of inflammatory bowel disease. His main clinical interest is in the area of inflammatory bowel disease.

Dr. Steinhart has been active in several national organizations including the Canadian Association of Gastroenterology and the American Gastroenterological Association. He is Acting Chair of the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of Canada Grant Review Committee, the Vice Chair of the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of Canada IBD Research Institute, the Clinical Section Editor for the journal Inflammatory Bowel Diseases, a member of the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Colorectal Diseases and a reviewer for several other journals.

Biosketch

Dr. Stephen L. Wolman

Dr. Wolman received his MD degree (1974), as well as his training in Internal Medicine and Gastroenterology at the University of Toronto. He then trained as a Research Fellow at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (1980-82). Since 1982, he has been a staff physician at the Toronto General Hospital and an Assistant Professor of Medicine. Dr. Wolman's clinical interests include nutrition and inflammatory bowel disease.

Biosketch

Dr. David Wong

Dr. David Wong is a Hepatologist at the Toronto Western Hospital. Dr. Wong graduated from the University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine in 1988. Following his clinical training in Internal Medicine and Gastroenterology, Dr. Wong received further training as a research fellow with Dr. Bruce Walker at the Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, where he conducted studies on the cellular immune responses to hepatitis C viral infections in humans. Dr. Wong was initially appointed full time staff in the Division of Gastroenterology at McMaster University but moved to the University Health Network (UHN)/Mount Sinai Hospital (MSH) in 2002 and is currently an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Toronto.

Dr. Wong's clinical interests lie in the area of viral hepatitis and liver disease in HIV. His educational responsibilities include co-ordinating the Clinical Hepatology training program for the University of Toronto and co-ordinating the Gastroenterology-Hepatology clinical training program for General Internal Medicine at the UHN/MSH. Dr. Wong also co-ordinates the annual Hepatology Update meeting in Toronto.

Biosketch

Dr. Florence Wong

Dr. Wong is an Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Toronto and a Hepatologist at the Toronto General Hospital. She has been active in research in the pathogenesis of ascites formation and the liver-kidney interaction including the development of hepatorenal syndrome for the past 15 years. More recently, her research has extended to include cardiac abnormalities in cirrhosis, and their potential role in the pathogenesis of sodium retention. She has held many national and international research-related positions, including membership of the Clinical Research Committee of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases, membership on a grants review committee of the National Institutes of Health, and secretary of the International Ascites Club. She has published more than 40 peer-reviewed articles in the areas of pathogenesis and treatment of sodium retention in cirrhosis, as well as 80 review articles, book chapters and editorials.